Read Ultimate FF (2014) 1-6

No surprise that the Ultimate FF (2014) didn't fly.

I really liked the Ultimate Universe.  I thought it was clever to run two universes, re-building the characters in the Marvel Universe and giving a fresh start, without sacrificing their main universe.

For some reason, the ability to kill characters seemed more important than actually having compelling stories.  Why kill off Peter Parker?  I quite liked that title.

The Fantastic Four was quite different than the main universe title, with Reed going a little bonkers.


---Spoilers---

The whole "Reed and Sue" have to have a kid prospect was weak.  Particularly given that is not what happened at the end of the story.  Was it really a 50/50 split to see if it was "Sue"'s kid or "Reed's" kid that made the difference in keeping all of reality going?  I guess it would be less that 50/50 'cause it was presented as the offspring of the two of them.
The "resolution" that Sue didn't forcibly extract "genetic material" from Reed was nice, though stealing some of Ben's does not make Sue a very likable character.  They did help make Reed look less evil, and maybe recoverable, but not sure why Sue (who seems to love Ben and vice-versa) would steal his "material" without consultation or discussion (or even create a child the old-fashioned way). If they really felt the "Reed-Sue" child was not an accurate requirement to offset Galactus (or the swarm), they why the sneaking around?

I'm not sure where Marvel is headed, but it seems downward.  I know it is difficult to keep characters running for 50 years, but the new model of very strange story-lines dramatically changing characters seems self-defeating and short-term.

Where did January 2015's Fantastic Four #642 come from?

The new issue of FF is #642.  Given the last issue of FF was #14, there is a little work required to figure out where we are.

Rumours abound that Marvel is abandoning the FF because of movie rights issues between Marvel Studios and Sony.


Earlier, I did a post on FF #600, here is the update for #642.


"Volumes" become odd when Marvel decides to re-number.

You could consider Fantastic Four (2004) to be Volume 1, as the numbering returns, with a similar story for Fantastic Four (2011) - it also can be considered a return to Volume 1.

Volume 2 was the ill-fated "Heroes Reborn" experiment with Volume 3 the "Heroes Return" to the 616 Universe.

Volume 3 had "double numbering" starting with issue #42 (Volume 3 - aka 471 in Volume 1 numbering), so they did acknowledge issue #500 with the 71st issue of Volume 3 (in fact, with issue #500, the "old" numbering was primary, with the Volume 3 numbering secondary - a reversal of issues #43 to #70 where the Volume 3 numbering was primary and the "old" secondary).

Volume 4 was a re-set to "old" numbering, story continued from Volume 3.

Volume 5 is the re-set to Fantastic Four, from the end of Volume 4 plus the first 11 issues of FF (2011).


The oddity is that FF (2011) still continues, and has its own #12 and onward.


Volume 5 ran from issue #600 to issue #611.

Volume 6, Fantastic Four (2012) starts over with a new #1, as has FF (2012).  Fantastic Four (2012) ran 16 issues and was "reborn" as Fantastic Four (2014) in Marvel Now, with (surprise, surprise) a new #1.  FF(2012), ran 16 issues but doesn't seem to factor into the Fantastic Four numbering.

Add up all "Fantastic Four" issues, add in the first 11 FF (2011) issues, an you end up at Fantastic Four (1961) issue # 641.  Thus, the next issue is #642, which came out this week (Jan 21, 2015).

Series	Issues	Total Issues	"Full F4" Numbering
Fantastic Four (1961) V1	1-416	416	1-416
Fantastic Four (1996) V2	1-13	13	417-429
Fantastic Four (1998) V3	1-79	79	430-508
Fantastic Four (2004) V4	509-588	80	509-588
FF (2011) V1	1-11	11	589-599
Fantastic Four (2011) V5	600-611	12	600-611
Fantastic Four (2012) V6	1-16	16	612-627
Marvel NOW Fantastic Four (2014) V7	1-14	14	628-641
Fantastic Four (2015) V8	642-645		642-645
FF Issues	Issues	Total Issues	Total "FF"
FF (2011)	1-23	23	1-23
FF (2012)	1-16	16	24-39

Fantastic Four (1961) #1	Fantastic Four (1996) #1	Fantastic Four (1998) #1
Fantastic Four (2004) #509	FF (2011) #1 (first 11 issues "count" in Fantastic Four issue numbering)	Fantastic Four (2011) #600
Fantastic Four (2012) #1	Fantastic Four (2014) #1
Fantastic Four (2015) #642		Fantastic Four (2015) #645
	FF (2012) #1 (not included in counts)