I haven't read Fantastic Four for a very long time, but Ben Grimm and Alicia Master's wedding is a pretty significant Marvel event as those go, since the two have been together for decades (in our reality, anyway). It was an opportunity to let Alicia Masters finally shine. She's possibly the single comics character with a disability and without superpowers, but she always seemed to be defined by her disability, her love for Ben, and at times, her sculpting - but nothing beyond that. And their marriage could have held an important message about love overcoming adversity and judgment.
Nope! Instead the creators decided to weigh down this momentous occasion with shallow and disconnected storylines that weren't about Alicia and Ben at all. Instead they prioritized the flash and glitter of a bunch of superheroes and supervillains - essentially, staying true to the genre's tropes, to the detriment of any real emotion or development.
The problems are evident in the opening pages of Alicia's bachelorette party, when her friends (all superheroes) take the bachelorette, who again, is blind...to a strip club. Even worse, because Alicia can't see the strippers, the girls convince her to undress one instead. What??! This fixes nothing and creates HUGE issues of consent and ableism - instead of creating a bachelorette party comfortable for Alicia, she has to bend to ableist and misogynist tropes. It's not hard: a wine and sculpture party. There, I did it. But we're already in hell, so of course a villain crashes the club and Alicia retreats into the background as the superhero women punch stuff. (Because readers can't handle a comic without punching stuff!) I'm aghast that Gail Simone wrote this, and part of me has to believe that she had serious writing constraints.
The other issues were utterly forgettable, and the reprinted issues are sad filler (and of course are problematic in a totally different way). There is NOT ONE issue devoted just to Alicia and Ben. Who are they as a couple, even??! Has anyone bothered to spend actual time and effort on their relationship? It cheapens the wedding, and if I may be fully cynical, implies that they're getting married just as a marketing ploy, and not because their relationship is ready for it.
The wedding issue itself is still not really about Ben and Alicia. Marvel can't see beyond the tropes of their own genre and underestimates their readership. Instead of having an actual wedding issue, the ceremony is interrupted by supervillain noise, and worst of all, Ben leaves Alicia right after the ceremony - once again, she retreats into the background as an unimportant person, instead of a character worthy of a story.
It's gross, it's sexist, and once again, disturbingly ableist: it implies that people with disabilities like Alicia are not worthy of stories.
Also, again please indulge me, if the wedding is supposed to be the point of the book, and it's gonna be a Jewish wedding, maybe draw the tallitot (prayer shawls) correctly, and show more than one ritual other than breaking the glass, which is the most iconic, but not the most important part. There are plenty of other elements that could have been shown, like the bride and groom circling each other, or the priestly blessing.
I'm salty because I'm Jewish, but even more so, because Ben's Jewishness is central to his identity. Jack Kirby made it an essential part of his character and infused his own past into Ben's origin story. (And I would be just as pissed if they did this to other heroes with important religious identities, like Nightcrawler, Daredevil or Kamala Kahn.) If this is a wedding issue, then maybe make it look like it actually matters instead of phoning it in for two pages.
What a disappointing book. We learn nothing new about Alicia, who barely matters in her own wedding story - just like in the early comics, it feels like she just exists to love Ben. Speaking of whom, Ben Grimm is his same old self which is...fine, but not interesting. I was extremely disappointed in this comic and won't be returning to Fantastic Four for a while.