I haven't disliked the book as much as I did during Civil War, but I've found it devoid of anything engaging. It's not bad exactly, and there have been some interesting germs of ideas, but I do not connect with it at all. Every single issue since then has fallen totally flat for me. And that's fine. I don't have any right to expect any comic to hold my interest in the same way over four decades, and Marvel doesn't need to cater to my interests in particular. The book seems to be selling reasonably well, and the broad response seems to be positive, so who am I to argue with which way the winds are blowing?
But I've kept buying it, hoping for things to shift into a groove that I like. And it keeps not happening. Every time I've sat down to read an issue for the past few years, I've put it down feeling disappointed. Again, not that it's necessarily bad, but that I'm not connecting with it at all. I've been at the point for a while now where a new issue comes in, and I set it aside without even trying to read it for months because I'm so unehtused at the prospect. The last issue I read was #6 (pictured above) which seems to have come out on December 3 of last year.
I was going through the ordering process last night for the latest issues of everything, and I decdided that I'm going to set the title aside once again. I've been buying it out of habit, and that's 100% the wrong reason to continue buying anything. And I don't say that as some kind of major pronouncment against Marvel or anything, but to call out the nature of the habit. One of the reasons, I think, readers tend to drop a series only when the publisher starts a new renumbering or a title change or something is because the publisher themselves are "forced" a break in the habit. But like any habit, the best time to break it is when you're ready. When you're able to recognize that what a comic is delivering now is no longer what it delivered previously.
I've looked at the small stack of Fantastic Four issues I've continued buying since December on many occasions. I've added a new issue to that pile every month, and there have been plenty of times I've thought I should sit down to catch up with them. Only to be so unenthused at the propsect that I go on to something else. It can be difficult to recognize that. Particularly with a history of positive experience that goes back literally decades.
I believe I first posted the suggestion of not buying comics out of habit back in 2009. But that can be easier said than done, often because it's difficult to recognize precisely when you stopped buying out of enjoyment (or at least the anticipation of enjoyment). And you don't want to stop reading a book entirely just because they came out with a single bad issue. But you do need to take a few moments to periodically reflect on what you're buying and why. There are thousands of great comics out there; don't waste your time and money on ones just because you used to enjoy them.
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