Welcome to Belmont, Michigan, now otherwise known as Metamorph-ville. A town where everything and everyone is Metamorpho. How will our daring team of adventuring heroes be able to revert this town back to its normal state? Well, I guess you’ll find out next issue. This issue however introduces the reason why Belmont is Metamorphized.
This issue has got to be one of my favorite yet, primarily due to the fantastic team of both Jeff Lemire and Evan ‘Doc’ Shaner who both bring great things to the series. Lemire brings the fun character interactions and the plot of the issue that first revolves around the interpersonal lives of the characters and then the town of Belmont. Meanwhile, Shaner brings his a-game with his artwork where he perfectly shows a great set of expressions for each character while also having fun with Plastic Man and Metamorpho’s powers.
My biggest disappointment is that this is the last issue by Shaner, however I am really happy with who is taking over from him. Next up is Dale Eaglesham who drew many issues of Fantastic Four by Jonathan Hickman and is a great fit for the series.
So what’s it about?
The official summary reads:
What happens when the Terrifics have to fight a whole town made entirely out of…Metamorpho?! If the streetlight doesn’t get them first, they’ll need to save the innocent people transformed into elemental avatars in a world gone completely berserk! We’re talkin’ gas armies, rock monsters, orbs of Ra and ancient element people to boot! Everything’s possessed and crazy! Somebody call an exorcist–or four!
Tell me about it!
I’m going to do something I don’t do often here and go in depth with the art. I find it a shame I never really know what to say when it comes to the art — however, this issue gives me things to talk about!
The way Shaner uses a four panel grid across the pages in order to give each member of the team enough room to spotlight what’s going on. The only time the issue breaks away from the structure is when more than one character takes position in the same place, in which case the panels combine. One example is the Linya and Mister Terrific scenes where the top half of the page is dedicated to what’s going on with them while the bottom half is still separated into two panels, one for Plas and one for Rex. This is an absolutely great way to do this as it means each of the characters gets a chance to shine and have space dedicated to them rather than using space where it isn’t needed.
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