2099 Fantastic Four // Review
The peek into the year 2099 has officially kicked off with 2099 Alpha, and with it comes specific spin-off books. Fantastic Four 2099 takes a look at the future of Marvel’s First Family, and it’s a dark one.
FF 2099 was written by Karla Pacheco, with Steven Cummings as the artist. Chris Sotomayor works on colors, and Travis Lanham letters the pages.
FF 2099 reintroduces the reader to H.E.R.B.I.E, the robot buddy from the 1970s of the Fantastic Four. Joined by a female incarnation of the bounty hunter Venture, the two hunt across the wastelands, looking for what H.E.R.B.I.E. refers to as his Mother’s friends. What unfolds is a tale about found family and making a family of your own out of the hand life deals you… so long as you can accept it.
This is an interesting take on 2099, to say the least. The original Fantastic Four seem to have gone the way of the other lost heroes, and Karla Pacheco straddles a weird line with H.E.R.B.I.E.’s self-abusive yet childlike personality. Under another writer, it could come off as awkward or chaotic. With Pacheco’s pen, it actually comes off as both heart-breaking and genuinely disturbing. Unlike the 2099 special that started this event, the book takes time to visit with each of these new characters, allowing the reader to get to know them before the book launches the reader into the action. One especially appreciated touch of the future is the idea of human/AI romantic relationships, which is perfectly in line with what humans tend to do, and yet also reflects on the current environment of evolving human social and romantic entanglements.
It must be said is that the new Fantastic Four genuinely look like a tribute to the originals without knocking off the group aesthetics. An invisible waif of a boy, a large and aggressive woman of Fire, her child a woman made of diamond and stone, and a stretchy woman made of technology and flesh. The powers bring the FF to mind, but the execution and designs are genuinely unique. The action in this book is excellent, but the quieter moments are genuinely special. From a mother and daughter simply hugging to a scene of an endless highway spiraling in different circles, the art does a fantastic job of fleshing out the universe as the writing does.
While only a one-shot, this book does more to flesh out the current dystopia of 2099 than Alpha attempted, and it’s worth reading for that alone. Fans of the FF will find a decent read here as well, but the real treat is re-reading the book again to look for hints to the ending.
