And another thing....not quite a retraction

Okay.

Since David Uzumeri of Funnybook Babylon took me to task a little yesterday for my Fantastic Four post regarding the absence of Alicia Masters, and because I was a little snippy in my reply (sorry, David - caught me at a bad time), I decided to reread the first six issues of the Millar/Hitch run last night...



...and it actually wasn't as bad as I remembered.

Don't get me wrong, my two main criticisms of the run in general - the tried and true 'no-one else can defeat this threat' and the old 'jobbing' of characters to prove how bad ass new characters are - still hold true.

However, David pointed out that Ben's new girlfriend Debbie is conning him so maybe that's why Alicia wasn't used in the role. To be fair, there's only one scene that suggests this - and that's when Debbie heads out of the Baxter Building and is picked up by a guy in a car who's been waiting for her; he comments that he wondered how long she was going to be with 'that freak' (ie, the Thing).

Debbie doesn't reply, and Hitch's art here is pretty ambiguous. She could be regretful, guilty or relieved to be out of Ben's company - but it doesn't necessarily mean that she's conning him. She could be being blackmailed by the guy in the car, he could just be an ass of a friend - we just don't know right now. Although David, I'll grant that she doesn't exactly look great in the scenario.

Although you know what? It wouldn't have killed Millar to throw a line into his first issue about Ben having broken up with Alicia.

The run overall, however reads better in hindsight. I still don't like the characterization of Reed and Johnny, but there's enough to keep me coming back. The whole Nu Earth thing (which I'm sure is either the Earth of 1985 or Old Man Logan, or both) is a nice running plot line and the additional mystery of new nanny Tabitha Deneuve, who I assume is a future version of now-super-genius Valeria, together with Alyssa Moy's contuinual homing in on Sue as opposed to Reed are all pretty intriguing.

That said, for an arc called 'The Death of the Invisible Woman', Sue hasn't been featured too much, and her non-team of fundraisers don't seem to serve much point. Oh, and just for nitpicking's sake (and this is really nitpicky), there is never a red carpet outside Letterman no matter who's on the show and the tickets are always free...although I'm surprised the DC building opposite the Ed Sullivan Theatre didn't get flattened somehow just for the hell of it.

So...yes, I guess I am enjoying it in spite of its flaws. Dammit.