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Ultimate Fantastic Four (2003) (Collected Editions) #7-8
Ultimate Fantastic Four, Vol. 4
Seed Nineteen - a bizarre name for the most bizarre characters ever to enter the lives of the Fantastic Four: Threshold, Fountain, Magnificent Brute, Dreamcatcher. These incredible entities hold the key to a cosmic conflict that has raged for untold millennia and now involves our quarrelsome quartet. You've never seen anything like it Plus, the Ultimate X-Men team up with the Fab Foursome of the Ultimate Universe and the macabre Mole Man returns Collecting Ultimate Fantastic Four #33-41, Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual #2, Ultimate X-Men/Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate Fantastic Four/Ultimate X-Men.
195 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2007
About the author
Mike Carey
1,153 books3,002 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Mike Carey was born in Liverpool in 1959. He worked as a teacher for fifteen years, before starting to write comics. When he started to receive regular commissions from DC Comics, he gave up the day job.
Since then, he has worked for both DC and Marvel Comics, writing storylines for some of the world's most iconic characters, including X-MEN, FANTASTIC FOUR, LUCIFER and HELLBLAZER. His original screenplay FROST FLOWERS is currently being filmed. Mike has also adapted Neil Gaiman's acclaimed NEVERWHERE into comics.
Somehow, Mike finds time amongst all of this to live with his wife and children in North London. You can read his blog at www.mikecarey.net.
Mike Carey was born in Liverpool in 1959. He worked as a teacher for fifteen years, before starting to write comics. When he started to receive regular commissions from DC Comics, he gave up the day job.
Since then, he has worked for both DC and Marvel Comics, writing storylines for some of the world's most iconic characters, including X-MEN, FANTASTIC FOUR, LUCIFER and HELLBLAZER. His original screenplay FROST FLOWERS is currently being filmed. Mike has also adapted Neil Gaiman's acclaimed NEVERWHERE into comics.
Somehow, Mike finds time amongst all of this to live with his wife and children in North London. You can read his blog at www.mikecarey.net.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 11, 2024
"It is enough to know that it exists."
November 28, 2017
Very disappointing compared to previous volumes.
September 29, 2019
I"m not that fond of Mole Man and he seems to be a big part of this series as times goes on. A let down after these past zombie issues.
September 25, 2013
This is an okay book. The artwork is spotty, as each story arc is a different artist [batch of artists] working with the author. At least it had the same author throughout each of the stories in this compilation. That is one thing that I grew to dislike about the Ultimate universe. Instead of a long-term goal in mind it seemed the stories were merely written in order to be able to be sold as compilations at some future point. This made them feel somewhat disjointed, in my point of view. I ended up selling the majority of my Ultimate issues as my frustration with the stories [and artwork] continued to grow.
In this collection, the Foursome are attacked because in a previous adventure they had [apparently] brought something back with them. They are then taken to the future where Reed meets Thanos and the team meats Ronan, Thanos' son. Thanos realizes Reed is the being for whom he has been searching across time and space to build an ultimate weapon for him [the Ultimate version of a cosmic cube] in order to control everybody and destroy free will. He ends up taking control of Ben's body in order to present his case to Reed and to motivate Reed to aid him in his cause. Reed obviously refuses, but when he returns 'downtime' to the 'present' he decides to build the cube after all in order to use it to defend against a future incursion by Thanos and his ilk. It is interesting in that the future beings are able to defeat the Four's various abilities, yet it is through teamwork [and the assistance of former assailants] that they are able to save the day.
The next story involves the second annual and the re-introduction of Molekevic, the Mole Man. A second team of alternate students is based in Oregon and captured by the Mole Man. He intends to use the students to create his own indestructible army. The Fantastic Four were on their way to the site to visit when the facility is taken. They head into the depths of the Earth into Lemuria to find the missing students and teachers. They are shocked to find the Mole Man
still alive; they are even more shocked to discover that the Mole Man has created an advanced army of Moloids with advanced abilities similar [and far beyond] the quartet's amazing talents. The team of other students devise a way to defeat [kill] the Moloids and take Lemuria from Molekevic, refusing to return to the surface. Their stated reason for refusing to return to the surface is that their abilities will be used by the military-industrial complex to make machines more efficient at killing people from greater distances, yet they reveal the hypocrisy of their 'beliefs' by killing the Moloids. We also get to learn the twisted backstory/history of the Mole Man. He's not even a decent villain [not like in the regular comics] and he really needs to die.
The third story involves el Diablo, time travel, and a crazy-convoluted plot. It was actually a decent story and had decent artwork throughout the course of the story. Four alchemists employed by the church manage to entrap a fifth alchemist who wishes to take control of all of creation. They managed to entrap him in a tower; the prison is composed of the four major elements; one of them dies to entrap the villain. However, he is able to look into the future [somehow] and he discovers the Fantastic Four. Seeing them as the means of his escape, he captures their loved ones and provides a gate by which they can travel back through time to the late 1400s. The team heads back with a batch of SHIELD agents, and they are opposed by the local military. After the usual misunderstanding and mayhem, the two groups join forces to battle el Diablo. He is defeated at great cost - the surviving alchemists die shortly after the battle and Reed has to destroy the gate to prevent the modern world from being destroyed by the villain. The best part of the story is that the sole surviving alchemist is able to send Reed and his team through time in the space of one hour. The team moves back through time by one hour and returns home to through the gate before Reed destroys it in one hour. Great circular 'reasoning' and I loved it! Best story in the batch.
