Fantastic Four: Antithesis #1 starts with the Fantastic Four battling Annihilus, cuts to some familiar relationship issues between the distracted (read as workaholic) Reed and the lonely (read as thirsty) Sue, before sending their lives spiraling when Silver Surfer comes crashing to the ground. The story is a decent, familiar read, but both younger and older reads may find themselves annoyed by dialogue choices. An issue that a lot of writers have when writing dialogue for the Thing, classic and modern included, is the use of phrases like “howcum” (eeeeh), which is obviously a direct homonym for “how come.” That overuse of Ben Grimm’s dialogue quirk is common in many Fantastic Four runs, and it has precedent, so no points off for that… as it isn’t nearly as much of a problem as the Human Torch’s dialogue. The way he’s written by Waid is the embodiment of the “How do you do, fellow kids?” meme. In one of his first lines, he speaks in a hashtag. The very next time he speaks, he says, “Oh, that’s gonna be a meme.” It might, but not because of the way that was meant on the page. It would’ve been a better choice for Waid to double down on the “a new story from a classic era” tone rather than try to ride the line of classic and modern because his writing lends itself far better to the former.