I went to the midnight release at my local comic shop, got home after 1, and read all three anyway. Marvel cleared the day for these. Midnight X-Men, Midnight Spider-Man, and Midnight Fantastic Four are the only new Marvel comics out today. Marvel is calling the line the Midnight Universe, a horror take on the three titles.
If you are only buying one, buy Midnight X-Men. If you want the easier horror, buy Midnight Spider-Man. Fantastic Four is the one I would not start with.
I also talked through all three in a video: Which Midnight Book Should You Start?
The covers do the same trick. Black, the logo low, and a sliver down the middle. It is not a window. Open the book and the sliver was a slice of a bigger picture. X-Men is yellow. Spider-Man is red. Fantastic Four is blue. Each one has a quote on it. Each one stops for an immersive black information page. These shared elements is part of what makes the three feel like one launch. Jordan White’s note at the end is the same letter in all three, with a sentence pointed at whichever book you are holding.
Midnight X-Men
Jonathan Hickman and Matteo Della Fonte.
The quote on the cover is the one about not wrestling against flesh and blood, but against principalities and the rulers of the darkness of this age.
This is the vampire book, and it says so immediately. Nightcrawler is Bishop Wagner. A cardinal has been sent to deal with his vampires, and Nightcrawler asks which kind. The answer is “yours”. The world is already split between humans and mutants, and the vampires are split too. Human vampires on one side, Empyres on the other, mutants who came back as vampires. The church is in it. So is whatever is left of the X-Men (X-Man?). A broadcast is counting days since the first recorded infection. A team goes into a facility. In the facility they find a set of strongholds, which is the book’s word for a better/enhanced coffin. The lights go out. The strongholds are open. It is the classic creepy horror beat, and it works.
There is action in this one. Two additional groups arrive in time, one that reads as anti-heroes and one that reads as the hero, and they do not show up for the same reason. The middle is the part that does not land clean. The broadcast, the break-in, and those two arrivals are all doing something, and on a first read I could not quite hold the order/connections of it all. That is the risk with a Hickman first issue. It can be a knot that unties, or it can be a knot. I think this will be one that unties. The last scene sells the book, and I am not going to describe it here totally. The peace is supposed to hold, this page asks what happens if it does not.
This is the one with the most world. Hickman is the reason I opened it first – when he is passionate about a project it has huge upside. He sounds like he wanted this one. That was enough to get me in the door, and the issue earned the rest. Of the three, this is the art I like best. It is also the one I am most confident about, which is admittedly not the same as sure. He has missed before. This is the one with the most room to be something special.
Midnight Spider-Man
Phillip Kennedy Johnson and ScieTronc.
The quote is “power makes monsters every time, and monsters just do what they do.”
A kid wants a cat. He does almost everything right, and the cat does not make it. It is the early horror-movie beat, not the scare yet, the gruesome little death that tells you what kind of story you are in. That is where the quote comes from – his dad gives it to him.
Years later, Peter is a science kid in a messy room, arguing with his uncle about Oscorp and a lawsuit. Felicia Hardy (Midnight Black Cat?) shows up as vice president of talent relations for Oscorp. Oscorp wants Peter and there is a contract with a deadline. There is a spider in the building. I never quite know with books like this – is it real or not – but it looks like the panel crossing spider is real this time.
It reads easier than X-Men, and it is more the horror I expected. It is also less of a reinvention than I wanted. Peter is still Peter. He is still the science kid in a familiar setting. This is not the Ultimate version, and it is not an Absolute-style break. The horror is in the experiment and in how violent the transformation is allowed to be. A radioactive spider was always a body-horror pitch – this book just treats it like one. Maybe it is just too early and this book will go off the rails in a good way and give us a entirely new Peter over time.
If you want the easier issue, the one you can hand someone, this is it. I think it will probably be fine, maybe even good, but as a first issue it is second.
Midnight Fantastic Four
Benjamin Percy and Kev Walker.
The quote is “Does the Beast have a name?”
Reed Richards loses his university job in the first scene. A bird hits the glass. Another early horror beat, closer to a jump scare than a scare. Something comes out of the bird causing him to run, and then he does not look into it, which is a strange move for the science guy. I am not sure the book wants us to know if it was real or not. This Reed seems to also have a pill problem.
He breaks into the lab anyway, despite the job loss, and distractedly fires the experiment early. Victor is in the room with him and Victor is the one that nearly meets his doom.
Reed ends up in prison, still working the formula in his head. Sue Storm and Ben Grimm get him out with Johnny flying them out. It is his first flight since “the crash”, and he is on prosthetics. Separate from all of that, there is a Frankenstein table in Latveria with Victor on it, and someone calling him son. Sue, who has a rocket company of some type, has a problem where her rockets keep failing, and the footage from the Trinity site shows a monster is responsible.
The antagonist is in here. It is not clear yet what it is, or who is seeing it. Of the three, the horror is the lightest even if some notes work.
Jordan White’s line for this one is that you have been guided into knowledge mankind was not meant to know. I am staying with it because Marvel cleared a Wednesday for this line, and because an unclear first issue can still turn into something good – but it is last based on what is in my hands today.
Do you have to read all three?
No. They launch a universe, and the letter at the end says the three add up to one picture. You can start with one. I would start with X-Men.
Is there a reading order?
Release order is fine. I read X-Men, then Fantastic Four, then Spider-Man. Nothing in the first issue of one requires the first issue of another.
Are they connected yet?
Not on the page. Same launch, same cover trick, same letter at the end, and same universe. The stories have not crossed.
Which one
X-Men, then Spider-Man, then Fantastic Four.
X-Men if you want the world, the action, and you do not mind a middle that asks you to wait. Spider-Man if you want the easier horror and the character you already know. Fantastic Four if you are buying all three anyway. I am buying the next issue of all three. I am most confident about one of them, and I could be wrong.
If you read one, which one was it? Tag me on X @NostalgicNestEgg
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