Ultimate Fantastic Four is a superhero American comic book series published by Marvel Comics. The series is a modernized re-imagining of Marvel's long-running Fantastic Four comic book franchise as part of the Ultimate Marvel imprint. The Ultimate Fantastic Four team exists alongside other revamped Marvel characters in Ultimate Marvel titles including Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates.
While the characters remain relatively faithful to their original Marvel Universe conception, they differ in a number of notable aspects. The origin story of the team is modified and modernized and the team is much younger, being in their late teens to early 20s. The series revolves around the adventures of teen genius: Reed Richards, his childhood friend: Ben Grimm, and siblings: Susan and Johnny Storm, who get engulfed in a malfunctioned teleporter experiment and begin to develop super-powers: Reed can stretch his body to impossible lengths, Susan can project force fields and turn invisible, Johnny develops pyrokinetic super-powers and Ben is transformed into a rocky-skinned figure with super-human strength and durability. The series takes place in contemporary New York City and was met with mostly favorable responses from readers and critics, with the fresh, unique and modernized re-imagining of the classic Fantastic Four mythos, the artwork and the writing runs of Millar, Bendis and Ellis, being points of praise, while criticism was aimed at the perceived decline in quality of the writing, as the series progressed.
The title was created by Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar and Adam Kubert. The series debuted in early 2004 and had a monthly publishing schedule. Issue #60, the last of the series, was written by Joe Pokaski and drawn by Tyler Kirkham and was followed by a series epilogue in Ultimate Fantastic Four: Requiem.
Publication history Ultimate Fantastic Four was the fifth continuing series of the Ultimate Marvel series, after Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men and The Ultimates and Ultimate Marvel Team-Up. The first writers assigned by project leader Bill Jemas were Mark Millar (The Ultimates, Ultimate X-Men) and Brian Michael Bendis (Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men), who had both previously written comics in the Ultimate Marvel universe. Grant Morrison was involved in conceptualizing Ultimate Fantastic Four and was at one point set to write the series. However, Morrison departed from Marvel for an exclusivity contract with DC Comics before this could be finalized. Bryan Hitch designed the costumes for the characters, thus explaining their aesthetic resemblance to the costumes worn by the protagonists of The Ultimates.
In the Ultimate Fantastic Four Vol. 1 hardcover edition, Millar and Bendis write about the somewhat odd circumstances of their collaboration. Foremost, virtual communication was the only method available as Millar lives in Glasgow, Scotland, and Bendis in Portland, Oregon. Secondly, they both had considerably different writing styles, as Millar's stories are typically fast-paced and widescreen, while Bendis' output is more dialogue-heavy and slow-paced and both writers feared it could wreck the project. It was agreed that Millar would write the plot and Bendis finalized the scripts based on his plots.
Millar completely rewrote the origin for the protagonists because he was not satisfied with the original 1961 story, in which the four team members steal a space craft to beat the Soviets to the moon. In their version, Millar and Bendis wrote a story in which Reed Richards is a child prodigy, protected by his burly friend Ben Grimm from bullies, who had invented a method of teleportation in his youth. He is discovered by government official Willie Lumpkin, and subsequently recruited into a think tank/school located in the upper floors of the Baxter Building. There he meets Professor Storm, who leads the project, and his children, bioengineer Susan Storm and her younger brother Johnny. Reed also becomes the rival of Victor Van Damme, a fellow student. When Reed turns 21, he plans to teleport an apple into a parallel universe (the "N-Zone"), but Van Damme claims Reed's calculations are wrong and changes the setup at the last minute. The five students are teleported through the N-Zone, and when they rematerialize, they are heavily mutated. After the Fantastic Four return to the Baxter Building, they face their first opponent, Mole Man.
Although staying relatively true to the original stories, Millar's storylines and writing deviated from the original source material in notable ways, almost bypassing the original works by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Most notable were changes to the characters' personality and backgrounds. The character of Reed Richards, in the mainstream Marvel Comics super-intelligent and a true leader, had his previous role split, with Professor Storm taking his leader traits, while the 21-year-old idealist Reed retains his super-intelligence. Reed no longer automatically assumes leadership of the team in demanding situations, a role more often filled by Sue Storm. She was little more than a damsel in distress in the early comics, but in this version, she is the most head-strong and assertive member of the team, and has a gift for biochemistry and bioengineering. Ben Grimm, no longer Reed's college friend but his grade-school friend, is not as intelligent and has to have science explained to him, providing an opportunity for plot dumps.
