REVIEW CORNER: Fantastic Four # 605

Writer: Jonathan Hickman

Artist: Ron Garney

Colorist: Jason Keith

Letterer: Virtual Calligraphy’s Clayton Cowles

Cover Date: June 2012

Rating: 10/10

For this week’s installment, I’ll be taking a look at Fantastic Four # 605 which I believe was the definite crown jewel in Jonathan Hickman’s historic run and even though he gave us such great concepts like The Council of Reeds (Which was a group of alternate versions of Reed Richards) to the children of The Future Foundation developing a serum in which Ben Grimm goes back to being human every year for about one week to the death of Johnny Storm and the addition of Spider-Man in the Future Foundation; Here we see Reed Richards and his father, Nathaniel Richards travel to the distant future to find out the fate of The Thing.

We get to see three futuristic moments were in the year 3012 a.d., Ben and an adult Franklin Richards are spearheading a current version of the FF, then the year 4012 a.d. in which an older Ben addresses the graduating class of The Future Foundation to 5012 a.d. where Ben is talking to the statues of the founding Fantastic Four members who have long since passed to 6012 a.d. (Sorry, no spoilers!) but no matter how much the FF roster changes, Ben Grimm is still the heart of the team and it’s great that this issue focuses on that and I’m not saying that seeing as how I’m a big Thing fan.

Another thing is that Hickman really poured his heart and soul into this issue of FF but the one thing that stuck in my mind when reading the issue was that it basically was like a comic book version of “Click”, the movie where Adam Sandler gets a magical remote control from Christopher Walken and uses it to navigate through time, so I liked how the “looking into the future” concept was worked into this issue, and Ron Garney’s artwork was superb; Even though I felt that his inks were starting look rough towards the end, his art showed the wonders and beauty of the future worlds that Reed and Nathaniel visited and you got to love his attention to detail that’s shown in every page.

This issue of Fantastic Four will keep you intrigued but will also bring a tear to your eye (The ending will definitely do that); this is one of the issues that every Thing fan should hunt down can check out, and the issue also succeeded with reminding everyone what a fantastic hero (Pun intended) Ben Grimm is and always will be.

I’ll be back with another review next week so thanks for sticking around and I will see you all next time.