Marvel has announced the return of The Fantastic Four in a new comic book series, the news of which was teased on Twitter prior to the official video reveal. The company’s very first superhero team returns to pages after missing in action for years. (The Fantastic Four hasn’t been published in comic book form since 2015)
Marvel has brought in Dan Scott and Sara Pichelli (Guardians of theGalaxy, Runaways, Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man) to craft a new monthly series, writing and illustrating respectively, with new books featuring the group. The new collection is expected to be out each month, August onwards.
The series will find Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, and The Thing return on board as part of the current two-in-one series, current reports suggest. “We always knew The Fantastic Four would come back. Reed and Sue will be coming back to the Universe and (the original) team will be re-forming. We were waiting for the right time and the right creative team to bring them back,” said Marvel editor-in-chief C.B.Cebulski in an interview.
Dan Slott, who has completed a remarkable decade writing Spider-Man this summer, is envisioning to write at least 55 issues for the series, which would get the heroes to issue no. 700. He said The Fantastic Four was the first comics he ever read back in 1965. “I started my adventures in the Marvel Universe with a freaked-out Reed Richards, the Watcher and the Silver Surfer. I’ve wanted this for so long,” Mr. Slott recalled.
Artist Pichelli was equally excited about working on the series. “I can’t wait to draw a lot of the characters, but there’s one in particular I can’t reveal yet. You will know why they’re my favourite when you read the book,” she stated.
Many had suspected that Marvel would discontinue the group, given that they are among the few characters that the company doesn’t have film rights to.“I think it’s pretty common knowledge at this point that Marvel isn’t publishing Fantastic Four because of their disagreement with Fox, (the film rights to The Fantastic Four belongs to Fox Studios) and to bring them back, Disney probably needs to buy Fox.”,” said Jonathan Hickman, (writer of the Secret Wars) in an interview last year.
But it seems that fans can rejoice as Marvel’s first family is finally set to return to entertain them. Though the story details are currently not revealed, Cebulski did indicate about the continuation of Chip Zdarsky and Jim Cheung’s monthly book Marvel Two-In-One, featuring the Thing and Human Torch in their attempts to find Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, both of whom disappeared years ago.
