Ultimate Fantastic Four #42

Ultimate Fantastic Four #42
See, I'm still not caring about this series under Mike Carey's pen. It's just been so utterly and completely EH, that, like I said last time, much as it pains me to admit, I miss Mark Millar.
I feel completely lost from the very beginning. Not even - from the recap page! It's like there's an entire issue missing between last issue and this one. I had no idea who half these people were, where they came from, or what they were doing in the Baxter building.

Mike Carey really doesn't know how to write these characters properly. For instance, since Reed is so brilliant, then why would a machine that he created read an object with no gravity well to be a star? First of all, that's just ridiculous. Anybody with even a rudimentary knowledge of astronomy knows that the best way to find stars that you can't see is to check for the presence of their gravity affecting neighboring objects. Since these stars are in an alternate universe, wouldn't it make sense that the best way of detecting them would not be to say "ooooh, shiny", but rather to try to detect centers of immense gravity? Wouldn't that just make sense?
Also, has Reed not gotten in enough trouble tapping alternate universes? Let's see: the negative zone, the Marvel Zombie universe, the Ultimate Squadron Supreme universe, the Thanos universe, President Thor's universe - am I missing any? Do you see a pattern here? NONE of those experiments ended well for Reed. None. So what the hell's wrong with this kid, that for fun he just goes ahead and devises other methods of tapping alternate universes? Isn't he supposed to be smarter than that? And if he really IS that stupid, then why don't the powers that be at the Baxter building have safeguards to prevent Reed from doing this over and over again? At least during most of the aforementioned episodes there was a good reason for Reed to try. Here? He wants to make some thingamabob doohickey work, so naturally his first impulse is to tap energy sources from alternate universes! Wha huh?

Also mischaracterized: Sue Storm. Since when is she a bimbette? She's a frickin' scientist for god's sake - she doesn't say things like "pick that one, it looks shiny". I mean, seriously, what the hell?

And let me get this straight, the Ultimate universe's version of the Silver Surfer is basically something like a sun eater? How does that make any sense whatsoever? Seriously, the version in the mainstream Marvel universe makes more sense than this. See what happens when you make Galactus into Gah-Lak-Tus? You end up with shite like this.

Paqual Ferry's art seems to be solidifying somewhat, but it still needs quite a lot of work.

The only positive aspect of this book involves a poker game played by Ben Grimm, his mother (of all people), and Willie Lumpkin!

Everything else is pure garbage.

Utterly CRAP.

This story is so obviously contrived - there's absolutely no reason for the Silver Surfer to be here except to capitalize on the fact that the new Fantastic Four movie is opening this coming weekend.

And does this book not actually HAVE an editor on it? Dear Marvel, would you consider hiring me? I'd work pro bono...