Ultimate Fantastic Four #1
Ultimate Fantastic Four #1 completed the four founding pillars of Marvel's Ultimate Universe, arriving as the fifth ongoing series in that imprint and finally giving Marvel's first family a foothold in the continuity-free, early-2000s relaunch line alongside Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men, and The Ultimates. Rather than recycle the Cold War rocket-heist of the 1961 original, Millar and Bendis reset Reed Richards as a teenage prodigy whose teleportation experiment goes catastrophically wrong — a shift that fundamentally modernized the team's origin and made the characters accessible to readers who had never cracked a Silver Age issue. The series' reimagined character dynamics, particularly Sue Storm's elevation to the team's most assertive and scientifically capable member, anticipated a broader industry trend toward rebalancing ensemble casts. Its direct influence eventually reached Hollywood: the 2015 Fox film Fant4stic drew its core premise — teenagers, a dimensional portal accident, a rival named Victor Von Doom — directly from this Ultimate run.
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Ultimate Fantastic Four was shepherded into existence by Ultimate line project leader Bill Jemas, who assigned writing duties to Mark Millar and Brian Michael Bendis, both veterans of the Ultimate imprint; notably, Grant Morrison had been in earlier discussions to helm the series but departed Marvel for an exclusive DC contract before anything was finalized. Because Millar was based in Glasgow, Scotland, and Bendis in Portland, Oregon, the two co-writers worked entirely through virtual communication — an unusual arrangement at the time — and candidly addressed the friction between Millar's fast-paced, plot-driven style and Bendis's dialogue-heavy approach in the subsequent hardcover collection, settling on a division of labor where Millar wrote the plot and Bendis scripted the finished pages. Adam Kubert penciled the inaugural arc's interior pages, while Bryan Hitch — already the visual architect of The Ultimates — provided the series' cover art and designed the team's new costumes, which is why their look carries a visual kinship with Hitch's Ultimates aesthetic. Editor Ralph Macchio oversaw production, with Joe Quesada serving as editor-in-chief.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published with a cover date of February 2004 (release date January 2, 2004); the issue's story is titled 'The Fantastic: Part 1' and is the first chapter of a six-part opening arc.
- Written by Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar; interior pencils by Adam Kubert with inks by Danny Miki; cover art penciled by Bryan Hitch and inked by Paul Neary; colors by Dave Stewart.
- First appearances (in Earth-1610 / Ultimate continuity) of Reed Richards, Susan Storm, Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm, and Victor Van Damme — the Ultimate universe's reinvention of Victor Von Doom as a fellow student and rival whose interference triggers the accident.
- The origin is entirely reconceived: rather than a cosmic-ray-irradiated spaceflight, the team's powers stem from a malfunctioning dimensional teleporter experiment aimed at the N-Zone, an alternate dimension, replacing the 1961 space-race premise with a near-future science-prodigy scenario.
- Reed Richards' father is given the name Gary Richards in the Ultimate continuity, a deliberate departure from Earth-616 canon, where his father is the time-traveling Nathaniel Richards.
- Ultimate Fantastic Four was the fifth continuing series in Marvel's Ultimate imprint, completing the line's core team of ongoing books after Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate X-Men, The Ultimates, and Ultimate Marvel Team-Up.
- The issue has been reprinted numerous times, including the 'Marvel's Greatest Comics' edition (2011), the Ultimate Marvel Flip Magazine #1 (2005), international editions from Panini Deutschland and Editorial Televisa, and most recently in the Ultimate Fantastic Four Epic Collection Vol. 1 (2025).
- The 2015 20th Century Fox film *Fantastic Four* (*Fant4stic*), directed by Josh Trank, drew its foundational premise — young scientists, a transdimensional portal accident, and a reimagined Victor Von Doom — from this Ultimate Fantastic Four run rather than from the classic Lee/Kirby comics.
Key issues in Ultimate Fantastic Four
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