Fantastic Four: Full Circle by Alex RossMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
So I'm not a huge Alex Ross fan, even though Wizard was up his ass for years when I was a kid. A lot of his stuff looks stiff and posed to me, which it probably is since he's painting it. Anyway, I saw some stuff from Alex Ross's rejected Fantastic Four pick in Back Issue! a couple years ago and thought it looked great. When this popped up, I had to grab it.
This is good shit. Is it Fantastic? Probably not, but it's as close as we've gotten in a long time. I'm going to keep this high level as not to spoil anything. Basically, something happens and the FF have to return to the Negative Zone. They learn some things, fight some stuff, visit a new yet familiar location, and run into someone that hasn't made an appearance in a long time, hence the Full Circle part of the title.
The art is here is way more dynamic than Alex Ross's usual art and I'm a fan. He looks to be channeling the Lee & Kirby spirit in art as well as writing, as cliche as that may be. Ross does some painting in this but takes a way more comic book style approach to the art than he normally does. There's one page in particular that looks as if he's stepped into the King's shoes. There are also Kirby Collages in the distortion zone! The color scheme is subdued and uses an almost dayglo palette, making for some cool visuals.
Ross does a great job at a fresh take on a Negative Zone story. The story also feels timeless. Valeria and Franklin are only in one panel and only shown from behind. It feels more like a classic FF story I read and then forgot than a modern FF tale.
My only gripe was that the pace seemed a little off. There were great action scenes in the beginning and middle and a lot of discovery and talking at the end. The revelations at the end were good, though.
Fantastic Four: Full Circle wasn't my favorite FF story of all time but if Alex Ross wants to do a couple FF books a year, I would definitely buy them. 4.5 out of 5 stars.
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