Fantastic Four by Dan Slott vols. 1 & 2

Even if Slott doesn’t reinvent the wheel with these two volumes, there’s still fun to be had.  Vol. 1, “Fourever,” does the dirty work of getting the family back together after years of corporate-mandated separation.  Reed, Sue, Valeria, Franklin, and the Future Foundation’s efforts to rebuild the multiverse come to an abrupt, and needlessly harsh, stop when they encounter the Griever of All things.  She’s entropy personified and finds their efforts at creation personally offensive. It’s going to take a lot more than who they’ve got to stop her, so it’s time to bring the Fantastic Four — ALL of them — back together.  It’s a fun, if simple, story with great art from Sara Pichelli, that draws on Slott’s “big idea” brain from “Silver Surfer” with a resolution that’s appropriately clever. The same goes for the Stefano Caselli/Nico Leon story about a Fantastic Faux-team that has sprung up in the original’s place which rounds out the volume.

Vol. 2, “Mr. and Mrs. Grimm,” kind of departs from the superhero paradigm entirely as it’s basically an anthology about the wedding of Ben Grimm and Alicia Masters.  Gail Simone and Laura Braga team up for a fun take on Alicia’s bachelorette with the all-time great title of “(Invisible) Girls Gone Wild.” Meanwhile, Fred Hembeck gives us a tounge-in-cheek history of Alicia’s dad, the Puppet Master, while Slott and Mark Buckingham give us the best story in the volume in “Father Figure” as Ben goes to ask Alicia’s father for his blessing.  Buckingham delivers some great chunky Kirby-esque art while Slott imparts the story with some fun and sinister twists. Slott and Mike Allred deliver a good-looking if unnecessary story of Ben and Sue in the early days with “Change Partners,” while the writer and Adam Hughes show off some rambunctious Marvel fun as Johnny tries to give Ben a bachelor party to remember in “Guy’s Night Out” and kind of fails spectacularly.

As for the main event, Slott and Aaron Kuder handle that.  If you were expecting something to go wrong there then give yourself a No-Prize.  Said interruption is a nice setup for the next volume — it’s called “Herald of Doom” *hint, hint* — but the best part is how Reed uses his big brain to have the ceremony proceed regardless of this.  Is it a selfish use of superpowers? Arguably. But if you can’t do something like this for family, then who can you do it for? It’s another clever moment in two volumes that are full of them, and these two volumes are a good read if you’re looking for some straightforwardly satisfying superhero action.