Fantastic Four #600

writer: Jonathan Hickman
artists: Steve Epting, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ming Doyle, Leinil Francis Yu, Farel Dalrymple

When I make a mistake, I like to think I'm strong enough to admit it. I made a mistake. Hickman did have a vision after all, and it may be one of the biggest and most important in recent comics history. The Fantastic Four have stagnated for...decades(?), are were more or less irrelevant until he decided to let everyone believe that he killed off Johnny Storm (anyone who actually read the issue could tell that he wasn't even killed off in the issue), which got everyone talking about the franchise, allowing him to relaunch it (FF), let it evolve (similarly some of the things Dan Slott did in Amazing Spider-Man over the past year). Reed Richards established the Future Foundation, most notably. Since I haven't read most of the issue between "Three" and #600, I had to gloss over much of the climactic developments in the issue, but could easily appreciate everything Hickman did with Johnny, especially how much space he devoted to that element, so that it didn't come off as cheap or gimmicky. Bottom line, Hickman has finally entered the mainstream, and he's reshaping it in his image. Years from now, these are the Marvel comics everyone will remember.