"Hey, this rock is a bit heavy. Can I throw it?"
Fantastic Four is a Marvel Comics Comic Book Run launched in 2018 during the Marvel: A Fresh Start initiative, by Dan Slott and Sara Pichelli.
The team had last been seen during Secret Wars (2015). Reed, Sue and their children, as well as the Molecule Man, left to the unknown to restore the multiverse, while Ben and Johnny were left behind. After a few years doing other things, the Thing and the Human Torch reunited in Marvel Two-in-One, and eventually the team was back.
One of their adventures featured Galactus, landing not in New York but in Latveria! This introduced a new character in Latveria, Victorious, a loyal supporter of Dr. Doom, imbued with cosmic power.
After so many years of troubled romance, that time that Alicia was married with Johnny (she was not... but don't ask) and "I Want My Beloved to Be Happy" times of rejection, finally Ben Grimm and Alicia Masters tied the knot. There's the problem that Ben Can't Have Sex, Ever as long as he's the Thing, which means that there are no children in the foreseeable future... or so you would think. They soon find themselves as the adoptive parents of Jo-Venn and N'Kalla, two Kree and Skrull Enfants Terrible.
Remember that failed space trip from Fantastic Four #1? Reed decided to complete it... and we also learn events that took place behind the scenes by then. The FF have a First Contact adventure in another planet, and they return with Skye, Johnny's new "Soulmate" (that's a term from that planet). Their relation, however, was complicated.
Empyre was a Crisis Crossover, but it was heavily based on both this run and The Avengers (Jason Aaron).
Notable Storylines created during this run include:
Fantastic Four (2018) provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: The in-universe catalyst for Points of Origin. After donating the Marvel-1 to the Smithsonian, Reed reflects that the ship never actually completed its voyage to its interstellar destination (nor have he and the Four tried to do the flight again with everything that happened). This is what inspires him to bring them full circle and complete the voyage.
- Actually Pretty Funny: During The Bride of the Doom, Namor is the only guest laughing his ass upon the revelation that Zora has been intimate with Johnny Storm.
- Aesop Amnesia: During a date with Sky, Johnny is upset to find Sue has been following them invisibly and berates her for treating Sky like this when she never did to any of his past girlfriends...then realizes Sue has been doing this with every girl Johnny has ever dated. Sue also brushes off their "soulbond"...until it's proven true when Sky is infected by Knull just because Johnny is. That's followed by a possessed Johnny mocking Sue on "failing as a mother figure" and going too far trying to "protect him." After it's all settled, Johnny and Sky are shown flying off together...and an invisible Sue once more following and noting "sorry, Johnny, but I'll never stop protecting whether you like it or not."
- Berserk Button: Iceman became a member of the FF at some point. Somehow. But don't tell that to Johnny: he will insist that it never happened! Issue #24 reveals that Iceman joined the team during a time Johnny bolted in a case of inflated ego and Iceman felt humiliated during the early days of the X-Men. Turns out Johnny was afraid of being replaced.
- Big Brother Is Watching: The leader of the Spyre is Revos the Overseer, whose cosmic rays induced mutation is remote viewing through holographic eyes that he can also speak and project an image of himself through.
- Bigger on the Inside: As part of the status quo shifts, the whole family moves in with Ben and Alicia into the Number Four apartment on Yancy Street, expanded to the size of their usual dwelling thanks to Reed. An issue had Reed protect families from being evicted out of the neighborhood by also moving them into the apartment complex after expanding its rooms into multiple units.
- Broken Pedestal: Franklin to the mutant nation of Krakoa. When the X-Men realized Franklin was back and with powers, they tried to drag him into their world, and he was happy to follow along. However, when his powers ran out and he needed them most, the Krakoan portals refused him.
- Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu: A literal case happens during Ben and Alicia's honeymoon when Ben has to fight a mind-controlled Hulk. His best Sunday punch knocks the Hulk out, but it also breaks his arm — he sports a vibranium cast for the next several issues.
