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.
Reading Art 