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    FF #16

    FF » FF #16 - For All We Have and Are released by Marvel on March 2014.

    serberus08's FF #16 - For All We Have and Are review

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    A Fraction of a miss

    To be honest, I have never read anything by Matt Fraction that I hadn't thought to be decent but this continuation has to be the worst to date. In some ways (without being offensive to those who are) Matt Fraction is a bipolar writer. This conclusion to an extension series was quite weak in many ways. The parallel arcing story of the concluding Fantastic Four, which was also written by Fraction, was to some extent a decent read and had some thought provoking elements to it. Yet the latter story of the Future Foundation, featuring a slew of d-list, bottom-of-the barrel characters (She-Hulk excluded) and was very poorly written. To some this seems harsh, but I have collected the entire FF series (originally created by Jonathan Hickman) and this was just painful to read through. But I guess in many ways, it would almost be impossible to follow Hickman after he writes anything (cite Fantastic Four 570-611 in comparison to Fractions run)

    To add to the "bipolar" argument, for some reason he writes the major villain in Fantastic Four (Doctor Doom) as others have in the past (Hickman, Lee, Millar etc.) that is as a conceited, calculated and just overall dominant character, yet in FF Doom is literally read as a child's dialogue. (In a previous issue he literally gets mad at a servant for bringing him a sandwich with crusts on it....really?) Not to mention that the entire 16 issues seemed to be a kid's book set with a Teen/Adult situation.

    Another problem I had with this story was just the utmost poor choices for leaders. Medusa (as stated a d-list character - if that) and Scott Lang (as in "Seriously?" Out of all the Ant-man affiliates you had to go with the proverbial Peter Chris?). The confrontation between Doomsie and Scott made literally no sense. Mind you, Doom, who has bested the Silver Surfer, Galactus, The Master of Doom, and the Celestials (Galactus-like beings from Hickman's last F4 arc cite issues 600-610) somehow looses to character that most people, being introduced to Marvel and even most experienced comic readers, wouldn't recognize in Scott Lang.

    The unmasking of Doom is just a definite negative sore on the comics overall respect for the Marvel mythos, that is that Doom is always masked. This of course only being broken very rarely in and earlier F4 issue (270something) and for the "Books of Doom" by Ed Brubaker (recommended highly). Another fault with this face-off (pun intended) was that somehow Lang hacks Doom's identity, so to speak. Doom, who hacks Tony Stark's Iron Man suit a couple of times in the past.

    Fraction also, for some reason, writes in that the Watcher intervenes in the affairs of humans, that is the "Doom taking over the world" event. Breaking the entirety and only meaningful characteristic of the Watchers, that is to literally watch civilizations and momentous events as they happening not affect the outcomes, which completely contradicts and voids their purpose.

    The only positive that I really had for this story and even arc was that it's over and as such, this story will probably be easily forgotten in the Marvel universe as is everything that Scott Lang has ever been in. Truly a miss for Matt Fraction.

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