I love Mark Bagley. I've been reading comics ever since I was a young child, my first issue was a TMNT comic called Mighty Mutantmals #1 I bought at the local grocery store. I also read Bucky O' Hare comics and was interested in old Green Lantern/Green Arrow issues. While I have a long history with comic books (for my age), I have not being following them continuously that entire time. I have had on-off periods. One of the on periods was when I purchased a very large leather-bound hardcover for Ultimate Spider-Man. It was like the first 30 issues, all drawn by the same artist, Mark Bagley. I am a huge fan of consistency in comics. Bagley's consistency never fails to impress me. Here we are 9 issues into the new Fantastic Four Marvel Now! volume and look, Mark Bagley is still there, awesome.
On the other hand, I do not like the writing of Matt Fraction. I rarely read anything from him that I fall in love with or even enjoy. Fraction's first attempt at this Fantastic Four (the first few issues) was a huge error. It included a childish-talking Valeria (who we all know is a genius that rivals Reed), a british-slang-talking Thing and Reed (Pear-shaped?) and a return to a juvenile Johnny Storm who just went through a death-experience that had matured him significantly. There was a lot to hate in those first few Fantastic Four issues from Mr. Fraction.
However, I believe he is gaining his footing as I enjoyed this issue. This was the last issue I read last week and I was disinterested and anticipated a boring, bad issue. Fraction proved me wrong, though he did make kind of a massive misstep, but I would have to blame his editor as well. How did this time travel story, where Thing intervenes to prevent the marring of Victor von Doom's face (which leads to his becoming Dr. Doom) get released on the same day that we got the time-stream blowing up in Age of Ultron? Maybe it was one intentional, showing all the time-stream madness leading even more so to the breakage, maybe it was a meta-thing. I will grant that.
In this issue we get Reed taking a guilt-ridden Thing through time to Doom in college, who through a freak accident, scars his face, which leads him to go crazy and become Dr. Doom. The thing we learn in this issue is that Doom is inevitable. Thing tries to stop what is happening and in fact does, but it doesn't matter, Doom will be Doom because Doom is crazy by birth, by lineage and Thing or Reed (who could have fixed Doom's equations in the experiment if only he would have listened) should feel now guilt about his becoming. I think that was an interesting message and a good one for these characters. Well done, Matt.
Oh, and there was a Council of Dooms, alternate universe Dooms witnessing the "Nativity". But then again, if Doom is inevitable and he was always crazy by birth and by lineage, what would be the significance of this event? It cannot be the "masking" as we already see a non-mask Doom in the Council. What is going on here? Matt Fraction! You have some explaining to do!
