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I finally received the last issue of Fantastic Four a few days ago and I was thinking about it while cycling to work.
Another death in the Marvel Universe ! and not in a underground series with second range heroes but in the more important one of the editor.
So this is it, the Torch is dead, his foolish behavior, commitment to the team and sense of friendship succeeded where Doom failed so many times.
But can I really believe in this death ? I’m pretty sure Johnny Storm will come back later this year.
Since the beginning of the 2000s’ the editorial line of Marvel is based on big events chain together.
House of M was pretty good ( Avengers disassembled as well) and Civil War was, as fars as i’m concerned, the best event Marvel ever did so far.
During this period, the FF were badly compromised without any death. The events and decisions of the members was tearing the family apart and finally led to the best disband in the comic book industry. But it was maybe nothing compared to the epic conclusion with the death of Captain America itself !
Speaking about that, the death of the torch and Captain America have something in common, I was spoiled for both of them by people who are absolutely not interested in Super Hero comic books.
This is one of Marvel’s victory, with these big marketing “coups”, they attract attention of people and media who normally don’t care about them.
But let’s get back to FF #587, when I received it I fell like I’ve seen this kind of trick before. The comic book was wrapped up in a Plastic bag with a big 3 on it, which immediately reminded me the death of superman (another big coup from the other side 
).
After looking at this packaging, you take your best cutter and open it very gently because you never know if someday this kind of issue will worth a million bucks if you kept it in one piece !
I read it pretty quickly and was a bit disappointed by the conclusion. I really like Jonathan Hickman, I knew his work reading the nightly news, visited pronea.com a few times already and was really excited when I heard that he was the new writer of the FF a few issues back.
The beginning of this run penciled by Dave Eaglesham (who did a great job on the new JSA) was very interesting, following the rebirth of the team and the end of the civil war, Reed finally let down the “solve everything” idea, this was good !
The following issues, on the contrary where kind of boring, they were not really linked together so what you would expect at the end of an issue was not matching the actual content.
I particularly appreciate the drama tension at the end of the issue, which rely a lots on Steve Epting’s artwork. I think it’s the best choice marvel ever made after Eaglesham.
But if the pitch of the countdown was pretty good, the end let just think that the Torch will popup again later this year or maybe next, who really die in the Marvel Universe these days ?
Come on Marvel, who will believe that you really kill a FF the year of their 50th anniversary for Christ sakes !
If you really want us to believe that please kill Steve rogers once again and show us corpses and blood !!! you’re no longer attached to the Comics Code remember ?
Anyway, and to conclude, the FF is still a really good entertainment after a day at work.
See you around Johnny,
jeFFF
credits – “Minimal human Torch” © biotwist : biotwist.deviantart.com