- Brought Down to Normal: Franklin's losing his amazing powers after spending so much of it rebuilding the multiverse. It finally runs out in Issue #25.
- The Casanova: Lyja shows up, and Skye is surprised to find out that Johnny had another "soul mate" before her. Were there others? He took some hours to list them all.
- Clap Your Hands If You Believe: When Reed and Ben are trapped in a dimension based on pure thought- as in anything they imagine is created- after Ben accidentally creates monsters that destroy the complex Forever Gate they used to travel there, Reed is able to rebuild the Gate in moments rather than a month using his knowledge of the Gate and Ben's faith that he can do something like that.
- Continuity Overlap: As one of the A Fresh Start flagship titles, the Slott era runs alongside the then-current Marvel Universe (2018-2022) and acknowledges and/or is affected by developments in other books:
- Infinity Countdown: Slott's run opens after the events of Gerry Duggan's Cosmic Marvel event. This ends up being part of the catalyst for the Herald of Doom arc, as Galactus is back to being the Devourer of Worlds.
- War of the Realms: As one of New York's superhero teams, the Four get caught up in the fight against Malekith (both in the main event and here in their own book).
- The Avengers (Jason Aaron): The Aaron-era team roster is utilized for Empyre.
- X-Men: The Krakoan Age: The establishment of the Mutant Nation affects the Four (as they're initially very interested and invested in bringing Franklin, a Omega-level Mutant, into the fold).
- Iron Man 2020 (Event): Despite Slott writing Tony Stark's book concurrently with Fantastic Four, there's no real connective tissue between the two runs. The only real overlap is H.E.R.B.I.E. bailing on the Fantastic Four (albeit in the pages of Incoming! to join the Robot Revolution.
- Future Foundation: In issue #26, Slott picks up and resolves the Foundation's storyline (which was left hanging after the spinoff book's run was cut short.) This ends up being very important to the run's second half as the return of Lyja in that book furthers tensions between Johnny and Sky — which leads into the fateful events of The Bride of Doom.
- Silver Surfer: Black: When Norrin Radd finally pops up in issue #27, he's now sporting his Donny Cates-era black design. The events of Cates' mini-series are also acknowledged here.
- King in Black: As with War of the Realms, the Four being a New York-based team means they also get caught up in Knull's invasion both in the event and in their own book.
- Doctor Doom: The events of Christopher Cantwell's spinoff are eventually acknowledged and impact in the main book going into The Bride of Doom (ex. the annexation of Symkaria).
- She-Hulk (2022): Jennifer's post-Jason Aaron restoration and return to the legal profession is acknowledged during the penultimate arc. Jennifer and Jack of Hearts also end up major players in The Reckoning War shortly thereafter.
- Thor (2020): The death of Galactus early on in the Donny Cates run gets revisited during Reckoning War, as the Silver Surfer and Thor have to bring him back to life to help fight the Reckoning.
- Judgment Day (Marvel Comics): Zigzagged. Slott's run technically concludes with issue #46 and thus he doesn't tie into the event. However, the 2018 Volume ran two additional issues and they show events on the Four's end (while still acknowledging Slott's status quo).
- Continuity Snarl: The retcon that states Franklin is no longer a mutant. Ignoring the sheer amount of plot holes it opens up regarding Franklin's previous stories, it also contradicts recent and current stories.
- X-Men / Fantastic Four shows that Franklin loses his powers at a much slower rate when he's on Krakoa. But once he's revealed to not be a mutant, this connection is quietly ignored.
- Even if he wasn't a mutant, humans are allowed on Krakoa as a mutant's plus one. Considering he has friends on the island (including some of its leaders) and Xavier acknowledges that him being an imposter wasn't his fault, Xavier coldly exiles him from Krakoa, and that's the end of that.
- Didn't Think This Through:
- An exasperated Sue points this out to Reed in Point of Origin after he reveals the Overseer's hitherto unknown role in the Four's creation and the lies he told to Spyre for over a decade. Reed was so focused on getting the truth out to show the Four weren't evil alien invaders that he didn't stop to consider such revelations might trigger a popular uprising...or how Ben Grimm was going to react upon learning who was *really* responsible for his transformation into the Thing.
