"Silent, but Deadly"

Chris Eilopoulos takes a page from Joss Whedon's groundbreaking Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Hush." As one may deduce from the titles of source and derivation, this issue of Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four occurs without an utterance of a single word.

Eilopoulos directs Cliquet's vision in an FF story that runs the gamut of everything the team has been in the past. The Thing and the Torch, for instance, open the book comically, and Eilopoulos adds something new to their prank routine. Sue and Reed find their jokes to be hilarious. Cliquet's realistic, laughing reaction shots of the usually humorless duo are refreshing and only generate more fun.

Comedy however isn't confined to the usual suspects. A catastrophe approaches earth, and thanks to Cliquet, Santos and Mari it looks utterly gorgeous. A green mass streaks through deep space and toward our planet. It's up to the FF to take action and save the world. The trouble is that Reed must first explain to the team what is happening.

Eilopoulos finds a clever means to depict Reed's brilliance and, thanks to Cliquet, Santos and Mari, also his emotion in one wordless panel. This only confuses the team, and Reed must dumb down the astronomer's explanation for a simplified model that's depicted neatly in pictoballoons.

Once Reed explains, the strategy gives evidence of Reed's elegant technology. The team fly in a modified shuttle to a waiting rocket-boost harness that orbits the earth. It's a lovely moment that impacts on the plot and characterization. It shows off Reed's brilliance. It displays Ben's aviation prowess. It also plants the seed in the reader's mind that Reed's inventions always work and his plans always go smoothly.

When the team lands on the object threatening the earth, they encounter a cute alien life form that brings even more humorous expressions to the proceedings, for when Reed blows it, he blows it big. The friendly alien's point of view is at once warm and funny. The tiny error in Reed's invention sets up the raucous escape and the witty ending to a superb issue of Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four that echoes back to the beginning of the story.

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