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

We may have selected Deniz Camp and Juan Frigeri’s The Ultimates as the Best Comic Book Series or Original Graphic Novel of 2024, but if there’s any Marvel title that could have challenged it, it was undoubtedly Fantastic Four. The series is currently experiencing one of its strongest runs in years, thanks to writer Ryan North and his team. With The Fantastic Four: First Steps set to premiere in theaters soon, Marvel is poised to draw an even larger audience this summer.

Marvel plans to relaunch Fantastic Four in July, but fans can rest easy knowing that Ryan North will continue to helm the series. The new volume will feature North collaborating with artist Humberto Ramos, known for his work on The Amazing Spider-Man. Together, they will embark on new adventures with Marvel’s First Family, navigating the aftermath of the One World Under Doom crossover and journeying through time.

To delve deeper into the new series and understand why it offers an accessible entry point for newcomers, IGN conducted an email interview with North. Before reading the interview, take a look at an exclusive preview of the first issue in the slideshow gallery below.

Fantastic Four #1: Exclusive Preview Gallery

View 9 ImagesIt might seem unusual to renumber the series when the writer remains the same and the direction isn’t shifting dramatically (a strategy not uncommon for Marvel). However, North sees it as an opportunity. With a new Fantastic Four movie on the horizon, making the comic more appealing and accessible to new fans is a strategic move.

"Comics have the potential to expand constantly," North tells IGN. "There are countless people who don't read comics, mistakenly believing they're not for them. Yet, there are many comics that are perfect for them; they just haven't discovered them or felt welcomed into the community. Especially in superhero comics, where each book has a number, people might feel they must start from issue one. By offering a new number one, we hope to remove one barrier for those intrigued by the movie and eager to learn more about these characters."

A significant change in the new series is the shift to Ramos on art. North reveals that he and Ramos have been planning this relaunch for some time.

"We met and had breakfast at San Diego Comic-Con before he even began work on this series and before I started writing it, so we got to discuss the characters and what we love about them from the start," North says. "Humberto is an incredibly creative and generous collaborator, always ready to enhance an idea and execute it with enthusiasm and skill. I think fans will be thrilled with his work, and it’s been challenging to keep all this fantastic art under wraps for months."

Ramos's renowned speed as an artist is a major advantage for North. With a more consistent art team, North can write scripts knowing exactly who will be illustrating them, a luxury not always available in the previous volume.

"I've been fortunate to work with many talented artists on Fantastic Four, but I often write scripts well in advance, not knowing who the artist will be," North says. "It’s always my preference to know the artist because it allows me to tailor the script to their strengths, creating a better synergy between our visions. Knowing Humberto has been on this book for so long, it’s been great to write specifically for him issue after issue."

While a new #1 issue always helps, it's worth noting that North’s run on Fantastic Four has always been approachable. North has structured his run as a series of standalone adventures that contribute to a larger narrative, similar to Rick and Morty. Will this format change with the relaunch?

"Not really, but I am using it as an opportunity to lean more into that larger narrative!" North says. "I still want each issue to stand alone and be a satisfying story for anyone picking it up, but I am turning the dial a bit more towards larger and crazier stories within that overarching 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 idea of the FF as friends, not just family. We asked about the distinction and how it plays out in the series.

"It's a subtle distinction, but I really love my friends and wanted to tell stories about people in long-running relationships that they choose to maintain," North says. "It's not that different from family, where you're born into it but choose to stay and nurture those relationships. With the Fantastic Four, only Johnny and Sue are family at the start, but they all choose each other and become something more. I think that's beautiful and interesting. The distance between good friends and found family may not be as wide as I thought."

One challenge with relaunching Fantastic Four this summer is the ongoing One World Under Doom crossover. North confirms that the new series will not ignore the crossover but will use it to launch a significant Doctor Doom story.

"One of the challenges of relaunching like this is creating an easy on-ramp for new readers while being in the middle of the One World Under Doom event," North says. "So the first story is a Doom story, giving the Fantastic Four the chance to fix everything 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 major development in One World Under Doom is Doom curing Ben Grimm of his rocky condition, a move to prove his superiority over Reed Richards. However, the preview art suggests Ben is back to being The Thing in the new series. Will the relaunch address this twist?

"We’ll actually see how it is resolved in the last moments of the previous run, so we're not starting this new one with an unresolved plot thread!" North says. "I want the new series to be accessible to curious newcomers, so I'm minimizing the backstory they need to know initially. It's something I've been doing throughout the run. The Fantastic Four have decades of history, but I want to ensure that no one feels lost when they pick up an issue and that everyone is welcome to the party."

Fantastic Four #1 will be released on July 9, just weeks before The Fantastic Four: First Steps hits theaters. Check out the solicitation for Fantastic Four #2 below:

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 will also have a prequel comic that explores the origin of Pedro Pascal's Reed and his family, one of the first comics in a while to connect directly to the MCU.