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Ultimate Fantastic Four Epic Collection
Ultimate Fantastic Four Epic Collection, Vol. 1: The Fantastic
A youthful reimagining of Marvel's iconic quartet! When high-school genius Reed Richards enrolls at a secret, government-sponsored school for the world's most gifted minds, he unwittingly embarks on the journey of a lifetime! And the experience will be transformative for Reed and his Ben Grimm, Susan Storm and Johnny Storm! But before they can even begin to get accustomed to their incredible new abilities, former classmate Victor Van Damme - forever altered by the same experiment - returns to exact his revenge! The nascent FF explore the N-Zone! Young Reed wants to duplicate the accident that changed the four and thereby reverse the process. But will his noble attempts at redress cause more harm than good? And can the quartet survive their encounter with Ultimate Annihilus?! Collects Ultimate Fantastic Four #1-18.
464 pages, Paperback
Published June 17, 2025
About the author
Mark Millar
1,539 books2,591 followersMark Millar is the New York Times best-selling writer of Wanted, the Kick-Ass series, The Secret Service, Jupiter’s Legacy, Jupiter’s Circle, Nemesis, Superior, Super Crooks, American Jesus, MPH, Starlight, and Chrononauts. Wanted, Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2, and The Secret Service (as Kingsman: The Secret Service) have been adapted into feature films, and Nemesis, Superior, Starlight, War Heroes, Jupiter’s Legacy and Chrononauts are in development at major studios.
His DC Comics work includes the seminal Superman: Red Son, and at Marvel Comics he created The Ultimates – selected by Time magazine as the comic book of the decade, Wolverine: Old Man Logan, and Civil War – the industry’s biggest-selling superhero series in almost two decades.
Mark has been an Executive Producer on all his movie adaptations and is currently creative consultant to Fox Studios on their Marvel slate of movies.
His DC Comics work includes the seminal Superman: Red Son, and at Marvel Comics he created The Ultimates – selected by Time magazine as the comic book of the decade, Wolverine: Old Man Logan, and Civil War – the industry’s biggest-selling superhero series in almost two decades.
Mark has been an Executive Producer on all his movie adaptations and is currently creative consultant to Fox Studios on their Marvel slate of movies.
Ratings & Reviews
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 28, 2026
What if the Fantastic Four were Xennials? And what if their rogues' gallery were a bunch of dirty old hobos? The book that inspired Josh Trank's Fant4stic!
August 23, 2025
this was pretty good, but it felt like the weakest of the ultimate series volumes so far. I liked the modern take on the characters, and it's interesting to see the origins of the maker here.
April 9, 2026
A decent addition to the Ultimate Universe but ultimately (pun intended) dragged down by a handful of issues.
The first arc is easily the worst, as it is written by the two (incredibly different) primary architects of the Ultimate universe. Those being Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar. Both have very good ideas but VASTLY different styles. You have Bendis of Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, Miles Morales, Jessica Jones (& the good part of Ultimate X-Men) fame, and you have Mark Millar of The Ultimates, Old Man Logan, Kick-Ass, Civil War (& the bad part of Ultimate X-Men) fame. Both are great and flawed in their own way and absolutely have their time and place on my shelves. Just separately.
Bendis is sincere and earnest where Millar is cynical and edgy.
Bendis is cartoony and satisfying where Millar is violent and bloody.
They don’t work so well together. It creates this Frankenstein’s monster of a book with moments of whiplash where you can tell who wrote which parts. With them as co-architects of the Ultimate universe, I understand how we got here, but it drags the book down a lot.
It gets noticeably better when Warren Ellis takes over the book. With his singular voice in the story, he speaks through the four much clearly than in the previous volume. He absolutely nails Ben and Johnny. My only real complaint with his writing is in Doom. I thought Doom as the descendant of Dracula was a great idea that could have gone somewhere. But all we get is metal goat legs.
Alright.
I have no complaints with the art. Stuart Immonen took a minute to adjust to but I loved his art after a while. Adam Kubert’s art in the beginning was not bad by any means, but he dramatically upped his game in the concluding issues. Much valued.
The biggest thing holding this book back for me is the portrayal of Reed & Sue.
While I understand the modernization of these characters in Earth 1610, they really misunderstood what makes these characters special.
Sue had the most potential to be something interesting, as she is all too often relegated to being “the girl” of the team, instead of the most powerful member, or the glue of the team, or just the emotionally intelligent badass she usually is. It is sadly no different here.
The team’s iconic blue spandex uniforms are replaced with boring and unmemorable blue flight suits with zero personality, beyond the fact that Sue gets to wear a crop top and show off her belly and cleavage during supposed “dangerous scientific experiments”.
She has no character outside of saying “boys stop fighting!”, “I feel like you don’t understand me, and only care about your science!” and being the object of several male characters’ desire. Reed, Doom, Mole Man (& even Ben later in the series) all desire Sue and it is only in Sue’s choice of Reed that validates him as the protagonist and her as a core member of the team.
Reed on the other hand is stripped of everything that makes him special beyond his intelligence.
As my second favourite of the 616 team (after Ben), what makes Reed so special to me in the comics is the struggle between being the smartest man on the planet and also being a husband, a father and a friend. The struggle in never being able to turn his brain off and the moral question that comes with it: should he be asked to turn it off? If no one else can do what he does, is it moral to ask him to stop trying to save the world? Is family worth asking him to do that? And of course it is. He always finds a way to do both and that’s what makes him so compelling.
