Ultimate Fantastic Four #51 (Marvel – Carey / Kirkham / Klein)
Mr. Fantastic vs. Thanos—only one can have the Cosmic Cube! Two mighty galactic empires clash for control of Reed Richards’ strange obsession, and the city of New York is caught between them! It’s up to young Reed Richards to save everyone by going one–on–one with Thanos!
When it comes to any of the Ultimate line, it’s always a good thing to be surprised. We, as readers, have gotten used to the Ultimate line being nothing more than over-the-top action sequences with huge brilliant splash pages, involving incredible creators manipulating great characters, but revolving around very little plot. It would seem that just in time for the March on Ultimatum, that at least some of the Ultimate books are stepping it back up to the standard where this break-thru line came from.
UFF #51 has great action sequences, but not just for character-posing sake (yes, I’m looking right at you, Ultimates 3), the art is well-detailed and still enables the plot to move along fluidly. The majority of the book is the delve into the psyches of both Reed and Thanos as they have a battel of wills, with the victor getting the Cosmic Cube. My hat is completely off to Mike Carey, if you had told me a year ago I would be praising a book that starred Ultimate Thanos, I would have though you were from Earth-29.2 (the Crack-head Earth). But here I am… really enjoying this series again… Thank you Mike Carey and Tyler Kirkham for giving this series (and line) hope again.
Issue grade: A-
