Comic Book Review: The Terrifics Vol. 1: Meet the Terrifics written by Jeff Lemire, art by various.
Michael Holt, codename Mr. Terrific, has been off-planet for some time dealing with extra-dimensional threats. During that time, his company, Terrifitech, was taken over in an underhanded manner by ethically dubious multimillionaire Simon Stagg. Mr. Terrific had written it off until now, when an alarm told him that Stagg had activated some truly dangerous technology. So he arrives at Stagg Industries to discover that things are almost as bad as they could be, as Simon Stagg has opened a portal to the Dark Multiverse.
The resident superhero, Rex Mason, a.k.a. Metamorpho the Elemental Man, is indisposed as he was the key to open the gate and to withstand the horrific energies of the Dark Multiverse, he’s turned into the semi-magical Nth Metal, which is normally impossible for him. To deal with this situation, Michael Holt pulls Plastic Man (civilian identity “Eel” O’Brien) out of stasis. Plastic Man’s been in a coma since his previous exposure to the Dark Multiverse and this wakes him up as the three heroes are sucked through the gate. (Theoretically Plastic Man could have been woken up earlier, but no sensible person would open the Dark Multiverse gate so Mr. Terrific had to wait until it was coincidentally opened by someone else.
While inside the Dark Multiverse, the heroes detect a distress call, and find a young woman stranded near its location. Linnya Wazzo is a native of the planet Bgztl, the natives of which can all go intangible at will. Except that after she was sucked into the Dark Multiverse some years ago, she hasn’t been able to become tangible again. A Phantom Girl, if you will. But she didn’t set up that distress call, a surprise person did, a mystery to be solved later.
The quartet escapes, and Linnya discovers she can become tangible again–as long as she doesn’t mind everything she touches exploding. Even worse, some mix of eldritch energies has linked the four, so that if they go more than a mile from each other, they’ll suffer horrible pain and presumably die. Like it or not, for the moment, they’re a team!
Some quick background on our main characters.
Michael Holt is the second Mr. Terrific, a naturally gifted scientist (“third-smartest man in the world”) and Olympic decathlete, who lost his reason for living due to the death of his wife in an accident. He was inspired by learning the life story of the Golden Age Mr. Terrific to dedicate himself to helping others, including picking up the motto of “Fair Play.”
Rex Mason was a soldier of fortune who fell in love with Simon Stagg’s beautiful and much nicer daughter Sapphire Stagg. The businessman sent him to retrieve the artifact known as the Orb of Ra, but also sent his unfrozen caveman henchman Java to make sure Rex didn’t return from the mission. This didn’t quite work, as exposure to the meteorite the Orb was fashioned from turned Rex into an element-shifting creature that got the codename Metamorpho. He’s had a rocky relationship with Sapphire ever since.
Eel O’Brien was a career criminal who got shot during a robbery and fell into a vat of acidic chemicals. Somehow, they got into his bloodstream and changed him into a rubbery man who has amazing shapeshifting abilities. Nursed back to health by peaceful monks, Eel took the opportunity to turn his life around and become the superhero Plastic Man.
Linnya Wazzo is a new version of Phantom Girl, but is very much in the mold of previous iterations.
This series is deliberately reminiscent of Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four, including the number of heroes, some of the group dynamics, and an emphasis on cosmic adventure. In this first volume, Marvel-style squabbling is front and center. Part of this is facilitated by Mr. Terrific being far grumpier than usual–none of these people are anyone he’s worked with before, let alone been friends with, and their needs are interfering with him being able to make progress on any one project. Oh, and there’s the metal-masked villain Doctor Dread. (hmm)
There’s some impressive art and interesting concepts. It’s always nice to see the War Wheel again, and I don’t care how nonsensical it is as a weapon.
I do think Plastic Man suffers from always being stuck in grittier, serious stories as the frighteningly powerful comic relief, and would be very happy if he got his own cartoony, silly series for a while.
Content note: mutilation, body horror, a hallucinatory flashback to the death of Michael Holt’s wife shows her bloody.
It’s interesting, but I hope the team dynamics improve in later volumes as the squabbling does little for me. Recommended to Fantastic Four fans.
