I look forward to that post, Nas-T. (Worth pointing out that the cover shows Thor fighting said Super-Skrull, when the Super-Skrull isn't even a villain. It's also worth pointing out that Millar's entire run so far has been playing with the concept of hyping us to believe some 616 convention, only to flip it in the Ultimate universe - 616/UU crossover, Namor as king, Super-Skrull as villain - yet such twists would be lost on the target audience of the UU: people who have no clue about the Fantastic Four. It appeals to fanboys. So I find this entire charade rather dubious. That and Millar says he hopes to add to the titles he's writing in a similar, but more humble, extent what Lee & Kirby added to theirs - hard to do if you don't invent anything new, save parallel zombie versions of the main team, instead just revamping Lee & Kirby inventions.)
I didn't pick this up, because Millar's run has been so unbelievably tired... well, I just can't believe it. So I read the synopsis.
The first thing I thought was that the Super-Skrull was Ben. What I thought was going to happen was that Ben would, in order to save the world in some roundabout way, take a half a dozen of the superhuman pills (hence why he would have so many powers) so that he could travel into the past with the ability to prevent that future from happening.
Regardless, the story of "President Thor" is - feeling bad about a past event, the F4 travel back in time to fix said event which totally and utterly changes the present - for the better. However, it turns out it's not really that much better and in fact, it's really much worse, and so they travel back in time to stop them fixing time and their hearts burst from the irony.
I remember Millar saying how the F4 should be "fantastic" and "crowded with crazy ideas", that "nothing is too much" for them.
I've seen this storyline played out in every single incarnation of Star Trek. It is not a crazy idea. It's a cliche. Like this entire run.
I mean, it seems Millar has one really small good idea in each story, and that's it. (The spiders, Namor being a prisoner, Superman punching into the zombieverse - although, it didn't happen that way, still...) Sadly, those ideas aren't the backbone of his story, but an add-on.
Bleh.
Millar can be a really good writer when he writes somewhat simplistic action adventure stories. He can be really amazing. But I don't think he's any good when he tries to "go really far" or any such nonsense. Too often, Millar's downfall is he seems to get more interested in hyping his work than actually writing it. I think UF4 is one of those titles.
