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Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa's strengths serve him well in this first act of "The Stuff of Nightmares." There is a sense that his characters each have an ongoing personal story that remains untold, greatly adding to their depth and complexity. A large part of the story is moved forward simply through dialogue, and action is kept to a minimum. That formula has worked well for the most part throughout this series. Interestingly, the previous arc (MK4 issues 8 and 9) seemed to star the action and turned out to be Aguirre-Sacasa's least engaging story so far.

Possibly related to Aguirre-Sacasa's inexperience with action stories is the fact that we haven't seen the Thing very often at all in this entire series. That begins to change this issue when Ben and his coworkers are attacked by a many-tentacled, multi-headed beast. In one of the more amusing moments, Ben admonishes his coworkers who are about to break down in fear: "You're construction workers, for cripe's sake! In New. York. City. Toughen up, will ya?"

The art team does a commendable job with this issue. The lines are clean and strong and the bright colors are easy on the eyes and make for a pleasurable read. The choice of shots is often quite good, providing a sense of timing that works perfectly with Aguirre-Sacasa's dialogue.

The story itself has not proven very engaging yet. This is perhaps due to Aguirre-Sacasa's style, which better lends itself to the inner turmoil of Reed hunting down a temp job rather than fighting off monstrous aliens. Regardless, the book is solid and worth a read if you're a fan of good (even excellent) dialogue and strong characters.