You guys need to get on the new avengers hype train.
Two things -
1) yes
2) dude, spoilers. If someone's not read the series yet, that's a pretty pivotal moment right there.
Anyway, Avengers being so good lately has spurred me on to re-read Hickman's FF run and it's way way better than I even remember it. I think this could be on of my top 5 runs on a book easily. It's just so sweet, the way Hickman writes the kids is just stunning and the series is full of this breezy hope and excitement, even when the stakes are stupid high. The Richards are an inspirational family, Reed is aloof but filled embued with a sense of wonder - as readers we're kept in the dark as to what he's up to but we trust him, his enthusiasm for The Future is contagious and exciting (I just read 579 where he dresses down a convention filled with scientists and starts the Future Foundation).
Hickman's adding to the cast from the word dot as well. Bentley 32 is cowering in the first issue of the run, and as readers we have no idea how rewarding his growth will be. The moloid kids pop up in the High Evolutionary city and are amazing from the first moment, how they're both old and young, genius and sweet idiots. I think the book sometimes struggles with the sheer amount of kids in it (from an art side at least, it's hard to tell them apart sometimes, and it's missing the vital piece that Fraction added of making one of the moloids a girl) but on a second read that difficulty falls away because you know these guys by now, and it's evident very quickly that Hickman knew very well too.
Sue is interesting too - it feels like Hickman has made her a little quieter, but also more important. It's a hard task to write the 'perfect, strong mother' and not have her come across as flat and boring but I think he pulls it off. Reed is intellect, Sue is empathy.
Art is a fairly mixed bag - is it me, or is Neary as important for the Bryan Hitch look as much as Bryan Hitch? His inks on Edwards are very much Hitch-lite (dude is very fond of big faces like Hitch too), but it's missing a bit of his attention to detail. But the Eaglesham stuff is godly, I really wish he'd stuck around longer. His Kirby-tastic designs of the FF are incredible, Reed especially. He's brawny and rugged, like a 1940's explorer! So cool! A shame he gradually morphed back into ol' pencil-neck over the course of the run. His new look implied a brashness and sense of the rugged outdoorsman that he'd never really had before.
. Fuck #1s