Sunday, December 27, 2009

Deja Vu All Over Again And Again And Again...

If you haven't read Fantastic Four #574 yet, please stop here. There's a bit of spoilerishness, and I'd hate to do that too you. So gaze at the pretty Alan Davis cover, then go and read it. Spoilerishness starts after the cover.

Hey, Jonathan Hickman and various Fantastic Four editors--

Jon, bro, I looooove your FF, man. Love it to pieces. Especially after that Millar/Hitch run which was so unbearable that even Millar and Hitch couldn't be bothered to finish it.

Yup, I love it unreservedly.

Well, one reservation.

In FF#551, Dwayne McDuffie started his final story arc, in which a future Doctor Doom came to present day to prevent Reed Richards from implementing his plan to "fix everything," because (he claimed) it would lead to tyranny and the destruction of the world (that was a lie, of course, but that's not the important point here).

During the Millar/Hitch trot, they introduced a new governess for the children--who turned out to be a future Sue Richards (from a different future, apparently) who had come to find a refuge for the 8 billion inhabitants of their dying earth.

Now, in FF #574, you've had a future Franklin Richards (from yet another future, I suppose), whose come to give cryptic warnings to Valeria, because "the future must be avoided at all costs."

To quote Ian Fleming, "Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action."

Guys, that's three times in 24 issues you've used the same plot device. That's once per the last three creative teams!

Seriously, are we trying to turn this book into a bad parody of 1990s X-Men? Are the creative teams bereft of new ideas for The World's Greatest Comic Magazine? Isn't there anybody in the editorial department saying, "Hey, we just did this damn story?!?"

Hey, Mr. Hickman, I'm sure it'll be a great story. But I'm getting a little tired of the "older version of one of our characters visiting from the future" gambit.

So knock it off, OK?

Thank you. Now keep up the rest of the good work.


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