The last story involves a team-up between some of the Ultimate X-men and the Ultimate Fantastic Four. The FF are framed for Cerebro being stolen, and three of the X-Men come looking for payback. The two teams end up having to join up to defeat the primary villain, a former student who fell in love with Reed and was angry over his rebuff. The first half had decent artwork; the second half sucked [in my opinion].
The series started with such promise! So sorry it ended as it did.
In this collection, the Foursome are attacked because in a previous adventure they had [apparently] brought something back with them. They are then taken to the future where Reed meets Thanos and the team meats Ronan, Thanos' son. Thanos realizes Reed is the being for whom he has been searching across time and space to build an ultimate weapon for him [the Ultimate version of a cosmic cube] in order to control everybody and destroy free will. He ends up taking control of Ben's body in order to present his case to Reed and to motivate Reed to aid him in his cause. Reed obviously refuses, but when he returns 'downtime' to the 'present' he decides to build the cube after all in order to use it to defend against a future incursion by Thanos and his ilk. It is interesting in that the future beings are able to defeat the Four's various abilities, yet it is through teamwork [and the assistance of former assailants] that they are able to save the day.
The next story involves the second annual and the re-introduction of Molekevic, the Mole Man. A second team of alternate students is based in Oregon and captured by the Mole Man. He intends to use the students to create his own indestructible army. The Fantastic Four were on their way to the site to visit when the facility is taken. They head into the depths of the Earth into Lemuria to find the missing students and teachers. They are shocked to find the Mole Man
still alive; they are even more shocked to discover that the Mole Man has created an advanced army of Moloids with advanced abilities similar [and far beyond] the quartet's amazing talents. The team of other students devise a way to defeat [kill] the Moloids and take Lemuria from Molekevic, refusing to return to the surface. Their stated reason for refusing to return to the surface is that their abilities will be used by the military-industrial complex to make machines more efficient at killing people from greater distances, yet they reveal the hypocrisy of their 'beliefs' by killing the Moloids. We also get to learn the twisted backstory/history of the Mole Man. He's not even a decent villain [not like in the regular comics] and he really needs to die.
The third story involves el Diablo, time travel, and a crazy-convoluted plot. It was actually a decent story and had decent artwork throughout the course of the story. Four alchemists employed by the church manage to entrap a fifth alchemist who wishes to take control of all of creation. They managed to entrap him in a tower; the prison is composed of the four major elements; one of them dies to entrap the villain. However, he is able to look into the future [somehow] and he discovers the Fantastic Four. Seeing them as the means of his escape, he captures their loved ones and provides a gate by which they can travel back through time to the late 1400s. The team heads back with a batch of SHIELD agents, and they are opposed by the local military. After the usual misunderstanding and mayhem, the two groups join forces to battle el Diablo. He is defeated at great cost - the surviving alchemists die shortly after the battle and Reed has to destroy the gate to prevent the modern world from being destroyed by the villain. The best part of the story is that the sole surviving alchemist is able to send Reed and his team through time in the space of one hour. The team moves back through time by one hour and returns home to through the gate before Reed destroys it in one hour. Great circular 'reasoning' and I loved it! Best story in the batch.
The last story involves a team-up between some of the Ultimate X-men and the Ultimate Fantastic Four. The FF are framed for Cerebro being stolen, and three of the X-Men come looking for payback. The two teams end up having to join up to defeat the primary villain, a former student who fell in love with Reed and was angry over his rebuff. The first half had decent artwork; the second half sucked [in my opinion].
The series started with such promise! So sorry it ended as it did.
January 30, 2011
I can't say that this volume is a total failure, but it's so much weaker than some of the previous volumes, that I'm really tempted to give it a 2/5. The first story introduces Ultimate Thanos, and the story has a lot of nice things in it, but the plotting is really a mess overall. It just feels slapdash and messy, underutilized and disorganized. It has a strong start, but just sort of meanders around randomly. I strongly suspect there were too many rewrites on this one.
Then we have an annual in which Molekevic kidnaps the other Baxter Building kids. It's pretty good.
Following this, we get a storyline about a medieval alchemist attacking the present. I found myself almost completely unable to care about this storyline at all. It seemed hollow and insignificant.
Finally, we get a X-Men/FF crossover. The plotting here is pretty solid, and everything works well. EXCEPT it uses the Mad Thinker, a character previously introduced with a really interesting and creepy (and significant to the character!) physical deformity, which gets dropped here. Now Jae Lee did the original art, so any artist is going to have a hard time capturing the same sense of moodiness Lee manages to put into the art, but the artist here didn't even try--just drops it completely.
So I generally like what Carey does with books he works on. I feel like he usually puts a lot of planning into the plotting and characters, but I certainly didn't feel that way about this one.
Then we have an annual in which Molekevic kidnaps the other Baxter Building kids. It's pretty good.
Following this, we get a storyline about a medieval alchemist attacking the present. I found myself almost completely unable to care about this storyline at all. It seemed hollow and insignificant.
Finally, we get a X-Men/FF crossover. The plotting here is pretty solid, and everything works well. EXCEPT it uses the Mad Thinker, a character previously introduced with a really interesting and creepy (and significant to the character!) physical deformity, which gets dropped here. Now Jae Lee did the original art, so any artist is going to have a hard time capturing the same sense of moodiness Lee manages to put into the art, but the artist here didn't even try--just drops it completely.
So I generally like what Carey does with books he works on. I feel like he usually puts a lot of planning into the plotting and characters, but I certainly didn't feel that way about this one.
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June 29, 2017this one...not soo much
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews