Back in the mid to late aughts, through Pocket Books, Marvel pumped out around 20 novels featuring Spider-Man, Wolverine, The Ultimates, The X-Men, and, yes, The Fantastic Four!
These novels were pretty much rocket fuel for a teenaged Doom, his imagination, and his overall development as a nerd, especially given that most of them were released in the days of Comic Book movies just barely starting to be taken seriously.
And man did young Doom love them, how could he not?
The characters he grew up loving in cartoons were all over his favorite story format, it was just perfect.
But did he read them all?
Well, here’s the thing about young Doom, and even the now old Doom, he was never the type to burn through a book series one after another, particularly if he enjoyed it.
He liked to jump around to different characters, genres, and series, and I still do.
So, no, he never finished them all, and that is where this review comes in.
Is this one as great as he remembers its peers of the time being?
Will this novel lead to elation and celebration?
The time has come to strap yourselves in, because we need to dive in and find out!
As always, this here is your big time, fancy pants ***SPOILER ALERT***
Stanislaw Klemp, a rather untalented and forgettable student at Empire State University, has stumbled across an old note book of the great and terrible Victor Von Doom.
Digging through it, Klemp has found the abandoned plans for a dimensional gateway between our plane and a hellscape that’s hardly imaginable.
In a last ditch effort to avoid being booted from ESU, Klemp takes it upon himself to build the portal and unleashes hell.
Post-Civil War, the ever lovin’ blue eyed Thing, Ben Grimm, is actually feeling pretty damn good about the world and his place in it.
So much so that he’s decided to donate an entire rec center to the good people of his old stompin’ grounds, Yancy Street.
But on the day of its dedication, all hell breaks loose.
The FF are separated and being affected, to varying degrees, by some mysterious monstrous energy and now it falls to Ben to try and make his way to the Baxter Building and save the day.
I will fully admit, the above description is a deliberate oversimplification so as not to spoil the entire book, but the aforementioned storyline is the true heart of the story, in a very fitting way.
You see, this dark energy that’s warping the minds of New Yorkers is tapping into that little prick of a voice in the back of our minds that tells us we are nothing but useless monsters, but that is something that Ben is more than used to.
This was, obviously, in no way intended but I find that to be of great interest now, as we all are dealing with the ramifications of this pandemic we are all very much still living through.
Because there is a moment where Johnny and Ben sort of bond over that feeling, and I think a lot of people are going through that now as more and more are dealing with depression and realizing what some people dealt with even before lockdown.
Yes, I’m placing a lot of empathetic weight on this 15 year old book, but it is incredibly poignant at this moment in history.
This book really reminds me of the Justice League novels from around the same time in that, sure, they were JLA novels, but they focused on 1 member in each novel, Flash, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Batman, and of course Superman.
This is very similar because this is a Marvel Universe novel, but it has a particular focus on the Fantastic Four.
What I love about that is that it does the exact same thing they do in the comics, but better.
It makes it feel like a real, living, breathing universe.
And I say it does it better because it’s stretched out in 1 300 page novel that you can read in 1 go, if you wanted, no waiting for next month to see who will show up next.
That is the unexpected strength here to this story.
This novel is a prime example of why I love comic book characters in this medium, I love just hanging out with them in a long form story, living in their heads for a while as they problem solve.
Not to mention having somebody like Jeffrey Lang, who clearly knows his shit in regard to these characters, only helps to elevate it all.
Comics will always be fun and enjoyable for me, but novels will always have my heart.
To wrap up, it’s a brilliant story of the FF and the rest of the merry Marvel marching society.
If you can find it, get it.
It honors the Marvel Universe, and especially Ben Grimm, in the best possible ways, gang.
Marvel has begun to reprint some of these novels from around this time into a 3-in-1 omnibus format through Titan books, so my hope is that they’ll make your hunt for these stories a bit easier soon and reprint this as well.
Let us know what you think of this review in the comments below or share this post on Twitter with the Hashtag #TNBBookReview.
Special thanks to @ACFerrell1976 for her continued editorial assistance.
For more great Nerd Blitz content, grab $5 and head over to Patreon.com/NerdBlitzPod.
Become a Knight of Nerd Blitz-Dom and instantly unlock 80 hours of audio, as well as stories, reviews, and more!
And finally, given the state of the world, do what you can to leave it a little bit better than you found it.
As difficult as that may be currently, it can have an impact far greater than you know.
Until next time, stay safe out there, gang.
