Fantastic Four by Ryan North vol. 4: Fortune Favors the Fantastic

How is Franklin Richards handling being a normal kid these days?  Better than you’d think because he’s not actually any less normal than this future shaper of worlds used to be.  He just hides it better these days so that he can keep being a kid while also keeping an eye out for potential world-ending threats.  Still, there are things he’s not able to see coming.  Like Alicia Masters and the rest of the cast living through a real life film noir.  Johnny and Ben competing to become Cashier of the Month at their local supermarket.  And Alicia and Reed saving as many people as they can from vampires.  Of course, if Franklin had seen what was coming after that, he may have decided to go and do something about it.

Coming off the best volume of North’s run yet, “Fortune Favors the Fantastic,” is more fine than… well, you know.  It’s one of those cases where there’s nothing bad here, just that the stories don’t have the same spark as they did in the previous volume.  Nothing so awesome as Dinosaur Doctor Doom here, I’m afraid.  There’s still cleverness to be had in the stories themselves and hints for future stories that the writer may come back to at some point.  Particularly on the last page of the volume which sets up Marvel’s next event in a big way.

Then again, this volume’s art doesn’t really wow you either.  Carlos Gomez illustrates three issues and gets to show off some flash with the apocalyptic threat of the first issue.  Then he gets thrown into the lands of film noir and grounded character drama, which he does capably rather than excitedly.  Semi-regular artist Ivan Fiorelli handles the “Blood Hunt” tie-in issues and they’re passable with the most memorable visual being the injuries Reed sustains.  Not that final page, which should’ve been a real “WOW!” moment but winds up impressing for reasons of story rather than style.