Carey, Mike
About the Author:
Mike Carey is British and was written for 2000 AD, DC and Marvel Comics.
AVERAGE REVIEW SCORE:
3.5 out of 5
(2 books)
TOP PICK:
X-Men Legacy: Lost Legions
Fantastic Four: The Official Movie Adaptation
(Art by Dan Jurgens and Sandu Florea)
The adaptation of the 2005 FF movie which sees Reed Richards, Sue and Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm and Victor Von Doom being exposed to cosmic radiation whilst on a space mission. Returning to Earth, they begin to discover that the cosmic rays have imbued them with superhuman powers.
I can't say I ever particularly liked the Fantastic Four movie. To me it seemed shallow and cheesy in the way 90s superhero movies were rather than mature explorations of the comic books in the way that the X-Men and Spider-Man movies of the early 2000s were. It also failed to have a convincing villain, with this iteration of Doctor Doom just being the absolute worst possible interpretation of that character (until Fan-four-stic came along, at least).
All that said, this isn't a terrible graphic novel. I think this short graphic adaptation works better than the movie in a lot of ways, not least the fact that it feels like a brief recap of the FF's origins without seeming to have the pretensions of being a larger story that the movie had. It also doesn't have the problem of shaky 2005-era CGI or the Thing's clearly-just-a-big-rubber-suit dragging it down either. Doom is still rubbish, but the rest of this book is a perfectly fine retelling of the beginnings of Marvel's first superheroes.
3 out of 5
X-Men Legacy: Lost Legions
(Art by Khoi Pham, Tom Palmer, Craig Yeung, Nelson DeCastro, Steve Kurth and Jay Leisten)
After surviving a twisted version of reality, the X-Men discover that several of Legion's multiple personalities have been unleashed upon the world in the flesh. Professor X, Rogue, Gambit, Magneto, Frenzy and Legion himself set out to track down and deal with the threat these powerful personalities pose.
I've not read any of the rest of 'X-Men Legacy', so this book dropped me in the deep end with only a passing familiarity with what has gone before. Despite that I found myself very much enjoying the story presented here. Legion is a fascinating character in and of himself, so the idea that some of his dangerous and deranged personalities are out there operating on their own is a great story idea to begin with.
What follows is an engaging tale of X-Men out of their depth until they can truly come together and work as a team, something made harder by Magneto's secret agenda, the love triangle between him, Gambit and Rogue, and the barely-reformed presence of Frenzy. In short, classic X-Men fare.
The only real downside is that the book features a subplot about Rachel Summers being lost in space and that storyline leads to an unresolved cliffhanger ending here (and I don't have the next volume available to read).
4 out of 5
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Marvel Comics (here)