Try to imagine a solution to everything; not just the problems of the world, or the universe, but everything in existence. How do we reach this perfect world? And what will it cost to bring that vision to life?
Since their creation at the hands of Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, the Fantastic Four have stood as a monument to our limitless hope and imagination: a family bound together through a shared love of adventure. While the team shared countless stories over the years, taking them to the fringes of the unknown, even hope can start to dwindle over time. Decades of fear brought on by the information age would lead to a darker vision of the future, but it would be Marvel’s Civil War that ultimately fractured the four, with Reed Richards’ role in Iron Man’s regime driving a wedge between himself and his family. While talented writers like J. Michael Straczynski and Dwayne McDuffie would take steps to reunite the team, readers were still looking for someone to bring back what made them great in the first place: their desire to explore the unknown, and build the foundations of a better tomorrow.
This return to form would arrive through writer Jonathan Hickman, and a sprawling three-year run that would leave ripples across the entire Marvel Universe, re-establishing the Richards family as its beating heart. Pulling from the team’s past, present, and future, Hickman and an extensive team of artists, inkers, colorists and letterers would deliver a saga that would redefine the Fantastic Four, both as the world’s greatest comic magazine, and the family behind it all.
It Always Begins The Same Way…
Even the grandest stories have to begin somewhere, and for writer Jonathan Hickman, the story of his Fantastic Four begins with one man: Reed Richards. Arriving on the book in 2009 with little knowledge about the team, Hickman began devouring the book’s previous stories, where he found two major sources of inspiration: the FF’s dual identity as both team and family, and Reed’s transformation into a colder, more pragmatic figure. While comics in the early 2000’s had been embracing a darker tone for some time, Reed’s involvement in Marvel’s Illuminati and Iron Man’s pro-registration forces were seen as a complete betrayal both in and out of fiction, with the rest of the FF leaving him behind as his desire for a perfect world boiled over into an obsession. Countless writers would address this shift, with Straczynski and McDuffie having Reed and Sue rebuild their marriage while Mark Millar would bring back the team’s high-concept adventures. But for Hickman, Reed’s turn showed something deeper: a shift in his outlook from boundless optimism to something colder and darker. Something that Reed would have to confront within himself for the team to move forward.
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![[cover by Jack Kirby (p), Paul Reinman (i), Stan Goldberg (c), Art Simek (l)]](https://www.comicbookherald.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/diagram-description-automatically-generated-1-204x300.png)
at DC in the late 1950s might be of interest down the line. After all, it would prove, in retrospect, a trial run for exploring many of the zany sf elements he more successfully expanded on in FF—more grounded by Stan Lee’s character-focused melodrama, however much their contrary styles would see the creative team drift apart over time.)
is one of the title’s most definitive runs, weaving together years of separate stories and firmly re-establishing the team as the beating heart of the Marvel Universe. Hickman would introduce countless iconic stories over his run, but the writer’s greatest mark on the title would come through a 2011 relaunch, with the series re-emerging under the new title “
.” Following the team as they rebuild in the wake of an immense loss, the story acts as the throughline for Hickman’s vision of the Fantastic Four, digging deep into its characters and resting cosmic, existential adventures atop a more grounded tale of grief and hope. But while the story acts as a re-invention of its characters and themes, it’s also a celebration of Marvel’s First Family, and how even in the face of tragedy, hope and adventure can spring eternal.