FF #11 is the same ridiculous fun we’ve been getting from this book month in and month out, only this time, with the knowledge that this is Matt Fraction’s last issue as the series writer, it’s bittersweet. I don’t know what this series will gain when Lee Allred takes over writing duties next month, but I do know that the loss of Fraction’s peculiar vernacular will be greatly missed. But instead of dwelling on what has been lost, I want to celebrate FF #11 for what it is, and that’s one hilarious comic book.
Every interaction found in this issue is most definitely Fraction, from the catty banter between She-Hulk and Darla Deering (“Zip it, Manic Panic!”) to the H.E.R.B.I.E. robots watching Russian dashboard camera videos (“One man punched a truck!”) to the introduction of the Impossible Man and his son, Adolf Impossible (“You’d think he’d be completely cray-cray, right?”). Even as the book takes a more serious tone, like when Medusa is talking down the worried Adolf Impossible and asking him what her job is, Fraction hits us with a little humorous jab to keep us smiling to the end (“I literally have no idea what you want me to say.”). I could literally quote this issue all night, and probably will.
Mike and Laura Allred’s double-team of pencils and colors continually amazes me each issue, and it’s just getting better. There’s such a distinct look to each member of the team that even in a panel in which the FF becomes jumbled up in one another after their time traveling escapade comes to a screeching halt, it’s possible to tell where one character begins and another ends. In an issue that sees the world bending, stretching, and curling in on itself, the Allred art contains the madness to a somewhat sensible level of at least knowing what’s going on, action-wise, all of the time.
If there’s one initial benefit to handing over the reigns of FF to an entirely different writer, it’s the hope that the book will separate itself more from Fantastic Four, allowing new readers to experience the wonderful world of the Future Foundation. I’m not against the synergy that exists between the two books right now, but it’s difficult to recommend one of the books without the other seeing as the story elements of one feeds into the other. Fraction stepping away from FF definitely hurts, and while there’s an air of uncertainty for the title at the moment, let’s not treat this as the end of a great series but the potential for something even better to come along.
RATING: 8.5/10
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Greetings true believers! John is the Comics Director of GNN and when he isn't reading books with pictures and made up words, he can be seen on twitter @thisjohnd or on Facebook. To contact him the old fashioned way, his email address is john.dubrawa@gnnaz.com.
