Fantastic Five: The Final Doom by Tom DeFalco

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


In this second Fantastic Five volume (set in Marvel's MC2 Universe), Dr. Doom escapes from where he's been imprisoned by Namor the Submariner in an attempt to wreck vengeance on his old enemies who are now the Fantastic Five. At the same time, back from the negative zone, Reed Richards is reasserting leadership over the group leading to Johnny to start thinking about starting his own group. Then Doom comes acalling with the goal of defeating the FF and taking over the world.

This volume of the Fantastic Five is far better than the previous unfocused story, and it shows great promise with a central villain in Dr. Doom living up to his reputation and making audacious plays that are mostly successful in his efforts to shoehorn his hated enemies. I particularly loved the focus on Ben Grimm in Issue 2 after Doctor Doom left him for dead. It really showed what a great character Grimm is.

Unfortunately, the story ran into problems in the second half. There were simply too many characters running around. While the group is style the Fantastic Five, in addition to Reed, Ben, Sue, Johnny Storm, and Franklin Richards, the FF also contains Johnny's wife, his kid, and Ben's two kids by his ex-wife, as well as Dr. Doom's ex-apprentice Kristos: All with powers and all in the story. This was the state of play after the previous FF story. What became clear was that the goal of the book was to whittle the team down to a true Fantastic Five with people deciding to leave or otherwise be incapacitated.

And that really hurts the story in the end. Also, some conflicts are raised but never really addressed, particularly surrounding Reed Richards as his conflicts with both Sue and Johnny are raised but ultimately left un-addressed by the book. This makes it puzzling that the authors decide to give a page or two of the book away to cameos with other characters discussing the situation and trying to figure plans that really won't play into the story.

Issue 5 does contain a big, and almost certainly final confrontation between Doom and Reed that's interesting, although it ends on an unsatisfying and anti-climatic note.

In the end, this isn't a bad book or series, it actually has some strong elements in it, but it's a story that was more concerned about the destination of changing the Status Quo on the team rather than telling a great story and the even with Doom as the villain, the result is disappointing.



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