Well, I guess I'm only gonna do these as the spirit moves me.  Which I guess is okay for a blog, being what they are.  Wish I could do better with my fiction writing, but there it is.  Onward and upward. 

WARNING: I do spoil the ending of this issue, so if you want to cut to the chase while staying pure, just go buy the damn thing!  Trust me, it's good!

Ultimate Fantastic Four # 21
Writer:  Mark Millar
Penciler:  Greg Land
Inker:   Matt Ryan
Color:  Jutin Ponsor

What Has Gone Before:
In an attempt to transport objects through the mysterious "N-Zone," Reed Richards, the best of the elite Baxter Building think-tank of brilliant young scientists, his best friend from high school, Ben Grimm, Sue Storm, another Baxter Building genius and budding girlfriend to Reed, and her brother Johnny (with them only because their father, Franklin, is the lead Baxter Building administrator) are caught in a cataclysmic failure of the transporter system.  The accident transforms them all, allowing Reed to stretch and mold his body at will, Sue to become invisible and project invisible force fields, Johnny to burst into flame, and Ben has become a super-strong behemoth, now covered in rocky orange skin.

Though the accident and subsequent adventures of these four to stop the machinations of former Baxter Building scientists Dr. Mohlman and Victor Van Damme have been largely kept under the public radar, their recent expedition to explore the N-Zone resulted in the crashing of both their expeditionary ship (the Awesome ) and an extradimensional alien spacecraft on the Las Vegas strip.

What Happens Now:
The four have just returned from apprehending criminals who, using stolen time-travel technology, threatened to end all life on Earth.  They are thereafter besieged by the press, as their newfound visibility and popularity seems to please everyone but Sue and her father, who worries that Reed has lost his scientific discipline.  The truth is, though Reed is somewhat enjoying his celebrity status, his zeal for the work has gone undiminished, much to Sue's exasperation.  He has in fact moved forward with data gleaned from their N-Zone trip, though Dr. Storm has strictly forbidden it. 

From that data, Reed has made contact with an older and far more experienced Reed Richards from an alternate universe, who has aided "our" Reed in creating an interdimensional transporter, with which he will join the older Reed and others similarly contacted to meet for an unspecified mission.  However, when Reed makes the jump to the alternate Earth, he materializes in a wrecked Baxter Building in the midst of a blasted New York City, littered with dead and decaying bodies.  There are survivors, though, as Reed is approached by cadaverous though ambulatory versions of the Fantastic Four.  Reed's older doppelganger says through a gaping horror of a mouth, "Ever get the feeling you've been had?"

Holy cliffhangers, Batman!
Man, what a magnificent debut for the new creative team on this title!  And for my cash I think it's a far better follow-on to Warren Ellis' great run than the fill-in crew on issues #19 and #20.  I like Jae Lee's work and Mike Carey's "Ultimate Mad Thinker" story was good as far as it went, but it was SUCH a hard turn from the wonderful Ellis-Kubert collaboration that it kinda put me off.

Not so Mark Millar's triumphant return to the title (he co-wrote the UFF's first story arc).  The opening is almost the best part, picking up in the midst of an FF adventure, with everyone all but casual about being millions of years in the past.  The confidence inherent in such a beginning is a fantastic keynote, and it's a relief to have this Fantastic Four at last in costume and out in the open.  That said, we do take a large step in making this FF more like the original FF, and what I've most enjoyed about the title thus far have been those subtle, yet profound differences, much as with the previous Ultimate books.  Now this FF is publicly known and popular, they're working with other superheroes, Reed's burying himself in his work, Sue's hacked off because of that, and Johnny's hot (heh!) on the dating circuit!  Little too close to what's been done before, but this doesn't mean we're not being set up for something fun down the road.

Before we get there, though, Millar put a BIG ol' hitch in our mutual get-along with the end of this issue!  It was perfectly set up, right down to having Franklin Richards make a cameo.  All nice and cuddly and safe, and it works our "Crisis"-primed expectations about inter-dimensional team-ups perfectly.  Then the house gets brought down on us!  Wonderful.  Magic.  And by the way, creepy as ALL hell!  I laid out the entirety of the surprise simply because though it IS a spoiler, really, the only folks who know where we're goin' from here are Mark Millar and those at Marvel who've seen the subsequent issues that are in the pipeline.  Just on the face of it, we've swerved into the zombie zeitgeist, which, though it is edging into triteness, can still be cool if well handled.  Considering this is in the hands of the genius who's also writing The Ultimates , I think we'll be okay!

An important word or two about the art: again, wow!  Greg Land is, of course, a great artist who does drop-dead gorgeous women like few others.  I thought his interpretation of Captain America wasn't anywhere near as hard as it should have been, but for the vast majority of the book, just brilliant.  Dunno if the new Fantasticar was more his idea or Millar's, but it's way cool however it came about, especially in that it actually looks like a car!  Love how Johnny's got this rock-star hair now, and Reed's got a near-Eraserhead 'do as a part of his hip, young scientific genius look.  Of course Sue is senselessly sexy, and I for one wish EVERY version of Sue Storm/Richards was drawn this hot!  Why shouldn't she be a sexpot?  Just 'cause she's a mom or a Nobel-caliber geneticist doesn't mean she should be frumpy or even just ordinary.  This is Comicbookland.  The girls should always be hot.  Okay, except the Ultimate Mad Thinker.  She'd only be creepier with a killer rack.  Speaking of creepy, as crisp and slick as his work in the Ultimate universe is, Land shows great versatility in creating the nightmare that is the alternate universe into which Reed transports.

Kudos as well to Matt Ryan's inks, which only accentuate Land's great lines, but perhaps my greatest artistic praise is reserved for the, well, fantastic (sorry, running out of superlatives!) color job by Jutin Ponsor.  The penciler can get the lines down, and the inker does a lot of the shading, but the wondrous glow on all the characters is all Mr. Ponsor.  The colorist is often the unsung hero of a book's art, so I'm keen to sing out some praise when it's this good.

This issue, along with the new issues of Ultimate Spider-man, Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates, are a part of Marvel's "Ultimate Starts" promotion to get folks to sample and hopefully get hooked on their wonderful "Ultimate Universe" books.  They couldn't have picked a better Ultimate Fantastic Four book for this promotion.  Millar takes a common and almost predictable idea and smacks the reader upside the head with it, with able assistance from a stellar art team.  By all means...

Recommendation: ...Buy It!