BY The Scarlet Avenger

So I just read Fantastic Four #587, and I must say…disappointed! Sheesh, Marvel is definitely getting lame on the deaths of their characters. Let’s just start with the fact that I have no clue about what’s going on in the book as I have not collected or read Fantastic Four since the late 80’s with John Byrne’s run. So his review is not going to be a general review as such. My gripe is about how Johnny Storm actually went out, as the member of the Fantastic Four that was killed. You have a panel in the book when Johnny shuts out Ben Grim and the kids (Franklin and Valeria, and some others) from the Negative Zone, from which they are trying to shut down the portal that links earth to the zone (I think).

Again I don’t want to get into the whole story line of the book as I’m going to assume that everyone reading this knows what I’m talking about. With the Annihilus hordes coming at him, Johnny flames on and in the very next panel gets annihilated. (No pun intended) Now, in that situation, yes he probably should die (although back in the day, real Marvel writers would have found a way to get him out of that situation). But yes, I can see where he might perish. But not like this. Jonathan Hickman punked him out. Johnny the hot head should have been seen in several panels blasting away at the Annihilus wave of bugs and slaughtering his way through them. Knowing he was going to perish, he should have gone Super Nova and blasted his way through this till he had nothing left. Then, exhausted, he could have gone down like a true Marvel character should go.. Marvel has a way of punking out their heroes when they pass. Now, we all know that Johnny isn’t staying dead long. But it sucks that these Marvel writers are getting so lazy that they don’t even try to keep the heroes “heroic”. It sucks that Marvel keeps putting this stuff out and the stories just don’t live up to the hype. Is it just me or are comic book fans over the whole death stuff? I think Marvel jumped the shark after Captain America. In my opinion, “death issues” are a lazy way for a writer and a book to get a bump. With a group like the Fantastic Four, there are still a multitude of stories yet to be told about Marvel’s “First Family”.