Fantastic Four: Grand Design

"In 2018 Marvel took a step across the mainstream/alternative-comics divide when it hired Hip Hop Family Tree creator Ed Piskor to re-imagine the X-Men. Piskor’s success has emboldened the company to entrust another valuable property to an indie barnstormer: the Xeric Grant-winning Tom Scioli, who co-authored the deeply weird Transformers vs. G.I. Joe. Like Piskor’s book, Fantastic Four: Grand Design features such retro touches as yellowed pages, small panels and the clear, sunny colors of a more optimistic era. Scioli brings a seditious hint of an arched eyebrow to his history-spanning retelling. His soft-edged style deliberately copies that of Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby, whom he celebrated in another terrific book this year, his graphic biography Jack Kirby: The Epic Life of the King of Comics."