THE WEEK IN COMICS THAT WAS:
Wondering what happened this week in comics? Though I’m betting you already know what happened if you are a comic fanboy but for the few out in the world that are not fanboys I’ll get with the lowdown on what occurred during release day of 11-23 for comics.
Fantastic Four #600
I TOLD YOU SO!
Oh really? Yep look here at a quote from myself from this blog nearly a year ago.
http://www.shakefire.com/blogs/lee-roberts/2011/01/28/three-countdown-to-casualty-thats-right-talk-on-who-in-the-ff-dies
“oh do that math also, 12 issues away from milestone of issue 600, the title comes out once a month, 12 issues, 12 months, that’s one year, my thoughts are him coming back in a year, hmmm maybe in issue 600? Till then.”
It’s been about a year, issue #600 came out on the 23, and guess who is back? That’s right, the Human Torch is back. Though he’s back in a much different way that I would have thought. What I was guessing is that the Torch would have survived the battle in the Negative Zone by making allegiances with some of the people there and then after a year when issue #600 came out it would be shown how he has battled his way or burnt his way into survival. Which actually is what kind of happens but in a more brutal way than I would have thought. And what I love the most is who is the first to see Johnny? Spidey, awesome.

I won’t give away what happens, that would just be rude on my part for those of you that might not have read and might end up reading it later. But man what does happen made for one really great read with art work that had my mouth drop open a few times. What they had Johnny go through to be able to make it into #600 could take a character that was fun, free, and more similar to Spider-Man than any other character, and turn him into a hard-core, rough, no holds barred, superhero with a new degree level of powers and quite possibly into a villain.

Having Johnny Storm become a villain I think would be cliché and a little annoying. It’s been done many times with nearly every character and I’m tired of having stories that will make a hero into a semi-villain, and I say semi-villain because they still remain a hero at their core, they will have them do some bad things, but in the end someone will come along saying oh this is not you, you are a good person, you are a hero, and poof they are back to being a superhero. If this is done with Johnny Storm, I wouldn’t be surprised but I wouldn’t be liking the story of it. What I would like to see is a new version of superhero Johnny Storm. One where he is similar to the edgier heroes, not too much on the dark side like Punisher, but maybe a lesser version of Wolverine. Don’t have him killing anyone, but they could have him hurt the villains enough that they are wishing that he had killed them. Let him have a control of his powers that would put him in a whole new class of power where he can hold his own against some villains that would take the whole team of Fantastic Four or the Avengers to beat.
This is the kind of Human Torch I would like to see and it kind of looks like that might be the one we will get, at least it was in issue #600. Johnny was using his powers in ways that I don’t remember him ever using them. Like the how it looked like he could shoot his fire in a similar way as a gun with his hand, he even used his hand in the style of a gun. Which that was so freaking cool, but this is what I’m talking about, give him a use of his powers that hasn’t been done with him before. I don’t know what would be the way to do it, I’ve read some Fantastic Four comics over the years but I haven’t been a every issue reader so there are huge gaps in what I know of the team and what they might have done over the years. That includes not knowing what kind of ways they have allowed Johnny to be using his powers but I’m pretty sure that didn’t include having the strength to do bullet like shots with his fire.
 

In the end though, Fantastic Four #600 was impressive on all accounts, more so than with just the return of the Human Torch in it. I’m really impressed with how this 100 page issue was actually 100 pages of new story. There wasn’t any of what is normally done where they give the normal amount of pages of story then fill in the 70+ pages with reprints and other non-sense stories that don’t mean anything but a waste of money. And considering that this comic costs a whopping $7.99, getting a full 100 pages of new story to read made me not care that I just spent that 8 bucks. In fact this is the best deal on a comic that I’ve had in awhile. Doing the math it boils down to this, a normal comic is 22 pages and costs $3.99 and $2.99, so might as well say 3 and 4 bucks, buy 2 books you get 44 pages at either 6 bucks or 8 bucks. Well, I’m already at the 8 bucks I spent on Fantastic Four #600 but only got 44 pages of a story. Getting those extra 66 pages, yeah 66 pages, for free basically, that equals 3 whole comics for free. Considering how it does contain new stories in it that is for free.

If you are on the edge of buying this issue but don’t think it’s worth spending 8 bucks on one issue, it is cause you’re really getting 5 issues for the price of 2 and it’s a great story. But I tell you this now, if you didn’t get it this week you might have a hard time finding this issue. I know my comic shop I go to in Fort Mill, SC was sold out of it right after putting it on the shelves. There might be a few left, though at this point I doubt it, check the larger comic book shops, they might have one but it might be more expensive than 8 bucks by this point. But I would guarantee that Marvel will be doing a second printing of this real soon.