MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE / MOON KNIGHT [Reviews]: New Year, New Me.

MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE #1 – Marvel Comics
Kevin “Pastor” Palma
@eggrollko

It’s strange to think that there hasn’t been a Fantastic Four comic in 2-and-a-half years, and the Fantastic Four have been absent from Marvel Comics in two. Considering they’re my favorite superhero team, I’ve certainly missed them; but until I found out about the return of Marvel Two-In-One with a story called “Fate of the Four” starring The Thing and the Human Torch, I didn’t realize how much it felt like something was missing from the Marvel Universe as a whole. The superhero, adventure and sci-fi aspects of the team have been picked up by the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy and the Ultimates respectively, but the family aspect hasn’t.

In this issue, Chip Zdarsky and Jim Cheung bring that all back. It pays respect to the Fantastic Four legacy by opening a new avenue for future scientific advancement through the Fantastic Award, a $100,000 dollar grant, and that’s just on one page. This issue mostly shows Spider-Man nudging Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm into finally coming together to deal with the loss of their family, yet as they do so they’re given a problem to solve and an adventure to go on, in true Fantastic Four fashion.

Given the title of this series and the title of this story, I wanted this to either be a reintegration of The Thing into the larger Marvel Universe through team ups, like the classic Marvel Two-In-One, or the return of the Fantastic Four themselves. It may yet still turn out to be the latter, but for now it’s just Johnny and Ben putting back together two parts of a broken family. While it may not be what I originally wanted it to be, so far it feels like what the Marvel Universe needs it to be. 4/5 Fantasticars.

-Kevin Palma




MOON KNIGHT #190 – Marvel Comics
Jason “Evil Preacher” Bud
@PreacherAMC

Maybe you can marvel at the Moon Knight 190, wherein the Holocaust surviving progeny/former heavyweight boxing/U.S. Marine commandoing/CIA-operative assassinating/previous cab driver driving/multimillionaire entrepreneuring, and Egyptian god avataring, Marc Spector – aka Moon Knight, continues to knock his own rocks off inside that filleted cranium of his; as he plays more of the pugilistic push-n-pull with his multiple personalities up in that mug???

Yes…while Uncle Stanley’s Batman continues to rap-a-tap the bare-knuckled bones inside his own battered brainpan, we see ol’ Mooney skullcracking the street trashers, to let them fools know the real game’s still on. So…what’s this? You mean the Knight’s ol’ nemesis, Bushman, has hooked up with some fireballing Jesus-Freak-Look-A-Like, who’s got the rah-rahs for the Ra God inside his psychosis-ridden bones? What kinda ultraviolence are these two criminal butchers carving up, and who’s gunna wind up on their chopping block? Moon Knight’s liable to need more than some mummy dust and his moon darts to take these villains down… Maybe he can jailbreak and team up with the fright-wigged murderer, Phil Spector and his Wall of Sound, so that he can finish the fkkn job. 3/5 Ankh-Kickings.

-Jason Bud