To create a compelling villain, all you need to do is make him or her extremely powerful.That way, the reader has to wonder, "How can (name of hero) possibly win?"
That's the formula writer Mark Millar and scripter Joe Ahearne are following with this last story in the Millar / Hitch run on the Fantastic Four.
And it works in part - I was certainly eager to see how the FF was going to deal with the Marquis of Death, a character who has (apparently) destroyed millons of alternate Earths and (apparently) killed Dr. Doom.
The problem with the story is that we have no idea what the Marquis' powers are. He seems to be able to do anything, as though he were a living, evil Cosmic Cube.
And there we get into "Q" territory - the Star Trek: The Next Generation character who could do anything just by thinking about it. When a character is all-powerful, he or she can only be defeated by trickery or if he or she makes the decision to stop.
That's why I don't usually care for the omnipotent characters - if he or she can do anything, it makes it difficult to care - the solution to the problem is just too limited. Hopefully I'll be proven wrong here.
The art this time around is something of a mixed bag, with Bryan Hitch providing some excellent pages, and Neil Edwards doing his best Hitch impersonation on other pages. It's a shame Hitch wasn't able to finish his run on this title (I believe a different artist is drawing the next issue), because he's done some terrific work here.
We finally do get a hint as to the origin of the Marquis here, although an editor's note explaining what issue the character originally appeared in (assuming he hasn't been created from whole cloth here) would have been appreciated.
Starting with high hopes, the Millar / Hitch run has been something of a hit-or-miss prospect. Here's hoping the final issue is a hit again.
Grade: B+
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