Johnny, wait! You'll fly away from the camera before the pin-up is ready!
The Fantastic Four were relaunched in 1996 in an Ultimate Universe, the Heroes Reborn project. It was the first comic of that line, and it was managed by Jim Lee.The comic provided a modernized version of the team, tying together many aspects of the series. For instance, the incident in the rocket that gave the Fantastic Four their powers? It was an encounter with Silver Surfer. Yes, they have the power of Galactus. Similarly, the Mole Man and the Inhumans are worshippers of Galactus. The coming of Galactus took place in issue #12, a year later, and it was the start of a Crisis Crossover.
Marvel intended the Heroes Reborn project to continue, but it was canceled because of creative differences with Jim Lee. The characters were then returned to the Marvel Universe and relaunched.
Heroes Reborn: Fantastic Four provides examples of:
- Aborted Arc: In issue #11, Sue reveals she's pregnant with Reed's child (out of wedlock, we'd like to add). Soon afterward, Heroes Return occurred and this plot point was consequently dropped
. - Adaptation Origin Connection: It's the presence of Doctor Doom's minions which forces Reed to fly the ship with Ben, Johnny and Sue to reach a cosmic anomaly before they can destroy it. Besides, the anomaly turns out to be Silver Surfer.
- Adaptational Villainy: Wyatt Wingfoot, a friend of Johnny is the main universe, is an agent of Latveria here. Subverted, as this agent was actually this universe's version of the Super-Skrull. The real Wingfoot is a good guy
- Age Lift: Reed Richards, who is middle-aged in the comics (as the grey streaks are the result of age) is more much closer in age to Sue.
- Canon Foreigner: The finale featured a herald for Galactus named Plasma.
- Didn't Think This Through: The Moleman wants to blow up a city to impress Galactus, so that he appoints him ruler of the planet. Perhaps he missed the part of what will Galactus do when he comes...
- Establishing Character Moment: Johnny's first scene is him driving a luxury car in the middle of the desert towards the space station, in stark contrast with Grimm's military jeep.
- Gullible Lemmings: The citizens attacked the Thing during Namor's invasion, thinking that he was yet another sea monster. This gave Namor the time he needed to recover from the Torch's attack and go after the Thing with full strength.
- How Do I Shot Web?: When they crash their ship in the Caribean, Johnny burst into flames and flies into the water to set them off, before he could even realize that he was flying.
- It's Cuban: Johnny brings a hospitalized Ben a Montecristo cigar "straight from Havana" as a nice gesture.
- Mythology Gag
- The very first panel is a scene taken from Fantastic Four #1
- The team also makes a Team Hand-Stack, first Reed, Sue, and Johnny, and then Ben joins. This, however, was before they got their powers.
- And of course, the first issue features Mole Man.
- The first scene in Atlantis is similar to the first scene of Fantastic Four Annual #1.
- Usually (at least, up to this point) Namor was drawn with just small green trunks. Jim Lee gave him an actual suit, but it was not of his own design, it had been used in older comics.
- Proscenium Reveal: The first scene is just a dream that Ben Grimm usually has.
- Strange Minds Think Alike: Wingfoot and his agents took over the spaceship and confined Reed and Ben to a jail. Reed sits there, thinking, and Ben is angry and can't help it to monologue. Who are those people? How do they know so much about the project? And what do they want the ship for? He then hopes that he's not boring Reed with his ranting, but no: Reed was pondering about exactly the same questions.
- Team Hand-Stack: Reed, Sue, Ben, and Johnny made one to join forces, board the prototype and stop Wingfoot's plans.
- Tempting Fate: Namor claims that there's nobody who can defeat him... while Mjolnir is flying to his head.
- This Cannot Be!: Namor had a hard time accepting that Captain America was standing there, next to him.
