It’s an exciting time for Fantastic Four, with a new villain set to take them on in the August comic book reboot. Compared to many of their contemporaries, the Fantastic Four team have had an extremely difficult time over the last few decades. While the likes of Iron Man, Captain America and even Star-Lord have been celebrated around the world in blockbuster movies, Thing, Invisible Woman, Mister Fantastic and Human Torch have been remarkably less fortunate.
This is particularly sad considering they made up the first superhero team ever created by Stan Lee himself. Still, it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the OG super squad. For one the comic experienced great success for decades, straight from the very first issue. There were even multiple spinoffs, including The Human Torch solo, The Thing solo, Fantastic Four 2099 and Ultimate Fantastic Four.
Outside of the comics, there were a number of successful games based on the series. There was the 1985 release, Questprobe #3 Fantastic Four followed by the official Fantastic Four game in 1997. More recently, the team appeared in their very own Fantastic Four 50-line slot, available with free spins at William Hill as well as a select few other online casinos. This game is particularly interesting, as while the Fantastic Four may have lost popularity over the last few years due to the lagging interest in the comics as well as the, let’s face it, below-par films, the team has managed to live on at online casinos.
Even with this tie to popular culture, it’s unsure as to whether the franchise would have continued on much longer. Fortunately, this all changed recently when Disney finally acquired Fox, along with the rights to Fantastic Four. As Disney already owns Marvel Studios, this means that the original superhero team may possibly end up featuring in a film alongside The Avengers. This is extremely exciting for fans of the series and characters, as it seems Marvel Studios can do no wrong when it comes to turning lesser known or less successful franchises into hugely popular, worldwide phenomenon.
As if that wasn’t exciting enough, in April it was announced that Dan Slott and Sara Pichelli would be relaunching the Fantastic Four comic. The comic was put on a permanent hiatus back in 2015, after Richard Reed and Sue Storm left alongside the Future Foundation Kids to rebuild the multiverse. The team were mentioned every so often in other popular Marvel comics, specifically in Ultimates and Marvel Two-In-One. To celebrate the release of Fantastic Four #1 – coming in August – Marvel even released a trailer.
So, who is this fresh foe set to terrorise the Fantastic Four? While at Marvel’s Next Big Thing panel at San Diego Comic-Con, Slott and C.B. Cebulski, Marvel’s current Editor-In-Chief, revealed that Reed and Sue will be fighting The Griever. The female villain apparently plays a huge role in the larger scheme of the Marvel cosmology, and is also The Collectors sister as well as The Grandmaster (maybe?).
Little is known about The Griever, but we’re certain that the Fantastic Four will have their work cut out for them upon their return, having been almost AWOL for three years. The first issue of Fantastic Four will be released on August 8, and we’d love any readers to let us know their thoughts on the franchise’s reboot.