Fantastic Four #5AU (Age of Ultron Tie-In) Review - Matt Fraction

ff5au Orphans on a spaceship - that basically sums up the first of the Age of Ultron tie-ins. The main storyline is pretty grim with the heroes defeated, those that are still alive huddled together in hiding, barely surviving, and Ultron presiding over a destroyed Earth - Matt Fraction saw that and said €œI can make this scenario EVEN SADDER!€. Contextually this issue takes place before Age of Ultron #1 and provides the backstory for how the remnants of the Fantastic Four ended up underneath Central Park along with the other ragged band of heroes. The Fantastic Four respond to a distress signal from Black Panther and head back to Earth leaving the kids behind on the spaceship in the past (in the main Fantastic Four series they€™ve been travelling through time). The kids awaken to holographic recordings of their family telling them how much they love them now that they€™re dead. Yup, it€™s a real cheerful comic! But by no means a bad one. Back on Earth we see the Four struggle to fend off the Ultron drones and figure out what happened. I€™ve been reading the main story arc so I know which of the Four survive so it wasn€™t a surprise but it was still interesting to see how they went down. I was also surprised at the sheer number of Ultron drones there actually are, a fact that isn€™t entirely obvious in the main story. It is low-hanging emotional fruit to have parents leave video wills for their young children to watch so I wasn€™t that moved to read Ben and Johnny€™s testimonials but Fraction does give Reed a great line that made me pause. I won€™t spoil it but as an atheist it cuts right to the core of my beliefs and rang so true and beautifully. I€™m sure I€™ve read that line elsewhere but it fit so well in Reed€™s farewell to his kids and is just a great moment. Fraction and his editor at least acknowledge the overwhelming, almost silly amount of, sadness in this issue. The AR content has a video of crying babies playing on top of Fraction€™s editor wailing and sobbing into the camera - €œMatt, Matt, tell me it€™s gonna be alright - it€™s gonna be alright, right?€ cut to Fraction looking down at his desk, looking up momentarily to shake his head, sigh, and look back down. Oh, you guys! So is it essential reading if you€™ve been following the main Bendis/Hitch story arc? No, you can safely miss this and continue just reading the main Age of Ultron comics without missing much story-wise. But, like most tie-ins, it supplies rich background detail that a large scale Event misses out on as well as supplying much needed emotional weight to the Event that€™s been missing so far. Fantastic Four #5AU (Age of Ultron Tie-In) by Matt Fraction and Andre Araujo is out now at your local comics shop and online at Comixology and Marvel Unlimited
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