Dan Slott

by Dan Slott, Andrea Di Vito, Kieron Dwyer, Laura Villari
collects The Thing #1-8

The Thing is one of my favorite Marvel characters. Not only is he the perfect metaphor for those who are misunderstood and discriminated against because of their differences, but he also has special meaning to me as an openly Jewish character, whom artist Jack Kirby modeled after himself.

In Dan Slott’s eight issue miniseries, Ben Grimm is now a “billionaire playboy” and thrust into the world of riches, fame and celebrity girlfriends. Slott gets his character right, but the pacing of the book makes the series feel like wasted potential.

The first three issues are essentially pointless – I’m honestly not sure why this wasn’t condensed into one issue. Ben Grimm, several celebrities (including a short-lived girlfriend) and a few other superheroes and villains are kidnapped to “murder island” by an eccentric one note villain. Nothing of real consequence happens, and there’s no major character development for Grimm; unfortunately this entire plot was borrowed later for Gwenpool.

When Grimm returns to Yancy Street in the fourth issue, it finally feels like a story about his character. We see Sheckerberg again, the pawnshop owner who gave Grimm his Star of David necklace in Remembrance of Things Past, the 2001 issue that canonized Grimm as Jewish. Grimm’s plan to open a children’s center in his brother’s memory, which is a lovely concept – but it’s resolved in one issue and barely leaves room for any character development. (His realization about his riches, thanks to Franklin, was also shallow and rushed.) And instead of seriously updating the Yancy Street Gang, and perhaps making some important commentary on supporting youth in need, that element felt cliched and outdated. I wish this had been the grounding story in this arc that lasted 3-4 issues instead of “murder island” nonsense.

The last two issues are one-shot stories that loosely connect in disappointing ways. Issue seven (with an odd Disney’s Hercules reference on the cover) sees Ben still courting Alicia (happy with a new boyfriend) with an insane birthday present – time traveling to ancient Greece. Throughout the whole book, Ben continues to pine for Alicia, who is happy without him, and the fact that they (shocker) eventually end up together, with an incredibly weak send off for her boyfriend, is a disservice to Alicia making her own decisions for her own damn self. She is largely still relegated to love interest here and there’s still no investment in her character; she is grossly sexualized at the end of the last issue.

Speaking of which, the final issue is about Ben Grimm having a Bar Mitzvah. On the one hand, it’s cute to have him have a Bar Mitzvah on the 13th anniversary of becoming The Thing. However, it’s an extremely shallow portrayal of a Bar Mitzvah, and so many elements are off, particularly in the art. The synagogue interior is strange and has zero Jewish symbolism aside from a hastily drawn Star of David; the rest of it is basically in shadow. During the single-page service, Ben says his Torah portion is the Book of Job, which isn’t in the Torah, but far later in the Prophets – it would never be a Torah portion. A nice connection is made between the two, but if you’re going to include a religious minority’s lifecycle event, particularly since Grimm was created by two Jews and modeled after Kirby, please do it correctly.

Dwyer, Di Vito and Villari’s art continued to be hit and miss, and while it was consistent, didn’t seem particularly detail oriented especially when it came to facial expressions.

Idol of Millions was a rushed and unnecessary miniseries that doesn’t honor an iconic character who deserves better.

by Dan Slott, Aaron Kuder, Gail Simone, Fred Hembeck, Mike Allred, Laura Braga, & Mark Buckingham; reprinted issues by Stan Lee & Jack Kirby
collects: Fantastic Four (2018) #5, Fantastic Four : Wedding Special (2018) #1 & Fantastic Four (1963) #8
volume two

I haven’t read Fantastic Four for a very long time, but Ben Grimm and Alicia Master’s wedding is a pretty significant Marvel event as those go, since the two have been together for decades (in our reality, anyway). I figured it would be an easy enough jumping on point even though it’s technically the second volume, and I was hopeful it would give Marvel an opportunity to let Alicia Masters, who is possibly the only comic book character ever with a disability and without superpowers, finally shine – she never seemed to have a strong personality. Additionally, her marriage with Ben could have also said something important about love overcoming adversity and judgment.

Nope! Instead Marvel felt the need to needlessly weigh down this marriage issue with a bunch of shallow and disconnected storylines that weren’t at all about Alicia and Ben. Instead they prioritized the flash and glitter of a bunch of superheroes and supervillains instead of allowing the narrative to pause for any real emotion and development.

The problems are evident in the first couple pages, when Alicia’s superhero “friends” have chosen the bachelorette party location – for a blind woman– to be a strip club – what??! The super creepy “workaround,” of Alicia physically undressing a stripper, fixes nothing and actually creates a ton of problems: issues of consent, reinforcing the idea that all women must go to a strip club for their bachelorette party, and undermining the essential idea that Alicia loves Ben despite his physical form, which does not include a hot bod. All the dignity that Alicia deserves is trashed in this first issue. And of course a villain crashes a strip club, which is extremely dumb, and causes Alicia to retreat into the background as the superhero ladies do their thang. Also, I haven’t read Fantastic Four in the longest time, but I sincerely doubt these women’s friendships with Alicia has played ANY role in any comics, especially since one of them literally forgets she’s blind, but relationships and general meaningfulness in this book is clearly unimportant anyway.

The bachelor party issue was utterly forgettable, some weird side story with Alicia’s stepfather happened too. I skipped the reprinted issues on principle: it speaks volumes that if Ben and Alicia can’t have interesting stories together as a couple, to the point that old issues fill out the book, their relationship hasn’t developed enough to deserve a wedding issue. It cheapens the wedding no matter how many decades they’ve been together in comics.

And the wedding issue itself is still not really about Ben and Alicia because somehow Marvel still thinks we need big villains and over the top surprises to have a meaningful story. They can’t see beyond the tropes of their own genre and underestimate their readership. DC’s Batgirl recently had a wedding and it did a much better job of pausing the superhero story without completely forgetting about it to focus on character. Instead Ben leaves Alicia right after the ceremony – once again, she retreats into the background as an unimportant person, instead of a character worthy of a story, and focusing on how she and Ben complement each other.

Also, if the wedding is supposed to be the point of the book, and it’s gonna be a Jewish wedding, maybe draw the prayer shawls correctly, maybe show more than one ritual other than breaking the glass (which is the most iconic, but absolutely not the most important part of a Jewish wedding) – there are plenty of other romantic elements that could have been beautifully shown (like the bride and groom circling each other). I’m not just salty because I’m Jewish, and because Ben’s Jewishness is important because Jack Kirby made it an essential part of his character. It’s because if this is a wedding issue, then maybe make it look like it actually matters instead of phoning it in for two pages.

What a disappointing book. We learn nothing new about Alicia, who barely matters in her own wedding story – just like in the early comics, it feels like she just exists to love Ben. Speaking of whom, Ben Grimm is his same old self which is…fine, but not interesting. I was extremely disappointed in this comic and won’t be returning to Fantastic Four for a while.