Fantastic Four #557 - Mobile Edition

Marvel Comics
Fantastic Four #557
By Hervé St-Louis
August 17, 2008 - 22:22

Marvel Comics
Writer(s): Mark Millar
Penciller(s): Bryan Hitch
Inker(s): Bryan Hitch, Paul Neary
Colourist(s): Paul Mounts
Letterer(s): Rus Wooton
Cover Artist(s): Bryan Hitch, Paul Neary
$2.99 US, $3.05 Canada

Having survived the attack of CAP – Conserve and Protect, a robot whose function is to disable the biggest threats to Earth, it’s time for a new strategy for the super heroes. How else to attract the attention of a robot bent on destroying the biggest threats on Earth – introduce the Ant-Galactus robot whose original goal was to fend off the planet eater Galactus. But will Reed Richard’s plan work?

I don’t like stories where all the super heroes are just borrowed to make a threat look more threatening. And I don’t like stories where on planet full of mutants and mad scientists, the closer threat to humanity CAP could find were the nuclear missiles of various countries. Aren’t there any bigger threats than a bunch of missiles? I’m not enjoying this story very much, although Millar tries hard to make each punch count. The Anti-Galactus just seems like the biggest Deux ex machina and that’s quite a feat to pull off with the Fantastic Four. This story didn’t do it for me.

Hitch draws a decent George W. Bush, and adds many intricate details to the CAP and other settings. The story definitely looks over the top and out of this world and I understand why Marvel Comics picked him for the storyline. Because of the outlandish sets he creates, there is always a threat that his work will not connect with readers because they are out of scale. However, he does add enough of those close-ups shots with enough human emotions.
Rating: 7/10