Heroes Reborn: Fantastic Four (Marvel/1996)

One of the major story lines published by Marvel Comics was the Onslaught epic which led to the recreation of the Marvel Universe in a set of books under the Heroes Reborn banner. I missed both these events as by the time I had returned to the hobby the MU was back to "normal".

I had seen this as Marvel's "Crisis" but the whole saga is far from being that simple and anyway the Marvel Universe continued in parallel with the missing characters eventually returning to the Marvel Universe proper.

I recently read a story on Bleeding Cool which referenced 2021 as the 25th Anniversary of the event and that the concept was to be "revived" in 2021 as if the current Marvel Universe doesn't have enough going on in it.

Onslaught was apparently "born" in the psyche of Charles Xavier and Magneto and was practically unbeatable eventually being taken down in an action which "killed" many of Marvel's heroes, except they didn't. They were transported to a pocket dimension by the ever powerful Franklin Richards (whose age remains a mystery to this reader) where everything was seemingly recreated but with differences.

This volume collects the first six issues of the thirteen issue series published in 1996/7 which introduce to the new versions of the Fantastic Four and their supporting cast. As expected the origin story is different with the FF heading off into space to stop what turned out to be) a rogue agent from destroying a spacial anomaly just outside the Solar System with a couple of nukes.

Needless to say the fail and gain their powers in the aftermath. Events quicken on their return to Earth as they end up fighting the Mole Man, Namor, Doctor Doom and the Super Skrull in quick succession as they team up with the Black Panther to save an alien who we know as the Silver Surfer.

Along the way they meet others trapped in this bizarre creation of Franklin's including Nick Fury and the Avengers. Others will turn up elsewhere I suspect, though whether i ever get around to exploring this event further remains to be seen.

This was a commercial success of sorts which boils down to the Image Stars of the time (Lee. Liefeld and others) doing Marvel. It didn't continue and Marvel brought everyone back in a mini-series called Heroes Return. Whatever next.

An interesting experiment if nothing else. This volume is a good read but I did find the colouring far too dark and it wasn't the Fantastic Four I grew up with even though it was (Go figure). Worth reading if you have the time or inclination and missed Heroes Reborn the first time. I wonder exactly what Marvel will do with this concept next? Answers will be forthcoming in previews.