The vampire invasion is over and life is back to normal. Or at least as normal as it has always been for the Fantastic Four. But the team will certainly not be faced with another scientific mystery this year. Fantastic Four #23. And it certainly won’t be about Johnny Storm being strangled by an alien.
Sue, Johnny, Nicki and Jo spend a relaxing day in New York City in Fantastic Four #23. Their shopping and hot dog eating at the street stand is interrupted by particle impacts that turn out to be super-fast particles. Sue and Johnny do what they can to help the people of the town before reuniting with Reed and Ben. Their plan to stop the particle storm that is sweeping half the planet? They use the Reducta-Craft to shrink themselves and search for the origin of the particles.
Johnny Storm recounts the events in Fantastic Four #23 in a way that only Johnny Storm can. After two issues in which we have seriously dealt with Reed’s thoughts, North lightens the mood here considerably. He touches Blood HuntThe result with the rise of Doom as supreme wizard (which is probably more critical in Fantastic Four than in any other series), but the issue largely pushes it into the background. Instead, the series moves on to a new story arc that is generally unencumbered by the larger events of the Marvel Universe – at least for now.
North’s ability to weave science into his stories is a key element of the series’ success. Fantastic Four #23, he gives Johnny the science exposition. The decision to do this might lead readers to believe the whole thing is made-up technobabble. But there was actually an oh-my-god particle that hit Earth in 1991, and it was called a cosmic ray. But like the overall tone of the issue, taking the science out of Reed’s mouth and putting it in Johnny’s makes the issue even more entertaining (especially since he’s visually represented in this sequence).
The sequence where Johnny Storm appears as a science teacher is made even more entertaining thanks to Gómez’s work. The OMG particle looks almost cute, like something out of a children’s cartoon. The burning lab coat that Johnny wears is a nice touch that gives him a distinctive flair. And that smile at the end, as he looks out at his pictured female admirers, could only be enhanced by a literal twinkle in his eye.
North and Gómez also deliver a Johnny Storm costume callback. Longtime fans of Johnny and Daredevil will recognize the iconic outfit (or at least the most important part of it).
At the beginning of the issue, as Sue, Johnny, and the kids are walking around New York, Sue and Johnny casually use their powers to avoid making a mess while eating hot dogs. Gómez shows excellent casualness in the sequence. Sue looks slightly bored as she creates a force field to keep ketchup from dripping down Johnny’s shirt.
As an aside, it’s worth noting that North almost sabotages the whole issue by writing that Johnny gets ketchup on his hot dog. Ketchup. On a hot dog. But the rest of the issue is very good, so this gaffe can be ignored.
Fantastic Four The most amusing image in #23 is when one of the particles hits Reed in the back of the head and stretches him so that his face initially looks like that of the title character Hey Arnold! before a profile view shows it expanding into a strange V-shape and one eye almost falling out. Reed’s extreme suppleness and ability to take on truly bizarre shapes, which is consistently good across all artists, has certainly contributed to Fantastic Four‘s visual language.
Later in the issue, the team travels to the source of the particles, and it’s at this point that Aburtov’s coloring steals the show (as it often does in the series’ most visually extreme locations and circumstances). The background environment is full of mixed reds, oranges, and yellows—as if the scene were taking place deep inside a blazing fire.
During this exploration, they come across a black sphere. It stands out against the fire-like background. And Aburtov gives it a bright white glow that fades into the shadows to convey the sphere’s three-dimensional quality very effectively.
Caramagna’s placement and color choice of the sound effects during the particle storm in New York add considerable weight to the sequence. The particles are, after all, invisible. Gómez does draw tiny impact points, but without sound effects they have no real weight. Caramagna uses exactly the same shape for each impact sound effect, but shrinks them as they recede into the background. The choice adds considerable dimension to the long view down the street and through the skyline.
