Fantastic Four: Prodigal Son #1 – Marvel Comics
Written by Peter David
Art by Francesco Manna
Colors by Espen Grundetjern
Letters by VC’s Cory Petit
Cover by Mico Suayan & Rain Beredo
“They’re ALWAYS from outer space.” Normally I don’t put lines from books that I read in a review, but this time it just felt right. I was looking for a new Fantastic Four book to try out, so I thought I would give this one a shot. As it turns out, they might not be the stars of this particular show. So who is this Prodigal Son?
This is not a spoiler, since it’s in the description, but a ship has crashed from space and into the Savage Lands. If you’re not familiar with it, think of something along the lines of Turok. The ship happened to be carrying an alien named Prodigal, who quickly gains the favor of some of the natives. Not sure what his intentions are, the Fantastic Four are called in to stop a potential uprising. It turns out that things might not be exactly as they seem once they encounter Prodigal. That leads us to a bit of a twist that I wasn’t quite expecting. It will be interesting to see how this picks up with the next issue involving the Silver Surfer.
Prodigal is a character that really grew on me. He’s arrogant, sarcastic and powerful. He is also very unpredictable, which we find out about midway through this issue. It actually made a lot of sense to have the Fantastic Four in this introductory issue, as sort of a first contact. It also showed off how powerful Prodigal was during their short battle. This book also has a lot of humor, which I thought really landed. This is more of a lighthearted Fantastic Four, which I loved. It actually felt like the first act of an animated movie, which I would be very interested in watching. The art is stellar throughout, especially when showing off the skill set of Prodigal. Everything is so clean and polished that it kept me on the page longer and kept me more into the story. I think Marvel has a winner here with Prodigal. This is a character that could have a bright future of they play their cards right.
RATING: PULL / BUY