In the end, both writers were satisfied with the results. Millar and Bendis stated that they had many more ideas, but massive scheduling problems forced them out. Instead, they persuaded Warren Ellis to continue the series. Ellis wrote the next arc, "Doom", centering on Victor Van Damme. He made Van Damme a descendant of Dracula, a boy whose childhood ended when he was 10, formed by his severe, authoritarian father. Ellis also fleshed out the hard science fiction element behind the FF, namely writing that they gained their powers because the teleportation changed their "phase space condition" into something from an alternate universe; in laymen's terms, there are multiple conceivable states of an object, a 'phase space' of all the possible ways they could be. While in the N-Zone, each one of them mutated into another form that they could have been. It was also explained that Reed's body functions because his cells were replaced with "pliable bacterial stacks", single cells which duplicate most of the larger functions of the human body and does not rip or tear when he extends.
The next arc "N-Zone" has the four traveling on the spaceship Awesome (a name of Johnny's choice) to the dimension where they got their powers. They encounter an alien named Nihil whose dimension has only a few hundred thousand years left before succumbing to an entropic heat death, and wishes to escape from his world to ours.
In "Think Tank" the team meet Rhona Burchill (a re-imagined Mad Thinker), who captures them and attempts to sell them to the highest bidder. In Ultimate Fantastic Four Annual #1, they meet Crystal of the Inhumans, and as a result of trespassing on their home destroy it, forcing the Inhumans to move to a new one. "Crossover" has them encountering zombie-infected versions of themselves and every other hero of that world. With the help of that world's Magneto, the Fantastic Four manage to escape with the few survivors. "Tomb of Namor" has the Four encountering Atlantian criminal Namor who only leaves when he gets a kiss from Susan Storm. In "Super-Skrull" Reed Richards goes back in time to the teleportation accident to ensure it does not go wrong. There is dispute amongst the team whether this is the right course of action. However, after a cruel prank played by Johnny Storm on Ben Grimm, the team realize just how depressed Ben is being trapped inside 'the Thing'. Reed goes back and makes the experiment a success. This alters the timeline so that everyone on the planet except Ben has superpowers thanks to the Skrull pill given to them by the Skrulls and the leader Super-Skrull. The Skrulls however have tricked humanity and the still-human Ben Grimm is their last hope. In "Frightful", Johnny is infected with an illness only Doctor Doom can cure; it also features the escape of the Frightful Four. In "God War", alien terrorists attack Reed, who is looking for a seed while also facing a powerful enemy. The next arc "Devils" introduces Diablo who kidnaps those close to the four as bait; he intends to get immortality by using Reed's sister as a power source.
Ultimate Fantastic Four, along with Ultimate X-Men was canceled after the events of the 2008 – 2009 Ultimatum miniseries.
The members of the team are the focus of Ultimate Comics: Doomsday.
Ultimate FF A new volume dubbed Ultimate FF (with "FF" standing for "Future Foundation", not "Fantastic Four") was launched in April 2014, starring Invisible Woman, Iron Man, the Falcon, Machine Man, Phil Coulson and Victor van Damme. The title was written by Joshua Hale Fialkov and Stuart Moore, with art by Mario Guevara, Tom Grummett and André Araújo. In August 2014 with the release of issue 6, Ultimate FF was officially cancelled.
Team roster Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic / Maker
Reed is a child genius who displayed his curiosity from the day he was born. At the age of 11, following a demonstration of his research on the field of teleportation at a school science fair, Reed was recruited for a government program which sponsors young geniuses' research. He continued his research at the government research facility located in Manhattan's Baxter Building. At the age of 21, his research was realized as he and several others attempted to teleport organic material through an alternate plane of existence called the N-Zone. The experiment went awry giving Reed and several others superpowers. His powers enable him to stretch his body parts to incredible lengths and endow him with enhanced durability.
Reed's powers have been increased in comparison to that of his Earth-616 counterpart. He no longer needs to eat nor sleep, and has no internal organs or bones. He can stretch his eyes, specifically the lens so that he does not need his glasses or any other visual augmentation but can only sustain this for short periods. Sue's mother revealed that she knows that Reed's abilities allow him to stretch his brain in order to accommodate and solve almost any problem thus making him effectively a human computer. While Threshold calls him a 'warrior without equal' in "God War" this almost certainly refers to his success in discovering a way to defeat an undefeatable foe (Ultimate Ronan) as opposed to actual battlefield prowess. Sue lauds his expertise in physics.
After Ultimatum, Reed left the Baxter Building and returned home much to the chagrin of his father. In Ultimate Enemy #1, the Richards' house was bombed by an unknown individual. Reed Richards is presumed to be dead. In Ultimate X-Men/Fantastic Four Annual #1, a young Franklin Richards is part of a future team of X-Men. It is also revealed that in all of the possible futures, Franklin is Reed and Sue's son. In Ultimate Mystery #3, Reed Richards is revealed to be alive and is seen aiding or leading the aliens to pillage the artifacts stored at Project Pegasus. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Reed Richards' world view has changed, and he has become a villain known as the Maker. Later he assembles part of the Infinity Gauntlet.Ultimate Comics: Ultimates #25
Susan Storm / Invisible Woman