I only have two issues worth of evidence, but I’m going to put it out there - Jonathan Hickman sucks at one-off stories. His Fantastic Four/FF run has been awesome - it’s also been one gigantic story. The last two issues of Fantastic Four tied into his epic story even if they appeared to be one-offs. However, the last issue of FF where Peter Parker and Johnny Storm tried to be room mates was one of the worst comic book stories I’ve read in the modern era. Fantastic Four #606 is nowhere near as bad as that, but it’s certainly not up to par with Hickman’s trademark.awesomeness.
Even though it is a spoiler in the technical sense, it will be a spoiler to no one who looks at the cover of Fantastic Four #606 that this is a Fantastic Voyage issue. Fantastic Voyage is a 1966 movie (and also an older book) about scientists who shrink themselves to go into someone’s body to save them. The premise is that the inside of the human body is just as wild as any other sci-fi landscape. The thing is - given Fantastic Four’s sci-fi scope this MUST have been done at some point before. And it was just done a few months ago in Wolverine and the X-Men. It’s not even some unique spin like that they’re inside a Kree or Skrull body.
I think what made it most annoying to me is that they go through such great lengths within the issue to avoid mentioning they’re going into someone’s body. There’s even a panel where they seem to be deliberately misleading the readers into thinking the Fantastic Four are on another planet. But it just didn’t work for me. The cover was clearly a shot of the Fantastic Four inside veins. The enemies they encounter are clearly white blood cells and platelets. So the payoff at the end just isn’t there.
It’s a real pity to see this kind of stuff out of Hickman when I know he can do so much better. He’s constantly wowing me on The Manhattan Projects and, as I mentioned above - he’s done such a great job on both Fantastic Four and FF. In the end, it just makes me with Marvel would cut Hickman loose early since his run is coming to an end very soon. Either that, or give him another three years so he could do another epic story and excel on these books. This issue is a pass unless you either must have every Fantastic Four issue or must have everything Hickman writes.
