Writer: David Pepose
Artist: Juann Cabal
Color Artist: Jesus Aburtov
Cover Artist: Cafu
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
The Earth is in peril! When the Eternals went to war with the mutants of Krakoa, a small team tried to reanimate the dead Celestial Progenitor that is Avengers HQ to stop the madness. It came to life, stopped the war, and decided to judge all of Earth and if it should live or die. Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four are going about their lives, while Reed tries to figure it all out, but not all is well in the Baxter Building. See what strikes the Baxter Building in Fantastic Four #47!
If you’re interested in this comic, series, related trades, or any of the others mentioned, then simply click on the title/link to snag a copy through Amazon as you read the Fantastic Four #47 Review.
Review:
Readers get exactly what it says in the synopsis for once: Die Hard with the Fantastic Four. On top of that, this comic is a tie-in to the A.X.E.: Judgment Day event, but in a standalone fashion. See, the story starts out fine enough, with an opening narration by Mr. Fantastic as he tries to figure out what to do about the Celestial Progenitor being brought back to life, then judging all of Earth, and threatening to end all life on it. But clearly, something else is going on.
The main character for this whole story is Susan Storm-Richards, aka the Invisible Woman, as she takes the role of Bruce Willis’ John McClane. She’s the headliner of this comic from start to finish. It’s business as usual for the Baxter Building as Sue greets some of the employees and we get small glimpses of the building’s interior. While everyone’s going about their business, signs of stealthy intruders making their way inside the building become apparent, as well as who the main villain is.
With the comic focusing on Susan, she gets all the time to shine as far as her empathetic, protective, crafty, and dare I say wrathful personality shine through. The comic shows off Sue’s talents as far a business leader taking care of her employees, and as a superheroine taking care of business. This is helped by Juann Cabal’s art which provides a sense of momentum to everyone and everything, especially the Invisible Woman whenever we see her in action. Whether it’s saving lives or fighting the bad guys, the Invisible Woman looks good.
All the while Reed is narrating about how whenever he’s in a pickle, he always thinks of Susan. This isn’t bad the first few times, but Reed’s narration from David Pepose quickly gets annoying to the point where you can go “All right, we get it!” It also doesn’t help that the main villain isn’t a well-known or compelling menace, so they kind of fall to the wayside instead of filling the Hans Gruber role. As a result, there are very few stakes, and since it’s a tie-in to the bigger event, we know that Reed’s progress won’t really matter since he and the rest of the Fantastic Four are literally background players in it all.
SPOILERS:
For those wondering who the main villain is, her name is Exterminatrix. Yes, it’s very on the nose. And a small nitpick is that we didn’t get to see enough of the Baxter Building’s interior before the action starts. There’s no cool layout of everything, so we have a clear sense of what’s going down. Again, it’s just a nitpick since this is supposed to be a new Baxter Building and it would be nice to see what it’s like on the inside for a change beyond just being another generic Sci-Fi human building.
Final Thoughts:
Fantastic Four #47 is a tie-in to the larger A.X.E.: Judgment Day event, but it’s far more of a standalone story than anything else. It delivers exactly what it says in the synopsis: Die Hard with the Fantastic Four. The Invisible Woman is the main star here and the art from Juann Cabal with Jesus Aburtov’s colors make the comic’s action look good.