Fantastic Four by Ryan North vol. 6: One World Under Doom

It finally happened:  Doctor Doom has taken over the world!  Now that this has happened, the Fantastic Four are going to… keep their heads down and try to manage what he throws at them as best as they can?  Maybe things are different in the main “One World Under Doom” series, but they’re not taking the fight to him here.  Instead, they’re trying to undermine his anti-vampire rhetoric through science, and trying to help their newly “cured” member Ben Grimm adapt to his new life situation.  It’s that bit which will lead to a fateful encounter with the Puppet Master, multiple trips through time, an encounter with a version of Franklin Richards who has reached an awful destiny, and H.E.R.B.I.E.’s contribution to life in this cosmos.

If you’re wondering whether or not this volume of “Fantastic Four” is an essential tie-in to the event it takes its subtitle from, it’s not.  Even though both are written by current writer Ryan North, I didn’t get the feeling that what I was reading here was crucial to it, nor did I feel lost for not having read “One World Under Doom” yet.  Instead, we get a different flavor of the same kind of self-contained stories North has been telling from the start and these are better than usual.  Particularly Alicia’s showdown with the Puppet Master, though the issues that follow do benefit from the momentum they have regarding Ben’s current circumstances.

While the five issues collected here would be worth reading for people already invested in this run, Marvel decided to throw in a “bonus” issue:  “Giant-Size Fantastic Four” written by Fabian Nicieza and illustrated by Crees Lee.  I wasn’t expecting much from what’s basically a glorified fill-in, but Nicieza and Lee actually put together a decent story about the Four encountering one of Namor’s predecessors and trying to  figure out what to do about him.  I’ll admit that this character does have potential, should anyone want to do anything further with him and Namor’s current status quo post “Last King of Atlantis.”  Whether or not that actually happens, well, I’ll save my optimism for something more concrete – like seeing how Humberto Ramos jazzes up this title’s visuals in the next volume.