The Terrifics #13 is the penultimate issue for writer Jeff Lemire and he’s joined once again by Joe Bennett on art. This issue isn’t the longest in terms of pacing as a lot of it is built around the interactions between Mister Terrific and his alternate universe wife while the rest of the Terrifics (and Plastic Man’s son Luke) reunite and prepare to assist Mister Terrific. Bennett’s art is as great as it is in Immortal Hulk with the only problem that his Plastic Man still looks kind of horror-like.
So what’s it about?
The official summary reads:
The Terrifics are back! And they’re ready to enter the final battle with the Dreadfuls, Doc Dread’s revenge squad that has systematically wiped out dozens of Mr. Terrifics from across the Multiverse. As the many Mr. and Mrs. Terrifics fight for their lives, the cavalry is on its way–but will Phantom Girl, Plastic Man and the repowered Metamorpho reach the battle in time? And how can the heroes possibly count this as a win with a mountain of bodies in Doc Dread’s wake?
Tell me about it!
In this issue we see Mister Terrific dimension hopping with Earth-23’s version of his wife with her T-Cubes. They go through some notable universes such as Kamandi’s Earth-51, Gotham by Gaslight’s Earth-19, Thunderworld’s Earth-5, the Marvel pastiche Retaliators of Earth-8, Bizzarroworld Earth-29, Batman Beyond Earth-12 before ending up in Red Son Superman’s Earth-30 where they are cornered. The Terrifics has been a series all about multiverse hopping and that trend continues in this issue (and also shows all of the work created by Multiversity is still being put to good use).
The final page has me so excited for the final issue just because of who comes to the rescue of Terrific. It feels like a Fantastic Four issue where they pull in all of the extended family to save another member. The Terrifics has done so much right, including making a group of characters who all start out either neutral or disliking each other into a group where each and every member is friendly and jokes around with each other — so much so that they’re willing to jump multiverses in order to save each other.
Joe Bennett’s art is up to his usual high quality standard — especially the unique weirdness he brings to Plastic Man. His use of panelling and spacing through the issue is really well done and shows that you can use different sorts of panels to great effect as well as bring splash pages with a sense of motion portrayed across them incredibly well.
