The third issue has some very weak moments–oh, the Austen characters are from Sense and Sensibility–but it ends with the Fantastic Four all dead, shot by firing squad.

Along with the little kid from Sense and Sensibility. So Cornell gets some respect for shooting a little kid. Even if it’s not shown on panel (Domingues would just screw it up anyway).

Cornell reveals the villain to be Nightmare, who through some complicated sounding way is all of a sudden able to invade fiction. What’s idiotic about this detail is the timing. Cornell ties it to a particular book being written. Only… no one’s done it until now? No one’s ever written about the conceptual idea of the character Nightmare (who gives people nightmares) until now? Given the intelligence Cornell writes with (most of the time, at least, excepting his scenes between Sue and Reed), it’s a tad contrived.

Well, if it weren’t for Domingues, Cornell might really have something this issue.

Cornell tasks Domingues with drawing various literary figures and he comes up with something out of a “Scooby Doo” cartoon. The artwork here does not cut it–Marvel should be embarrassed. Domingues’s style is unfinished (they should have given him an experienced inker at the least) and almost entirely thoughtless. True Story, this issue shows, needs a visual tone. Domingues can’t bring it.

This issue excels past the first (it’ll probably be the best issue of the series, given the events) as Cornell starts teaming the Fantastic Four with the heroes of Pride and Prejudice. At least, I think it’s Pride and Prejudice, it’s an Austen novel for sure. But it lets Cornell be funny–he’s got a great sense of humor (Dante bickering with an Austen hero).

The end has issues, but it’s a fun read.

I really wanted to love Fantastic Four: True Story, but Cornell just isn’t able to make it precious enough. The concept is somewhat complex–Sue is suffering from melancholy and discovers it has to do with not wanting to read fiction. It turns out the whole world is suffering from a similar melancholy (a major problem with the narrative is Reed “discovering” that universal ailment–someone else would have noticed first).

So the Fantastic Four journey into fiction to find out the problem.

Cornell does a great job with Johnny and Ben–he even abbreviates their bickering, which only lasts a page, but is a fine approach to what otherwise would have been something familiar.

It’s Sue and Reed who come off wrong. Cornell has them blathering to each other like they’re out of a romance novel.

Plus, Domingues’s art fails. He doesn’t do either element–superhero or magical–well.