The Thing - The Next Big Thing - Walter Mosley

A few months ago, I reviewed the first issue of The Thing mini-series written by Walter Mosley. It's been a few months and the series has wrapped. I thought it was time to come back to this and share my thoughts. Overall, I thought it was really good. As much as I like Mosley, I always worry when a novelist comes to write a comic book. It's a completely different medium and some writers understand that better than others. Less is more. You can convey actions in the panels without having to explain everything. You can be shown.

Here, Mosley clearly understood the assignment. There were many pages without dialogue, so that the action could happen. What was most surprising to me is that Mosley is a huge fan of old school Marvel. He fondly remembers those comics from when he was a kid. So with that kind of aesthetic and thinking, I thought this would harken back to those days of overwritten comic books where the pages were chock full of exposition and clunky dialogue. That was not the case with this at all. It moved at a breakneck pace, which really, is how his books feel. I mean that in a good way. They are easy reads.

You can tell that he let the artist do some of the heavy lifting and Tom Reilly was definitely up to the challenge. His art, not to be reductive, reminds me a lot of Chris Samnee. The cartoony-ness belies the skill and detail that goes into the panels. Emotions are conveyed very well, so in those silent scenes, you get a sense of what is going on in a character's head. I'm going to continue to keep an eye on his work.

The other thing that really stood out is the characterization of Ben Grimm. Throughout this story, Mosley shows again and again that he gets what makes the Thing tick. At times I didn't feel like the dialogue was 100% right, other times it was spot on. At it's core though, the sentiment was there. I think this book is a good primer for those that are not familiar with the Thing. And I don't mean his powers or his place in the Marvel Universe. I mean the character of a guy that was dealt a bad hand and still never gives up. That only wants to live a normal life and is destined to never truly have that. 

So let's talk about the actual story itself. This series is placed in an earlier era of the Fantastic Four and it has that feel. The smart choice here is that there is not a lot of technology on display so it can feel timeless in a way. If you see people using rotary phones or watching black and white tvs, it would feel a lot older. You can always wave a wand around anything you see in the Baxter Building because Reed Richards is a genius and he just builds things. We get a mysterious figure haunting Ben and that story plays out. I don't want to give too much away but it definitely effects Ben and everything around him. Throughout the story he interacts with some of the more deep cut characters in Marvel, which makes sense. Mosley was reading during an older era of Marvel and he clearly has an appreciation for it. I also appreciated that the Fantastic Four barely make an appearance here. It gave the story a chance to only focus on Ben. I read the story twice and the reveal of the villain makes a lot more sense the second time around because now you notice the breadcrumbs.

One of the things I called out in my earlier review is that with Mosley writing, all the ancillary characters are black. It's not in your face in a bad way, but it is refreshing to see black characters rounding out the cast or just being in the background because they do exist. Something older style comics forgot.

All in all, I really liked this series. Would I want Mosley to take over the main title? Absolutely not. His sensibility is more geared to more classic tales. There's enough space in between the lines for him to play around in there. He's too prolific to spend that much time on a regular ongoing series anyway. I also don't feel like it would work. Now more mini-series? Absolutely and I hope he gets the chance to do more of these, if Marvel can lure them back.

I highly recommend checking out this mini-series. Like I said before, it will read very quickly in trade, but it was satisfying.