Editor's Note: Ultimate Fantastic Four #58 arrives in stores tomorrow, November 19.

Rejoice, junior woodchuck FF fans, Mike Carey's reign of silliness is over! Okay, enough rejoicing. I don't want to rain on your parade this quickly but another loopy front has already moved in and it's called Ultimatum. It's definitely too early to praise or condemn Joe Pokaski seeing as the Other, Other Event is one-hundred per-cent editorial in nature, and Jittery Joe is, for the moment, a free lance in this work made for hire world (not unlike his last project, the Inhumans spin-off/tie-in to Secret Invasion).

That's right, True Believers, this is an Ultimatum tie-in. Save for the central plot, however, the Invisible Woman having popped a cog in an effort to save Manhattan from being drowned by, presumably, Magneto (I haven't read the first issue of the parent title, but based on previews, solicitations, and the events in Ultimate Origins, this is all about Magneto being a tad upset to learn that he wasn't specifically created by God, though why a person for whom "evolution" is something of a mania would find that in any way upsetting will have to remain one of life's little mysteries), this is a stand-alone UFF tale. Sue's in bad shape, and it's up to the ever lovin', blue-eyed Benjy, given Reed's inexplicable absence (see primary Event Book), to save her.

The story is of the simple Quest + Flashback variety. Mary Storm--Sue and Johnny's occasionally evil mommy--somehow braves the assorted global catastrophes (see primary Event Book) to arrive at the Baxter Building with the suggestion that only the sleazy Dr. Molekevic has the expertise to lift Suzie from her invisi-coma, and off quests our Ben. Prior to Mary's entrance and then throughout the book, Pokaski teases us with tidbits of Ben's childhood, focussing primarily, if obtusely, on his relationship with Reed. Seems no one can quite figure out what it is that makes them friends and by the end, the closest I can come to an answer is that Reed is simply exploiting Ben's personal problems and good nature to satisfy his own need for constant experimentation. In other words, and in not so many words, Ultimate Reed is as big a dick as his not-Ultimate self.

When Ben locates the Mole Man, with the help of a trio of former Baxter Building dweebs, we find him at the mercy of his own Moloids (oy... again with the Moloids), simultaneously facing down an attack by the Lava Men. Yes, there are Ultimate Lava Men. Somebody should probably let Thor know.

Dialogue and pacing are adequate, but Pokaski takes some time to stumble, here and there. Mary Storm's sudden presence is typical deus ex machina, and you'd think that General Ross wouldn't have to tell his men guarding the upper stories of the Baxter Building that the Thing is a resident. Apparently, it was "One Year Ago" that the trans-dimensional whatsis caused the original FF-spawning accident but, again, that's all editorial so Joe's off the hook in this case, though I am obliged to point out (ad nauseam, it seems) that, man, it's been a heck of a busy year for the Four. Even if each of their canonical story arcs occurred mere weeks apart, that leaves about six minutes of total downtime, which is something to consider if you're debating superheroics as a vocation (that and having to fight super-zombies, reality altering alien demi-gods, and frigging Dr. Doom).

These relatively minor bumps along the tracks bring us to the point where the train succeeds in flying off the rails with a single phrase: "Someone's digging at a rate of 12 giga-knots per hour." This was noted by the Three Dweebs and helps them to help Ben pinpoint Molekevic (still not sure why, but, hey, "It's only a comic book!"). Apart from being a frankly bizarre non-unit of measurement, do you have any idea how fast that is? One nautical mile is approximately equal to one minute of longitude, roughly translating as 1.1508 miles. Multiply that by one billion (Giga) and you're travelling, or in this case "digging", at greater than twenty times the speed of light. Hey, kudos to the dweebs for having noticed the disturbance at all, let alone having been able to measure it! As for the science, this is bad, Joe, very, very bad...

Transcendental spadework aside, after the requisite fight scene Ben returns to Manhattan with Moley who, within seconds of assessing Sue's condition, suggests a cliché to save her. Lucky thing that Ben had "...boosted some (Pym Particles) from a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier..."! Yes, lucky. And somewhat ominous from a "we've seen this a hundred times" perspective.

The Top Cow art team have matured dramatically since I last encountered their work. Three inkers is always a red flag but the brushwork seems reasonably consistent throughout the book, which is to say appropriate to the settings into which they're broken. Since I've already spent so much time whining, I might as well draw attention to the flaws, such as they are. Children are not just short adults with big heads (really, really big heads). Pre-adolescent Reed and Ben and their antagonists looked, well, "dopey" is as good an adjective as any. All of the photo-reference used for landscapes and Kirkham & Co. couldn't have looked at a single picture of a real, live kid? Perspective has also improved immeasurably from earlier efforts but there's still work to be done. I'm slightly curious as to the final word about what Ben's supposed to look like, too. The Thing is usually portrayed as having a protruding, rocky brow line; an exaggerated sapien bone structure, if you will. Here, he has a pair of protruding, rocky eyebrows, which seems sort of, you know, daffy. Still, these problems aside (and the big heads are a pretty big problem), the overall structure, composition, and anatomical and fictional elements, are competently portrayed, and the colour scheme by this mysterious entity "Blond" ranges from adequate (the flashbacks) to subtly beautiful (particularly the Lave Men). Once again, a noticeable improvement over previous work.

Story by committee is a soul destroying prospect though one, perhaps, that Pokaski is suited for, professionally if not temperamentally, given his television experience (where everything is derived from a committee structure, including those programs advertised or perceived as the work of a "single" vision). That doesn't forgive him the clunky flashback sequences and clunkier science, however. Paired with an ever improving team of illustrators balances out the net result but only to the point of thoroughly average. With at least some of the Ultimatum baggage now out of the way, let's hope that Pokaski's own voice manages to poke through and that it's worth hearing.

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