- Stated explicitly by Rama-Tut; after the temporally-mixed-up FF defeat his other selves, he attempts to attack them with his Time Sphinx, but the team gleefully observe that they've been destroying giant monsters since their first day on the job.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: After being set as the most powerful being in the multiverse, the Molecule Man is casually killed by a Generic Doomsday Villain. The short-lived Future Foundation comic was set on the kids rescuing him.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: In issue #46, after Johnny is cured of the enhanced space radiation that kept him flamed on, Ben is asked if he would like to use it as well. However, he declines, realizing that his rocky form gave him a wife and two children and he's the happiest he's ever been.
- Enfant Terrible: Jo-Venn and N'Kalla, Kree and Skrull children, are cute and adorable as they come. They are also Proud Warrior Race Blood Knights.
- Exact Words: In issue #2, the Griever defeats Reed, Sue, and the Future Foundation and gloats that she thought it would be harder. Reed responds by saying that if the Fantastic Four were fully assembled they would have beaten her. Being a good sport, she agrees to let Reed summon the rest of the team for a rematch. Instead of just beaming in Johnny and Ben, however, Reed brings every past member of the Fantastic Four, including people who were only on the team for a handful of issues like Luke Cage and Ghost Rider. The resulting team contains most of Marvel's heavy hitters (Hulk, She-Hulk, Black Panther, Wolverine, Storm, Spider-Man, etc).
- The Exile: Franklin is booted out of Krakoa after Xavier reveals that he was never a mutant in the first place.
- Encyclopedia Exposita: The Cyclopedia Universum is the sum of all knowledge a Watcher has ever seen. Which means, of course, that it allows for a good number of Continuity Porn panels.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- In issue #35, when Kang worked with his variants to attack the FF across different time periods, he and Immortus expressed disgust that Kang's future self, the Scion, claimed to have killed Reed and Ben during his attack on the FF by de-aging them to infants (although it turned out that the Scion was actually a disguised Reed Richards who had faked the attack).
- In issue #37, Alicia nearly uses the Puppet-Master's clay to "fix" Jo-Venn by removing his lingering Blood Knight tendencies after he killed the Profiteer's soldiers. The Puppet-Master takes control of Hiram and begs her to stop, claiming even he would never use the clay on his own child like that. Fortunately, Alicia listens.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Essentially the main reason the Wizard's court case in #39 didn't go his way; while he tried to emphasise the dangers and failures of the FF as parents, such as how Franklin had lost his powers and Valeria endangered herself with her experiments, the judge listened when Franklin explains that his parents accompany him to relevant therapy sessions and Valeria affirms that Reed is the reason her flawed experiments turn into life lessons.
- False Utopia: The Spyre is very assertive that they're a perfect society but they're such paranoid isolationists that the mere existence of another race inspired them to instate a draft that empowers citizens with cosmic rays. This process can cause horrific mutations in approximately a fourth of all subjects, and victims of this particular transformation are then shunned for their hideousness and treated like garbage.
- Fish out of Water: Sky from the xenophobically isolationist civilization of Spyre is very naïve about the wider universe. She's surprised to learn that there's at least four sapient species along with Humans and Spyricans when she hears about the Kree and Skrulls. Alicia just gives a bemused response to that.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Sky shows up at an event, Johnny is worried he can't "feel" her and that the soulbond has failed. It turns out it's not Sky at all but Lyja posing as her.
- A Fool for a Client: The Wizard started a trial to recover the legal tutelage of Bentley. He is his own lawyer.
- Fully Absorbed Finale: Issue #26 serves as one for Jeremy Whitley's Future Foundation, picking up and resolving the Foundation's storyline after their book got cancelled.
- Happily Adopted: The Kree and Skrull children Jo-Venn and N'Kalla were freed from the space casino that had them making Gladiator Games, and adopted by Ben and Alicia.