All of 1610 Reed’s charisma is removed and in its place is the “magical autist” trope as seen in The Good Surgeon, House Of Cards, The Predator and any number of Stephen King stories. The book portrays Reed as a quiet and weird but impossibly smart autistic man. You’d think the pitch for the character was ‘he’s bizarre and insulting and unknowable and kind of blank as a protagonist plus he doesn’t understand social cues but that’s only because he’s autistic and that’s basically a super power right?’
It’s disappointing for all of these changes to these characters to be done in the name of modernization in the Ultimate Universe, and the only ones who work are Ben (who has some added depth) & kind of Johnny (who is just the same as his 616 counterpart).
Overall the book is enjoyable if not quite flawed. The characterization is heavily off for 2/4 and the tug of war between writers really hurt the series’ beginning. Even though I personally prefer Bendis to Millar, I am still excited to see where Millar himself returns to take the series in a new direction. At least it’ll just be him and him alone.
I know I’ve spent a lot of this review dogging on it but it’s only cause I absolutely love Earth 1610. Ultimate Spider-Man and especially The Ultimates were formative books for me when I got into reading. I guess I just wanted it to be better. I did overall like Ultimate Fantastic Four and am interested to see where it goes next.
Recommended for fans of the Ultimate Universe and big fans of the Fantastic Four.
The first arc is easily the worst, as it is written by the two (incredibly different) primary architects of the Ultimate universe. Those being Brian Michael Bendis and Mark Millar. Both have very good ideas but VASTLY different styles. You have Bendis of Ultimate Spider-Man, Daredevil, Miles Morales, Jessica Jones (& the good part of Ultimate X-Men) fame, and you have Mark Millar of The Ultimates, Old Man Logan, Kick-Ass, Civil War (& the bad part of Ultimate X-Men) fame. Both are great and flawed in their own way and absolutely have their time and place on my shelves. Just separately.
Bendis is sincere and earnest where Millar is cynical and edgy.
Bendis is cartoony and satisfying where Millar is violent and bloody.
They don’t work so well together. It creates this Frankenstein’s monster of a book with moments of whiplash where you can tell who wrote which parts. With them as co-architects of the Ultimate universe, I understand how we got here, but it drags the book down a lot.
It gets noticeably better when Warren Ellis takes over the book. With his singular voice in the story, he speaks through the four much clearly than in the previous volume. He absolutely nails Ben and Johnny. My only real complaint with his writing is in Doom. I thought Doom as the descendant of Dracula was a great idea that could have gone somewhere. But all we get is metal goat legs.
Alright.
I have no complaints with the art. Stuart Immonen took a minute to adjust to but I loved his art after a while. Adam Kubert’s art in the beginning was not bad by any means, but he dramatically upped his game in the concluding issues. Much valued.
The biggest thing holding this book back for me is the portrayal of Reed & Sue.
While I understand the modernization of these characters in Earth 1610, they really misunderstood what makes these characters special.
Sue had the most potential to be something interesting, as she is all too often relegated to being “the girl” of the team, instead of the most powerful member, or the glue of the team, or just the emotionally intelligent badass she usually is. It is sadly no different here.
The team’s iconic blue spandex uniforms are replaced with boring and unmemorable blue flight suits with zero personality, beyond the fact that Sue gets to wear a crop top and show off her belly and cleavage during supposed “dangerous scientific experiments”.
She has no character outside of saying “boys stop fighting!”, “I feel like you don’t understand me, and only care about your science!” and being the object of several male characters’ desire. Reed, Doom, Mole Man (& even Ben later in the series) all desire Sue and it is only in Sue’s choice of Reed that validates him as the protagonist and her as a core member of the team.
Reed on the other hand is stripped of everything that makes him special beyond his intelligence.
As my second favourite of the 616 team (after Ben), what makes Reed so special to me in the comics is the struggle between being the smartest man on the planet and also being a husband, a father and a friend. The struggle in never being able to turn his brain off and the moral question that comes with it: should he be asked to turn it off? If no one else can do what he does, is it moral to ask him to stop trying to save the world? Is family worth asking him to do that? And of course it is. He always finds a way to do both and that’s what makes him so compelling.
All of 1610 Reed’s charisma is removed and in its place is the “magical autist” trope as seen in The Good Surgeon, House Of Cards, The Predator and any number of Stephen King stories. The book portrays Reed as a quiet and weird but impossibly smart autistic man. You’d think the pitch for the character was ‘he’s bizarre and insulting and unknowable and kind of blank as a protagonist plus he doesn’t understand social cues but that’s only because he’s autistic and that’s basically a super power right?’
It’s disappointing for all of these changes to these characters to be done in the name of modernization in the Ultimate Universe, and the only ones who work are Ben (who has some added depth) & kind of Johnny (who is just the same as his 616 counterpart).
Overall the book is enjoyable if not quite flawed. The characterization is heavily off for 2/4 and the tug of war between writers really hurt the series’ beginning. Even though I personally prefer Bendis to Millar, I am still excited to see where Millar himself returns to take the series in a new direction. At least it’ll just be him and him alone.
I know I’ve spent a lot of this review dogging on it but it’s only cause I absolutely love Earth 1610. Ultimate Spider-Man and especially The Ultimates were formative books for me when I got into reading. I guess I just wanted it to be better. I did overall like Ultimate Fantastic Four and am interested to see where it goes next.
Recommended for fans of the Ultimate Universe and big fans of the Fantastic Four.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews