Ultimate Fantastic Four #54 (Marvel – Carey / Perkins)
CAPTAIN AMERICA’s Mike Perkins jumps onboard for a new story filled with supernatural surprises and all-out action! When the FF help out with the excavation of the Mole Man’s underground city, they awaken something that should have been left sleeping! Who is Agatha Harkness? What are Salem’s Seven? New Ultimate characters! A new artist! All this – plus, someone has the hots for the Human Torch!
I was so looking forward to some Mike Carey stories that have nothing to do with Thanos! Yea rock on! So, now enter the Ultimate Salem Seven. A slight throwback to the late 70’s / early 80’s FF characters… along with Ultimate Agatha Harkness. Who is Agatha you ask? Here’s a quick catch up for the younglings out there… Agatha Harkness in the original series was a wise elderly nanny for Franklin Richards, who turned out to be a very powerful witch who had good intentions but ended up a little wacky and used her magics to protect Franklin at all cost, even from his own parents and eventually accidentally ended up conjuring up Mephisto. Needless to say, she brought the suburban patio party to an abrupt halt. Now we have the updated Agatha character… out with the wise elderly woman and in with the buxom goth hottie SHIELD agent who is busy seducing Johnny… looks like Carey is turning up the heat on Ben’s favorite matchstick. UFF is turning into a great alternative for FF fans that are not looking for any major cross-overs (can you say “being a major player in Civil War / Illuminati / WW Hulk / Secret Invasion”?). Not only can the team of Carey and Perkins can take C-listers like the Salem Seven and make them intriguing and they can also makes UFF the book to beat. Pullbox Warning: Between Agatha’s explicit come-ons and an overzealous lesbian scientist making her moves on Sue, there are situations here, albeit well-written, that you may not want to be explaining to your 4th grader.
Issue Grade: A
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