- He's Back!:
- The Fantastic Four are back. Duh.
- Issue #25 brings back Nick Fury Sr. as a regular fighting agent.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Dr. Doom and Galactus became good guys while the team was away (in Infamous Iron Man and The Ultimates (2015)), but returned to their usual selves in time for the FF's return.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: The Wizard's attempt to gain custody of Bentley is ended in #39 when Bentley uses the Wizard's own cloning technology to create a more genetically "perfect" clone of his 'father' and make the Wizard think that he is a clone of himself, allowing Bentley to essentially emancipate himself by having custody of himself transferred to the 'clone' so he can pursue his own projects.
- Human Aliens: The people of the Spyre look exactly like dark-skinned humans.
- Hypocrite
- The Unseen complains that he was forced by the Watchers to see everything and not do anything. Uatu criticizes him because he did do some things, in spite of that rule. Yes, Uatu. The Watcher who is definitely the one to talk about "never interfering".
- Sue is angry to learn that Reed has a dangerous device hidden at the Baxter building, that he never told her about. But, although Dr. Doom is above petty marital disputes, he pointed that Sue wouldn't be at the Latverian embassy if she did not take missions from Nick Fury... missions that Reed knows nothing about. Sue's forced to concede Reed's got her there.
- Sue seems upset over Johnny holding some secrets...and then Johnny realizes in a fight that Sue has been invisibly spying on him with every woman he's ever dated.
- Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: The people of the Spyre are such isolationists that they immediately crapped their pants to learn Earth existed and human technology was advanced enough to contact them. Sky is shocked to learn that there as many as four sentient races when she learns of the Kree and the Skrulls, with Alicia joking that she'll be blown to learn just how populated the universe is.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Sky holds that she knows Johnny is in trouble because of their "soulbond." Sue snaps that this is nothing but some alien bracelet, refusing to believe Sky is anything more than another of her brother's flings. At which point, Sky is instantly possessed by Knull, just as Johnny has been. To her credit, Sue instantly acknowledges her mistake and "I'll apologize when you're yourself."
- Interspecies Romance: The Overseer determines Johnny's soulmate to be Sky, a member of the Spyre's Unparalled.
- The Maker: Franklin Richards created several alternate universes... and the Griever destroyed a good number of them. One day, the FF had created a space gate, and countless aliens started to emerge from it. They were all survivors of destroyed realities, all of them acknowledging Franklin as their creator, even as a God.
- Meaningful Name: Reed’s experimental rocket is named here as Marvel-1, an acknowledgment of the Fantastic Four launching the Marvel Universe with their 1st issue.
- Naked People Are Funny: Sue embarrassed Dr. Doom while he broadcasting to the whole world... by making his armor invisible. Yes. All of it.
- Noodle Incident: It's idly revealed that Iceman became a member of the Fantastic Four. Though the editor's note says that it's a story for another time, all that's known about it is that it was a spur of the moment thing and that Johnny considers it "non-canon".
- Power Incontinence: Doom invokes this on Johnny with a cosmic ray machine, making him incapable of flaming off.
- Power Loss Depression: Issue #25 has Franklin lose his powers after a fight with an enemy called the Cormorant. Desperate to restore his powers, he tries to enter Krakoa using a special gateway only to find it doesn't work for him. Xavier contacts him and reveals that Franklin was never really a mutant but someone who altered himself to have an X-gene in order to fulfill his subconscious desire to be special. This revelation utterly devastates Franklin who was already moping about being a "normal" person.
- Replacement Scrappy: Invoked during the Dan Slott era. The FF want to resume their original mission of space exploration, the one in the rocket that crashed and gave them their powers. In a new and improved version of that old and vintage rocket, even. The Thing refused to take part in that nonsense, and was very adamant in his refusal. But he's not a complete jerk, so he will salute the team before they leave... and they are all happy, with an H.E.R.B.I.E. robot at his chair! Ben immediately changes his mind, suits up and joins the gang. And then he discovers that it was just a prototype H.E.R.B.I.E. that does not work, and that the pilot seat in the new rocket is bigger, sturdier and designed for someone with big hands.
