Book Review – Fantastic Four: What Lies Between
Author: Peter David
Cover Artist: Glen Orbik
Publisher: Pocket Star
Binding: Paperback
Publication Date: July 2007
It wasn’t “Fantastic”-but it was enjoyable!
“Fantastic Four: What Lies Beneath” is a stand-alone Fantastic Four adventure written by Peter David. When Reed Richards and Johnny Storm go to a scientific lab because they’re asked to endorse a project, things go disasterously wrong, leaving Sue Storm and Ben Grimm to try to save not only Reed and Johnny, but reality itself.
While the basic plot is as easy to sum up as the average comic book, much more obviously takes place, since this is a novel that has far more than 48 pages. A scientist invents a method of travel that would allow tourists to view alternate dimensions. The lab that she works for wants to market tour packages and asks for the Fantastic Four to endorse them commercially. Naturally, Reed wants to see exactly what he’s getting into. The demonstration doesn’t work as planned and Reed and Johnny start metamorphosizing into monsters.
Sue Storm wasn’t present for the demonstration because she was having a meeting with the President of the United States and Ben stayed home because he had a date. You read that correctly. The Thing had a date.
Peter David shows that he has great admiration for the Fantastic Four with this book. He keeps the characters perfectly in character throughout the novel while managing to interject some fun, if not slightly geeky, humor. The most notable example of this is a color-blind clerk mistaking The Thing for the Hulk. The premise is interesting just for the idea of the Fantastic Four being turned on each other and that idea is well-planned and well written. While the reader never doubts for a second that Everything Is Going to Turn Out Okay because this is, after all, an officially endorsed Fantastic Four book and if they’re going to kill the Fantastic Four there would be a lot more advance advertising and the event would, most certainly, take place in the actual comic book, it’s fun trying to figure out exactly how the team is going to save each other and the world.
I was disappointed that there wasn’t a little more in-depth explanation of how Reed dealt with the physical aftermath of the events in the book. Basically, the readers get a paragraph that just says the brilliant scientist did figure it all out and fixed everything, which is kind of annoying. I wanted to know how long it took and what, exactly, Reed did, since up until that point the reader gets as much detail as the author can provide (which was quite a bit) as to how Reed solved the other scientific challenges he confronted.
While I far prefer Peter David’s Sir Apropos of Nothing books, this book was fun to read and had geniuinely funny moments. It didn’t have the wry tone I’ve come to expect with Peter David’s work, but in the same respect, that tone wouldn’t work well within the context of the “Fantastic Four” either. If you’re a fan of the comic books, this novel is certainly worth a look.
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