I just finished the second and final trade of Mark Millar's run on Fantastic Four, Masters of Doom. What the hell?
The first trade, World's Greatest, was excellent. The first story about NuEarth and the Cap robot was damn cool. The dialogue was just great, and Millar's treatment of the characters was definitive. He made Reed into the coolest person on the planet and demonstrated how much in love he is in with Sue despite their many, many problems.
The story about the future visitors was also pretty damn cool. Normally I don't like alternate future stories but Future Hulk and Future Wolvie and Future Sue were damn cool characters. And they killed Galactus! Damn.
The other cool thing is how Millar sets up an impossible situation where there's no way to win... only to come up with a truly ingenious solutation that was properly set up beforehand.
The only complaint I had was Bryan Hitch's art, which I just find to be pretty much ugly. He draws nice vista shots, but he draws the ugliest women outside of Gary Frank, and the men don't look much better either.
So anyway onto the "Masters of Doom" trade. It starts off with a couple of cool little stand-alone bits with the typical Millar wit and genius, all the while ominously setting up the incredible threat of the Master of Doctor Doom.
But then we get to the final four issues finally introducing the Master and it just completely falls apart. They get a cool introduction, destroying Latveria. Then suddenly we cut to five years in the future where Doom is the savoir of the planet and knocked up Sue... lame. Then suddenly it turns out that was all fake... lame. Then suddenly the final two issues of this massive storyline are neither written by Millar nor drawn by Hitch. And there's a rushed anti-climactic fight that totally destroys all the setup going on for the entire storyline.
What the hell happened? Why did they abandon the title? Why didn't this story play out longer and more epicly? I'd been looking forward to this trade for months and I was incredibly disappointed.
The first trade, World's Greatest, was excellent. The first story about NuEarth and the Cap robot was damn cool. The dialogue was just great, and Millar's treatment of the characters was definitive. He made Reed into the coolest person on the planet and demonstrated how much in love he is in with Sue despite their many, many problems.
The story about the future visitors was also pretty damn cool. Normally I don't like alternate future stories but Future Hulk and Future Wolvie and Future Sue were damn cool characters. And they killed Galactus! Damn.
The other cool thing is how Millar sets up an impossible situation where there's no way to win... only to come up with a truly ingenious solutation that was properly set up beforehand.
The only complaint I had was Bryan Hitch's art, which I just find to be pretty much ugly. He draws nice vista shots, but he draws the ugliest women outside of Gary Frank, and the men don't look much better either.
So anyway onto the "Masters of Doom" trade. It starts off with a couple of cool little stand-alone bits with the typical Millar wit and genius, all the while ominously setting up the incredible threat of the Master of Doctor Doom.
But then we get to the final four issues finally introducing the Master and it just completely falls apart. They get a cool introduction, destroying Latveria. Then suddenly we cut to five years in the future where Doom is the savoir of the planet and knocked up Sue... lame. Then suddenly it turns out that was all fake... lame. Then suddenly the final two issues of this massive storyline are neither written by Millar nor drawn by Hitch. And there's a rushed anti-climactic fight that totally destroys all the setup going on for the entire storyline.
What the hell happened? Why did they abandon the title? Why didn't this story play out longer and more epicly? I'd been looking forward to this trade for months and I was incredibly disappointed.
