COMIC REVIEW: Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four #1 REVIEW

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Expanding upon the events in Secret Invasion 1, Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four 1 follows the events surrounding Marvel's First Family during the mega-crossover comics event. Secret Invasion 1 showed a Skrull posing as Sue Storm infiltrating the Baxter Building. After gaining access to Reed Richard's lab, she opened a portal to the Negative Zone and allowed the top of the building (where the FF lives) to get sucked through into the other dimension.

Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four starts before the events of Secret Invasion. We follow Sue after a day of lecturing in Vancouver to her hotel room where she is captured by the Skull forces. The story then moves to the aforementioned events in Secret Invasion 1, but expands upon them showing in greater detail how the family reacted. And finally, we follow the story into the N-Zone as Johnny and Ben attempt to figure out what has happened and why.

Luckily the series is penned by Roberto Aguierre-Sacasa, who wrote the Fantastic Four series known as "Four" for the Marvel Knights comic line. Being familiar with the characters, Aguierre-Sacasa is able to bring a level of authenticity to what might otherwise be a lackluster spin-off series. While some might argue the merits of creating a spin-off series like this in the first place, the result is an enjoyable story the succeeds on the merits of it's storytelling. The artwork by Barry Kitson is, of course, top notch and only helps to make the book more enjoyable.

There's actually quite a lot of Secret Invasion information hidden within these pages. The surprise twist ending actually adds a layer to the main Secret Invasion story and even though Reed Richards plays a main part in that series and is absent here, there are actually a fair number of interesting questions about him raised in this story.

Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four 1 is a pleasant surprise despite being another spin-off of a huge company cross-over event. This is the first of three issues and is available for only $2.99 at your local comic shops.

Review by Doug Turner