FF Fridays: Fantastic Four 600

FF no. 600 is a 100-page celebration of 50 years of The World's Greatest Comic Magazine. Written by regular series scribe Jonathan Hickman, illustrated by a host of artists and featuring variant covers by the likes of John Romita Jr. and Joe Quesada, it's quite a package.

The main story sees the FF and the Avengers trying to save the Earth ( well, New York ) from an attacking Kree armada. And while the assembled heroes deal with death rays from above and Sentinels in the streets, in the alternate reality known as the Negative Zone, Annihilus is preparing his insect hordes for invasion...

Hang on! The Negative Zone? Isn't that the last resting place of the late, lamented Johnny Storm aka the Human Torch? Well yeah, and as expected this issue sees the return of ol' Match-head to the Marvel Universe. It turns out that Johnny has been resurrected by Annihilus ( life and death being somewhat different in the Neg Zone ) and forced into a gladiatorial arena to do battle with all manner of creepy-crawlies, only to be killed again. And resurrected again. It's a tough life in the Negative Zone.

Eventually, with the aid of some new-found alien allies Johnny defeats Annihilus and his army, opens the portal back to our universe and finds himself back in the main plotline...

( Of course, the images above are by Jack Kirby from waaaaay back in the FF's past, and as previously seen here. )

Jonathan Hickman manages to pull off the inevitable return of the Human Torch with some style and the scenes of insectoid horror in the Negative Zone are suitably icky. Johnny Storm certainly shows rare heroism and determination in his struggles to return to our reality, but it still seems more of a marketing campaign than a storyline to me. However I am intrigued to see where this all leads, so I might drop in on the FF again. So, er, that marketing strategy must be working...

A couple of FF-related links to finish:

Doctor Strange fan Ptor is seriously pissed off about Stephen Strange's appearance in this issue... and I don't blame him...

And, on a lighter note, Steve W talks about robots, gas and the Master Of Planet X...

Soundtrack: Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts