Quote Originally Posted by Balakin View Post
Fraction's is usually regarded as a very weak run (although some like his FF stuff with Alred). Hickman's is very Hickman (complex big ideas and he just expects you to keep up with him) but it's the F4 run people usually enjoy the most. I was extremely lukewarm on it at first but by the end he wrote some really cool stuff I genuinely enjoyed.
Yeah Hickmann is nothing if not complex, no arguments there.

Quote Originally Posted by bob.schoonover View Post
Hickman's run is fun, and you can stop there if you don't want to read the rest of his stuff leading up to Secret Wars (that is, the FF run feels complete). While there is a bit of "Reed builds the perfect thing to solve the problem" in it, Reed's genius is not infallible and he's really quite interesting here. As someone who has never enjoyed the Inhumans, their appearance towards the end of his run definitely doesn't do anything for me.
I guess the "Reed builds the perfect thing to solve the problem" is an integral part of Fantastic Four DNA that most authors rely heavily upon.

Still, it sounds like Hickmann's run on FF is worth a shot.

In other news I read Absolute Carnage yesterday (just the mini series, no tie-ins). It was... not what I expected. I realize that there were tie-ins with a lot of different titles, but it's basically just another Venom vs. Carnage story. Nothing special, really. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't exactly an epic crossover, either. In fact, I found it weird that it wasn't just an arc within the ongoing Venom series. It felt a bit short as well, with little meat on the bones. And sure, reading the tie-ins would likely help in that aspect - but a good crossover miniseries should work well enough on its own, with tie-ins being flavor.