It's clobbering time!

I'm currently re-reading the two Fantastic Four books I have in my room. The two I have are part of Mike Wieringo and Mark Waid's run. I'm not sure when they did it, or for how long, but I find their run is easily my favorite of the Fantastic Four, and quite possibly, the Marvel Universe. Considering those two men also invented my top most favoritest favorite character ever, Impulse, I might be biased. But something about the Fantastic Four series as illustrated by Wieringo and written by Waid is just so full of emotion and humor.The two books I have in my room-I have several other books from the same run in storage-are two of my favorite books: Hereafter and Rising Storm. In the first Ben dies and Reed and the others go to Heaven and battle the archangels and reject their versions of Paradise so they can bring Ben back and that story always makes me emotional. Just the idea of these people loving him so much they break into an other-dimensional realm and refuse God and his offer of time in Paradise so they can be together again in life, that's just the most perfect and beautiful example of teammwork and friendship. It's on the top of my most emotional stories ever. And the cameo they have, of presenting 'God' as, I believe, Jack Kirby? That's just..perfect.

Rising Storm, I have to re-read it, but it's pretty Johnny-centric and I love me some Johnny Storm. He ends up being chosen as Galactus's herald because Reed did something and now Johnny and Sue's powers are reversed so Sue is now the one with flame powers and Johnny is the Invisible Man. He figures out a way to keep Galactus from devouring worlds until the other Fantastic Four show up and Galactus is reverted to a humanoid man. The book shows us Galactus's past and how he ended up as the World Eater. But I really just like that in Waid's run, Johnny isn't presented as the stereotypical one sided human torch. Some stories in the past have shown Johnny to be more dimensional than we would give him credit, but most, if not all of the stories I'd read, he always ended up going back to the way he was before, and the status quo was never changed. Johnny is always the hotheaded immature brother of Sue, who plays and doesn't take anything serious. But in Waid's run, he changes. I'm not sure how things are now, what with Waid no longer writing him and the whole Civil War thing, but in Waid's run, consistence was key. Johnny was given responsibility as CFO of the Fantastic Four's business, the finances side of it, and as such he acted accordingly. He didn't go back to watching cartoons and playing around with pretty girls at the end of the issue. He continued as CFO from issue to issue and you can see his more serious an mature side coming out. Waid gave Johnny a chance to grow. Wieringo gave Johnny a really cute look-ok, I admit, I think Wieringo's version of Johnny is the best one yet and no one else has managed to capture his 'Johnny-ness' the way Wieringo did-and I love their Fantastic Four. It was serious, emotional, funny, and sweet all at once. Now I gotta go get the rest of my books out and re-read them all.

Flaunt Magazine: The Wanderlust of Anton Yelchin

Flaunt Magazine: The Wanderlust of Anton Yelchin

Currently I'm in the middle of trying to acquire the copy of this issue that has his interview, it's very thought-provoking and inspirational but whenever I try to print said article, the text is too small and faint to read!