Marvel Reveals Rivals to the Fantastic Four

It’s been some time since Marvel’s first family have appeared in comics, but as The Fantastic Four finally make their return to the Marvel Universe, they’ll find themselves face-to-face with a rival family in Fantastic Four #4

Marvel has revealed the Fantastix, a group of heroic rivals to take on the original Fantastic Four. Executive editor Tom Brevoort revealed more on the This Week in Marvel podcast saying, “As we get back to things down on Earth, we introduce a new team of superheroes who are operating out of the Baxter Building who are surprised when the Fantastic Four show up on the doorstep, thinking that they still have the rent on the place.”

Written by Dan Slott and drawn by Sara Pichelli, Fantastic Four relaunched last week after a hiatus of over a year to critical and commercial success.

In the return trailer for the Fantastic Four, Slott said:

The Fantastic Four are the cornerstone of the Marvel Universe since 1961. This is the first family…It’s the family that goes off and explores the cosmos. Not just the cosmos. Anything Reed or Valeria can come up with, going into new dimensions, going into crazy new things. One of the strengths of Stan [Lee] and Jack [Kirby] is that you never knew what you were going to get in Fantastic Four. You were always seeing new worlds. You were always seeing new ideas. You were always seeing brand new characters. The world of the Fantastic Four is the anything can happen book and also the book that shapes what the Marvel Universe is.

Slott has also teased a return for Doctor Doom, the Fantastic Four’s arch-nemesis.

“Keep an eye out for Castle Von Doom,” Slott said. “You’ve been missing a villainous Doctor Doom in the Marvel Universe for a while, haven’t you? Is he a villain? Is he a hero? He’s complicated, and the one thing that you know about the Fantastic Four is that two plus two equals four. That’s at the heart of it. They all have to be here together.”

The return of The Fantastic Four is certainly exciting and hopefully means good things to come for Marvel‘s first family both in comics and film.