If you’re a football fan, this week is one of the most bittersweet times of the year. The Super Bowl is over. Even though it was an awesome game with an incredible halftime show that pissed off the right snowflakes, there’s no getting around the truth.
Football season is over.
Assuming you’re not willing to give the XFL a chance, we’re officially in the dead zone of sports. Until March Madness rolls around, there isn’t much to get excited about. If, however, you happen to be a comic fan as well as a sports fan, then you’re perfectly equipped to endure this distressing stretch.
For comic fans, there is no off-season. Every Wednesday is basically game day for us. Not every Wednesday is the Super Bowl, but some are more eventful than others. They may not include an incredible halftime show, but they include Wonder Woman, She-Hulk, Jean Grey, and Supergirl fighting armies of monsters and looking good doing it. To me, that’s the next best thing.
These next few months will be difficult for fellow football fans. For my fellow comic fans, though, it’s business as usual. Another week has come and another batch of comics have arrived. As always, and with the help of the fine folks at Comixology, I’m sharing my pull list and my pick of the week.
A new football season may be months away, but new comics are never more than a week. Nuff said!
My List
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles #3
My Pick of the Week
As the great modern philosopher, William Smith, once said, parents just don’t understand. When we’re little kids, we’re often at the mercy of our parents understanding. When your parents happen to be Reed and Sue Richards of the Fantastic Four, that is compounded exponentially. Then, you become a teenager and other things become exponentially complicated.
I’m not just talking about hormones and body hair. Kids clashing with parents is a theme older than any superhero comic and while “X-Men/Fantastic Four #1” doesn’t reinvent the concept, it manages to do something uncanny with it.
This book brings to a head an issue that was teased back in “House of X.” Mutants all over the world are gathering on their new homeland, Krakoa. One of those mutants, however, happens to be Franklin Richards. While he’s best known for being Reed and Sue’s first child, he’s also a mutant and an insanely powerful one at that. This is a kid who creates entire universes with the same ease as most kids pop pimples.
While he’s been on the X-Men’s radar, they haven’t really forced the issue. That changes in “X-Men/Fantastic Four #1” in a major way. Initially, writer Chip Zdarsky and artist Terry Dodson has it play out as anyone might expect. A group of mutants come to convince a child’s parents that their child should come with them. Their parents aren’t having it.
When the book begins, you think you know who you should root for in this. However, Zdarsky and Dodson complicate things when they reveal that parents, for all their love and nurturing, don’t always understand. They think they’re doing what they feel is best for their family, but sometimes that becomes an excuse to do questionable things behind their child’s back.
It’s an age-old clash between wanting to protect your child at the risk of driving them away. It’s a clash that plays out in dramatic fashion in “X-Men/Fantastic Four #1.” By the end, it’s hard to know who to root for.
In the end, this is Franklin’s story. The X-Men and the Fantastic Four are just along for the ride and it’s already a hell of a ride. Whether you’re a parent or a child, you can find something in “X-Men/Fantastic Four #1” that resonates. It’s one of the most clear-cut picks of 2020 thus far. I’m not sure whether to call it fantastic or uncanny just yet, but so far, it has plenty of both.
Jack Fisher's Official Publishing Blog 