- Resolved Noodle Incident: In the first arc Reed makes a machine that summons all the characters (besides the main 4) who have been members of the FF along the years. Iceman, who had never been in the team in previously published comics, is among them. The circumstances were explained in issue #24.
- Retcon:
- An arc first changes that the FF weren't trying to go to the moon, but using prototype FTL technology to travel to a far off planet when they had their fateful accident. Then it's further revealed that this storm was sent at them intentionally by the inhabitants of this world in a paranoid attempt to destroy them.
- Issue #26 reveals that Franklin was never a mutant, that his desire to be special caused his cosmic powers to rewrite his entire cellular form to create something resembling the X-Gene.
- Rules Lawyer: Issue 38 sees the Wizard attempt to gain custody of his son/clone Bentley-23; not only is able to manipulate the evidence to claim that his past crimes were actually committed by a clone of himself, but he later attempts to create the impression that the team as a whole are bad parents so that they will be stripped of guardianship of the entire Future Foundation, including Ben and Alicia's new children and Franklin and Valeria themselves.
- Running Gag: If Spider-Man shows up, expect the webslinger to be disrespected in some way.
- Shapeshifter Weapon: The leader of the Unparalleled, Strongarm, has arms made of liquid metal that he can morph into whatever he wants.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: This run introduces the people of the Spyre, an entire planet of isolationist aliens with paranoid xenophobia towards outsiders and haughty cultural posturing. They also have a method to empower themselves that occasionally mutates them into fearsome monsters. Sounds a lot like the currently on hiatus Inhumans.
- Synchronization: Soul bands aren't just rings that can only be removed by spouses, they also remotely connect them. When Johnny gets possessed by Knull, Sky is possessed through her soul bond. And when Johnny cheats on her, Sky feels that too.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ben, Johnny and Valeria were captured by Knull symbiote during the King in Black tie-in. Their attacks on Reed, Sue and Franklin were more verbal than anything. When everything was over, Reed and Ben were at a bar, drowning their sorrows. Ben tried to excuse himself saying that Knull made him say all that, but Reed did not buy it: he knows him well enough, he knows that deep down he does think that... and he forgives him.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: During the 60th anniversary issue, Kang the Conqueror attacks the team at different points in their history with the aid of the Scarlet Centurian, Rama-Tut, Immortus, and a previously-unknown future version of Kang known as "the Scion". After the various Kangs had attacked the FF at different points in their history, the Scion revealed himself to be the present version of Reed in disguise, who had infiltrated the Kang's attacks to save one member of the FF from each time period and bring them together to help him confront the Kangs.
- The Watson: Lyja returns to Earth, after being lost with the Future Foundation, and finds out that the Kree and the Skrull are allies now! Now she badly needs a recap of Empyre.
- Wedding Smashers: The Thing tried his best to defy this trope, so usual in superhero weddings. No superheroes, no speeches, no shenanigans, no nothing; just the immediate family in a private ceremony in the middle of nowhere. And even so, it got ruined. Dr. Doom announced to all the world that Galactus has landed in Latveria... so of course the Fantastic Four must drop everything and go there. Fortunately, Reed knew that something like this would happen, so he prepared a small temporal bubble where Ben and Alicia could get married while time stands still outside before the FF go off to confront Galactus.
- What the Hell, Hero?: In issue 37, Alicia is scolded by the Puppet Master for using his clay to control her kids.
- Villain Team-Up: A variation of sorts in issues #12-13 with the Immortal Hulk under the Puppet Master's control. The Hulk is well aware he's an Unwitting Pawn and isn't fighting back against the mind control — at least not initially. Even Banner's terrifying Immortal Hulk incarnation isn't above brawling with the Thing (especially with this chance to finally settle their rivalry for good). Once the mind control wears off, however, then the Immortal Hulk makes sure his "partner" regrets this in the morning (and does).
