Start Reading Marvel's Fantastic Four Now: Best Time Ever

While Deniz Camp and Juan Frigeri’s The Ultimates may have clinched the title of the Best Comic Book Series or Original Graphic Novel of 2024, Marvel's Fantastic Four came tantalizingly close to stealing the spotlight. Currently, the series is enjoying a peak in quality, thanks to the creative prowess of writer Ryan North and his team. With the upcoming release of The Fantastic Four: First Steps in theaters, Marvel is strategically positioning the comic to capture a broader audience this summer.

Come July, Marvel will relaunch Fantastic Four, yet fans can breathe easy knowing that North remains at the helm. The new volume will see North collaborating with acclaimed artist Humberto Ramos, previously known for his work on The Amazing Spider-Man. Together, they will navigate Marvel’s First Family through the aftermath of the One World Under Doom crossover and embark on thrilling time-travel adventures.

To delve deeper into the relaunch and understand why it serves as an ideal entry point for new readers, IGN conducted an email interview with North. Before diving into the interview, take a moment to explore an exclusive preview of the first issue in the slideshow gallery below. Discover how the new volume aims to portray the Fantastic Four not just as a family, but as a group of friends.

Fantastic Four #1: Exclusive Preview Gallery

View 9 ImagesIt might seem counterintuitive to renumber the series with North still steering the ship and the story's direction largely unchanged—a move not uncommon for Marvel. However, North sees this as a golden opportunity. With the impending release of a new Fantastic Four movie, the relaunch aims to make the comic more enticing and accessible to those inspired by the film.

"An opportunity comics have as a medium is always to expand," North shared with IGN. "There are millions of people who don't read comics, who think comics aren't for them, and they're wrong! There are a ton of comics that are absolutely for them, but they just haven't found them yet, or maybe haven't felt like they were invited in to read them. Especially in superhero comics, where every book has a number on it and people may think they have to start with number one, it can be a real challenge. So by giving readers that new number one, the hope is that if they see the movie and love it and want to know more about these fantastic people, that's at least one less barrier for them to overcome."

The most significant change in the new series is the transition to Ramos on art. North revealed that he and Ramos have been meticulously planning this relaunch for some time.

"We were lucky enough to meet and have breakfast at San Diego Comic-Con a while back, before he even started work on this new series and before I even started writing them, so we got to talk about the characters and what we like about them from the word go," North explained. "He is a very creative and generous collaborator, always down to punch up an idea and able to render those ideas with such excitement and verve. I think people are going to really love what he's been coming up with, and it's been a real trial these past several months sitting on top of all this great art and being unable to share it with anyone."

Ramos’s renowned speed as an artist offers North a significant advantage. With a more consistent art team, North can tailor his scripts more precisely to Ramos's style, a luxury he didn’t always have in the previous volume.

"I've been lucky enough to work with a ton of great artists on Fantastic Four, but I'm usually so far ahead with the scripting that I don't know who the artist is going to be when I'm writing it," North noted. "It's always my preference to know the artist, because then you can write for them and create something that can be a better melding of the two of your interests, and with knowing Humberto has been on this book for so long, it's been really great to get to write specifically for him for issue after issue."

While a new #1 issue always helps, it’s worth noting that North’s run on FF has been structured to be accessible from the start. Each issue offers a standalone adventure while contributing to a broader narrative, similar to Rick and Morty. Does the relaunch alter this format?

"Not really, but I am using it as an opportunity to lean a bit more into that larger narrative!" North explained. "I still want each issue to stand alone, and I want every issue to be a place for someone to jump on and get a fully satisfying story with every issue they pick up, but I am turning the dial a little bit more towards larger and crazier stories for that larger narrative. I'm not changing the special sauce - as Ben would say, ‘I'm just adding a couple cloves of garlic - not because it's not delicious, I just wanna add a little bit of zip.’"

When the relaunch was announced, North expressed a desire to focus on the FF as friends, not just family. How does this dynamic manifest in the storytelling?

"It's maybe a subtle distinction, but I really love my friends, and wanted to tell stories about people who are in these long-running relationships that they don't have to be, but they choose to be," North said. "And that's not that different from family, in the sense that, yes, you are born into a family, but you have to choose to stay there - you have to put the effort in to maintain and develop the relationships that are important to you. And if you look at the Fantastic Four, we often think of them as a family, but only two of them, Johnny and Sue, actually are family at the start. But they all choose each other, they all choose to stay with each other and become something more, and I think that's really fun and beautiful and interesting. Guess what I'm trying to say is the distance between good friends and found family maybe isn't as wide as I thought it was."

One challenge with relaunching Fantastic Four this summer is the ongoing One World Under Doom crossover. North assured that the new series will not sidestep this event but will leverage it to kick off with a compelling Doctor Doom story.

"One of the challenges of relaunching like this is we're trying to do a new number one that's an easy on-ramp for new readers, but also it's right in the middle of the One World Under Doom event, and we don't want to ignore that either," North said. "So the first story is a Doom story, giving the Fantastic Four the chance to actually fix everything that Doom has done - this involves a big, weird science fiction idea - and then we're off to the races with a whole bunch of other new, weird, big science fiction ideas."

One significant development in One World Under Doom has been Doom curing Ben Grimm of his rocky condition, a move to assert his superiority over Reed Richards. Yet, the preview art suggests Ben reverts to The Thing in the new series. Will the relaunch address this twist?

"We’ll actually get to see how it is resolved in the last moments of the previous run, so that we're not starting this new one with an unresolved plot thread!" North hinted. "I do really want it to be accessible to that new and curious person who wants to know more about the Fantastic Four, so I'm trying to keep the back story they need to know to as much of a minimum as I can for this first little bit. Which might sound hard, but it's also something that I've been doing the entire run so far. The Fantastic Four have literal decades of history, but I want to make sure that nobody is lost when they pick up an issue and everyone is welcome to the party, you know?"

Fantastic Four #1 is slated for release on July 9, just ahead of The Fantastic Four: First Steps hitting theaters. Below is the solicitation for Fantastic Four #2:

FANTASTIC FOUR #2

Written by RYAN NORTH

Art and Cover by HUMBERTO RAMOS

Sue Storm, stranded deep in the future at the end of Earth’s history, is the last thing alive on the once-vibrant world. How can she make it back to her proper time before being killed? Meanwhile, Reed Richards, stranded in Earth’s past, waits for a rescue from her that will never come...unless there’s some way their relationship – the deep and loving understanding this man and woman have for each other – can transcend time itself...

Meanwhile, in the present, Doom reveals precisely how he’s managed to stymie the Fantastic Four for so long: a secret to his invincibility that has transformed every loss into a win! And it’s one that makes Emperor Doom invincible...

On Sale 8/13

In other Fantastic Four news, the upcoming movie is accompanied by a prequel comic that explores the origins of Pedro Pascal's Reed and his family, marking one of the first comics in years to directly tie into the MCU.