Fantastic Four: First Teaser Released by Marvel
"Whatever happened to the Fantastic Four?" Ryan North and Iban Coello's Fantastic Four #1, available today, begins with Marvel's first family spread across the country after a devastating event back home in New York. In the new teaser below, the hot-headed Johnny Storm flames on as the Human Torch, Sue and Reed Richards battle Doctor Doom's legion of Doombots as the Invisible Woman and Mister Fantastic, and Ben Grimm, a.k.a. The Thing, protects his wife, Alicia Masters-Grimm. So whatever happened to the Fantastic Four — and when will the superhero team be back together?
Wednesday's Fantastic Four #1 is the first of separate adventures "spotlighting each member of the team before bringing the band back together in epic fashion at the end of the book's first arc," according to Marvel. For North, who follows The Amazing Spider-Man writer Dan Slott's bombshell run that concluded with August's Fantastic Four #46, this all-new era of the FF takes a smaller-scale approach.
"I had the advantage that Dan Slott's run went super huge," North told EW. "In the most recent arc, The Reckoning War, they saved not just the universe, but the multiverse. That made the choice obvious: I'm never going to go as big as Dan did, so let's tell smaller stories about the Fantastic Four. That was my way in."
North continued, "I want to do these smaller, self-contained stories in the vein of '60s Star Trek where they go down to a planet, find a weird thing, fix the weird thing, and move on. Having these four weirdos roll into town where there's a mystery or a problem or some sci-fi thing, solve the problem, and then move on struck me as a very interesting way to position the Fantastic Four and tell stories that would feel fresh and not like a retread of what we've seen before."
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Stories like "The Last Town On The Left," which finds Ben and Alicia on a road trip to Cedar, Pennsylvania. Per the issue's synopsis: "Something has gone terribly wrong in New York, and the Thing and Alicia are traveling across America to escape it! But when they stop in a small town for the night and wake up the morning before they arrived, they find themselves caught in a time loop that's been going on since before they were born... That's been going on since before they were born... That's been going on since before they were born..."
"When read without any expectations, Fantastic Four #1 is an outstandingly sweet superhero story filled with warmth, creativity, and cleverness. However, the newest issue #1 of Stan [Lee] and Jack [Kirby's] foundational series is the last debut to appear without expectations," reads an excerpt from Chase Magnett's issue #1 review for ComicBook. "That's bound to leave readers, myself included, torn between the quality of comics displayed and the entirely unfulfilled promise of this title and cover. The return of Marvel's first family doesn't feature that family, instead opting to tell a bit of prologue focused upon the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing and his wife Alicia Masters-Grimm."
Fantastic Four #1, featuring a cover by Alex Ross, is on sale now.