Fantastic Four by Dan Slott vol. 4: Thing vs. Immortal Hulk

Vol. 4 sees this series falling back on its bad old habits of collecting only a couple of issues of the regular series and padding out the paperback with extra one-shots.  But hey, that title at least promises an epic fight, right?  Kinda/sorta.  While Slott has always been willing to incorporate the latest changes in a character’s status quo into is stories — remember when Spider-Man teamed up with Loki, Sorcerer Supreme — he ducks out of writing the actual “Immortal Hulk” here.  The character is, shall we say, puppeted by someone with a grudge against Ben Grimm and the happiness he’s found with his new wife Alicia Masters.  This leads to a throw-down between the two superheroes that’s fine for what it is.  Artist Sean Izaakse does do some great work here, particularly with a two-page spread that illustrates a haymaker for the ages.  If the rest of this two-issue fight was on that level, it would’ve been worth the price of admission.

As for the rest of what’s collected here, they’re essentially decent fill-in issues that were marketed as one-shots.  Writer Gerry Duggan teams up with artists Greg Smallwood, Mark Bagley, Luciano Vecchio and Pere Perez for a story about Thing’s connection to Yancy Street.  It’s a heartfelt, but predictable story about Grimm’s efforts to do right by Yancy’s residents when he finds out that the FF’s presence is causing rent rates to spike, with many longtime tenants having to leave as a result.  The artists do good work, Duggan gives us some humorous bits, and it’s quite likely I’ll forget about this story after this volume goes up on my shelf.

I had higher expectations for the “Negative Zone” one-shot, given that it’s coming from “Lucifer,” “The Unwritten,” and “X-Men” veteran Mike Carey.  Though it does have some good art from Stefano Caselli, the story can’t quite rise above feeling like a glorified fill-in.  It’s a decent enough SF plot that has the team venturing into the Negative Zone after they find out that one of Reed Richards’ old experiments may still be active.  It is and the inhabitants of the Zone and the experiment itself aren’t happy to see them.  I liked the ending, which puts an interesting spin on the encounter, but it and the admittedly charming “What Are the Fantastix For?” short from Ryan North and Steve Uy that follows it, don’t really move the needle in terms of getting me to recommend this volume.