Fantastic Four #16

Continuing to catch up, post illness, today's read was Fantastic Four #16 as Ryan North offered up another single issue story focusing on the newly returned youngest members of the First Family.

Having permanently relocated to the Grimm farm in Arizona, the temporally displaced quartet of Franklin, Valeria, Nikki and Jo-Venn dace a new challenge in the vein of a new school. However, the school is nothing compared to the homework as the foursome attempt some mad science in an attempt at extra credit, leading to some mad capped shenanigans.

I really enjoyed this issue, with North producing a fun one-and-done issue that brings a nice bit of levity to a run that was starting to feel a little overly series. The idea of building the story around the children of imaginauts trying to impress their science class felt novel but what I enjoyed most was the nice dynamic amongst the kids.

The Grimm kids feel really well built from their introduction in the Slott run. I love how all four get on what astounds me the most are the Richards kids. Having been reading a long time, it's both disconcerting and a joy to see Val being so nice and less precocious. Meanwhile, as Val is very much her father's daughter, Franklin seems have become more his mother's son as he's shown to be so capable compared to prior appearances.

New artist Francesco Mortarino comes aboard with a while new style which I thought would be an adjustment given my love of Ivan Fiorelli's work up until now. However, Mortarino has brought a vibrant, youthful energy with pencils combined with Brian Reber's colours that it really works for the story that is being told.

After the first 15 issues being about 'retrieving the Baxter Building', this issue feels like a great pallette cleanser to set up what will probably be a similar length second act.

That said, if rather it's the beginning of many short stories then I'm equally on board with this.