David's Reviews > Fantastic Four: Antithesis

“Fantastic Four: Antithesis Treasury Edition” (2021). Reprinting “Fantastic Four: Antithesis” #1-4 (October 2020-January 2021). Writer, Mark Waid and penciler, Neal Adams (credited together as “Storytellers”). Inker, Mark Farmer. Color artists, Laura Martin with Andrew Crossley. Letterer, “VC’s Joe Carramanga”.

I have to say that I ended up really enjoying this one. Aside from a few really oddly drawn depictions of Ben Grimm (the Thing)—I think Adams was trying to show Grimm’s emotions through exaggerated facial expressions, as is per Adams’ usual style, but Grimm’s rocky exterior makes that very difficult—this is a beautifully drawn book.

Now, I should say that this is clearly “later Adams” (the style he had developed into and used on all of his projects from Batman: Odyssey (2010-2012) onwards. Hyper detailed. Hard lined figure outlines. Exaggerated facial expressions. Some long time Adams fans dislike this change (or development) of Adams’ style, so they might also not like it here.

However, I felt it was perfect for a story of this scope (and especially in this larger “treasury” sized format. Adams page layouts are dynamic, much of the story taking place in outer space or in the “Negative Zone”, and the characters all benefit from the larger page size (especially “cosmic” alien characters like the heroic and noble Silver Surfer, creepy/scary Annihilus, gigantic Galactus, and the new villain character here, Antithesis).

The story is a pretty standard but sufficient one to warrant the Neal Adams visual fireworks. Gateways begin to open between Earth and the Negative Zone, allowing Annihilus to attack at the start of the story. The Fantastic Four successfully repel his attack and send him back to the Negative Zone but then discover (from the Silver Surfer, who crash lands on Earth, injured) that a new threat, Antithesis, has seemingly destroyed the Surfer’s master, Galactus, and threatens the Earth next.

(One thing I’m not too sure of is the actual timing of when this story is supposed to take place. The Silver Surfer is still (or again) serving as Galactus’s herald and guide during this story. Yet Reed and Sue’s daughter, Valeria, is very young, not yet speaking. I’m not familiar enough with Fantastic Four continuity to know if those two things line up, or if it doesn’t even matter if Waid and Adams maybe considered this story to be out of the established continuity all together?)

As someone who has read all of Neal Adams’ material, I think, from “Batman: Odyssey” through this and “Batman vs. Ra’s al Ghul” (“Antithesis” and “Batman vs. Ra’s al Ghul” being the last two things he did prior to his death in April 2022), I can say that while I enjoyed much of Adams *art* in pretty much all of those stories (which also included “The First X-Men” (2012-2013), “Superman: The Coming of the Supermen” (2016), and “Deadman” (2018)), I think I enjoyed “Antithesis” more than any of the others (which is saying a lot coming from a big DC guy like me). And I attribute this to Mark Waid’s involvement in the writing of it.

Yes, Neal Adams’ renditions of his classic DC characters like Batman, Superman, and Deadman will always *look* awesome. However, Adams’ plots (and especially his dialogue and characterizations) when he was both writing and drawing, as he was in all of these except for “Antithesis” and scripting assistance from Christos Gage on “The First X-Men”, were often quite, well, wacky at best, head-scratchingly bad at others. So much so that his final Batman stories are widely criticized as being nonsensical and difficult for longtime readers to get through.

Waid is very familiar with the characters of the Fantastic Four as he wrote their regular monthly title from 2002 to 2005. Therefore his (presumably) plot and dialogue here keep this story a quintessential Fantastic Four adventure and the characters all their familiar selves. (For Adams, this is the first time he ever drew a full length Fantastic Four story or for anything more than a quick cameo. But his Reed Richards, Sue Storm, and Johnny Storm are all excellent here, as is his Ben Grimm except for the aforementioned odd facial expressions here and there.

This “Treasury Edition” reprint collection (which, for those not familiar with treasury or tabloid sized comic books, measures at 8.75” x 13.3”) also includes two bonus stories from the Marvel archives, the first drawn by Neal Adams, a classic February 1970 X-Men issue (#65) written by Denny O’Neil and inked by Tom Palmer). And, second, the first issue of Mark Waid’s 2002-2005 Fantastic Four run (#60 [#489], October 2002), penciled by the late great Mike Wieringo and inked by Karl Kesel. Both good choices to bring back in the treasury sized format.

Another trade paperback reprint collection of “Fantastic Four: Antithesis” is due out in January 2023. This will be in the more standard comic book size/format and will, presumably, only include the “Antithesis” mini-series (not the two bonus stories).

Again, I really liked the “Fantastic Four: Antithesis Treasury Edition”. I gave it four out of five stars on GoodReads.