Marvel 2-in-1 Vol. 1: Fate of the Four

Now this might end up being something of a biased post today as, if you don't already know this about me, I'm quite the Fantastic Four fan.

However, (shock horror) Marvel 2-in 1 is FANTASTIC!!!!

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So, during my 'time off' last year, I found myself a little bit of money and so went down to my LCS and picked up two trades; God Country and the first volume of Marvel 2-in-1.



Marvel 2-in-1 Vol.1. Image from
Comixology (because my photo was
REALLY bad.)

For the uninitiated, Marvel 2-in-1 follows the remnants of the Fantastic Four; Johnny Storm (The Human Torch) and Ben Grimm (the Thing) as they try to get on with their lives in the wake of Secret Wars and the rest of their family going missing. However, when the Infamous Iron Man appears to present Ben with his 'inheritance' from Reed, the pair begin an adventure to across the multiverse in the (possibly) vain hope of finding their family.

To be honest, this is (once again. I think it's a problem I have) a vague and/or simplistic description to what goes on but it would take me forever to write a more specific synopsis (by then you could have read the thing). However, regardless of the length of my description, it wouldn't change just how much I loved this!!!

I thought that 2-in1 was a truly awesome read, with Zdarsky seemingly channelling the spirit of the Waid/Wieringo run (without doubt the best run I've read on the book) with unflinchingly fantastic accuracy. Marvel 2-in-1 really felt like the Fantastic Four book which I've been deprived of for years now (maybe even more so that Slott's new run) as practically every page felt like it was quintessential FF.

What made me think that in particular was just how well I felt Doom and Ben were both written throughout the arc. Indeed, all of the characters were well written and enjoyable and exactly how I think they should be, but when it came to Ben and Doom, both sounded exactly as they should in my head as I was reading. Doom in particular was a phenomenal representation, feeling just like Doom should despite his more heroic notions, and has convinced me to check out Infamous Iron Man at some point (a series I had previously disregarded).

Meanwhile, Jim Cheung's art is just so perfectly fitting for this book and these characters that it makes me sad that we won't be seeing him on the proper book, especially with how awesome he makes the cosmic bits look. In fact, the fact that Zdarsky and Cheung weren't tasked with the return of the FF proper is something I consider criminal (and I like the Slott run, so far). However, the pair try an cram plenty of references to the first family here (my favourite has to be the reference to all Human Torch actors at the start), so I guess I should be happy I got them to work on something close to the real thing.

In the end, there was absolutely nothing wrong with this trade as I read through (although, I did say I might be biased). It was a fantastic patch to get me through missing the 'greatest comic magazine' and, although I'm sad that the series has probably finished now, I am looking forward to volume two being released.

And only a month to go until then!!!