Fantastic Four

The second Hickman Fantastic Four omnibus concludes his landmark run, paying off the narrative threads seeded in the first volume while introducing the Future Foundation as the team's replacement — a school for the Marvel Universe's most gifted children, led by Spider-Man as a teacher, operating from the Baxter Building while the FF deal with the cosmic-scale consequences of the Council of Reeds conflict. The Kang/Doom confrontation at the run's conclusion is one of the most satisfying long-form story payoffs in modern Marvel.

Jonathan Hickman's Fantastic Four run established his Marvel career's defining mode — massive, architecturally complex narratives with years-long payoffs, introduced through the Council of Reeds (alternate universe versions of Reed Richards who had solved every problem and abandoned their families) and the War of Four Cities that pitted the Kree, the Inhumans, the High Evolutionary's creations, and the Kree's counter-faction against each other simultaneously. This is Hickman operating at maximum ambition before the Avengers work that followed.

Dan Slott's Fantastic Four run began in 2018 and immediately engaged with the team's foundational mythology in ambitious ways — exploring the nature of Richards family intelligence across generations, the Griever's attempt to destroy all that the FF have created, and the team's return to active duty after a period of absence.

Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's Fantastic Four run applied the same widescreen action cinema approach the pair had pioneered in The Ultimates to Marvel's First Family — massive scale, cinematic set pieces, and a villain (the Old Power-wielding Skulls) designed for maximum visual spectacle. The run also contained one of comics' most emotionally effective death-and-legacy storylines, as Millar used the threat to the team's future as an opportunity to examine what the Fantastic Four's legacy would be if they were gone.

Mark Waid and Mike Wieringo's Fantastic Four run is the definitive 21st-century reinvention of the team — a run that understood the Fantastic Four worked best when treated as a family of explorers rather than a superhero team, and built their biggest storyline (Unthinkable) by systematically stripping the team of every advantage before a conclusive battle with Doctor Doom. Wieringo's art was among the most joyful and expressive in contemporary Marvel, and his death at 44 in 2007 deprived the industry of a generational talent.

The second Byrne Fantastic Four omnibus covers the conclusion of his landmark run — including the controversial death of the original, classic Invisible Girl and her resurrection as Invisible Woman, the extended Secret Wars connection, the Thing's return from his self-imposed exile, and the introduction of Doom as a significant Fantastic Four villain with depth that previous FF writers hadn't fully developed.

John Byrne's Fantastic Four run is the second-greatest creative achievement in the character's history after Lee and Kirby's founding run — a systematic reinvention of the team that returned to their core dynamics while introducing landmark concepts including She-Hulk's substitution for Thing, the death and rebirth of Galactus, the introduction of Frankie Raye as Nova, and the extended Reed Richards trial before the Shi'ar Imperial Guard that is one of the most conceptually ambitious single storylines in 1980s Marvel.

Marv Wolfman's Fantastic Four run represents the final pre-Byrne era — the creative tenure immediately before John Byrne's landmark reinvention of the team. Wolfman introduced the Frightful Four's most ambitious membership configuration, developed the Nova connection between his simultaneous run on that character and the FF, and used the team format to explore large-scale cosmic threats that his successor Byrne would later ground in more character-focused directions.

The fifth Fantastic Four omnibus continues Roy Thomas's run through the transition to Len Wein and other writers, covering the period when Marvel was experimenting with the team's format — including the Thing's solo focus, the shifting relationship dynamics post-Medusa's team membership, and the introduction of new antagonists that would define later FF eras. This volume documents the book's creative search for a post-Kirby identity before Byrne's eventual definitive reimagining.

The third Fantastic Four omnibus covers the final period of the Lee/Kirby collaboration — the run toward Kirby's departure to DC, featuring the introduction of the Him/Warlock concept, Crystal's full integration into the team after Sue Storm's pregnancy, and the complete Kree/Skrull setup that Thomas would develop in Avengers. These late Kirby issues show a creator pushing against the creative constraints of the Marvel system before leaving for DC and the New Gods concept that would be his ultimate artistic statement.

The second Fantastic Four omnibus enters the period when Kirby and Lee were at their most inventively prolific — these issues introduced the Black Panther, the Inhumans, the Silver Surfer, and Galactus within a concentrated run that has no equivalent in mainstream comics history. The invention rate was unprecedented: concepts that became the foundations of entire franchise lines were being introduced monthly, with Kirby's cosmic imagination operating at a frequency that exhausted every collaborator who tried to keep pace.

The first Fantastic Four omnibus collects the genesis of the Marvel Universe — Jack Kirby and Stan Lee's creation of the concept that would define American superhero comics for six decades. The Fantastic Four #1 through the early issues introduced not just four characters but the entire conceptual framework of the Marvel approach: fallible heroes with genuine relationships, science fiction adventure grounded in human drama, and a shared universe that was being invented issue by issue. These are the issues that changed everything.

The Ultimate relaunch of the foundational Marvel team with a teenage genius Reed Richards, a college Johnny Storm, a young scientist Sue Storm and a Ben Grimm as his childhood best friend. Adam Kubert on absolute form: one of the best Marvel cartoonists of the 2000s. Co-scripted with Brian Michael Bendis.