The final teaser image for Marvel’s week of NOW! has gone up on the USA Today’s website, revealing that Matt Fraction will be writing a relaunch of both Fantastic Four and the FF. Joining him will be Mark Bagley and Mike Allred.

Bagley will draw the Fantastic Four series while Mike Allred will draw FF, which follows the ‘Future Foundation’ school set up by Reed Richards during Jonathan Hickman’s soon-concluding run with the team. MIKE! ALLRED! Dunno about you, but I always feel a compulsion to shout his name out like a cheerleader and wave my pom-poms.

This will be slightly worrying for fans of Bagley’s Icon series ‘Brilliant’, as there’s no word yet on if this announcement will affect the shipping of the book/mean the book has been cancelled. It does mean, however, that Marvel aren’t going to rename the team ‘The Uncanny Fantastic Four’ or ‘FF Avengers’. So there’s another trend bucked by the First Family of Comics!

The teaser image above only relates to FF, I know. USA Today say they have the second one, so we’re just going to have to trust them until they decide to actually put it online. You wouldn’t have had this delay if you’d just sent the image to us, Marvel!

This means we now have confirmation for Uncanny Avengers, New Avengers, Avengers, Iron Man, Hulk, Fantastic Four, FF, Thor, Deadpool, and All-New X-Men as part of Marvel NOW! That’s half the books, with another half yet to be announced. Anyone for a solo PIXIE series? Time to make some noise if there is! Let’s lead a charge! Get your pom-poms out.

1 COMMENT

  1. Fantastic Four is a perfect fit for Fraction and Bagley. And that FF book is a lot of fun and I know Fraction/Allred will keep up the quality of that book. Good news all around.

  2. Mike Allred on art will get me to by a FF book.

    Granted it won’t be at $3.99 a copy. Rather, I’ll wait until the tpbs hit the bargain bins.

  3. You know what is interesting, so far they haven’t announced a single new title. Ok, Uncanny Avengers and All New X-Men. But I seriously refuse to count those as NEW titles.

  4. Nice to see that FF will continue. The concept of the book is too interesting to be left to the side.

  5. Very hesitant about Fraction on F4. He’s got the mad science, big ideas part down, but his characters always have an unbearable need to be übercool. Perfect for Tony Stark, but it seems like a terrible fit for the F4 with the *possible* exception of Johnny.

    Allred on FF intrigues me, though. Franklin and Valeria rock, so if they remain a focus of that book, things could get interesting yet.

  6. FF is good now. Why change it at all with a relaunch? People are going to use the break in numbering to jump off the book.

    Allred. Fan favorite who has no sales power. Until recently with Izombie (which is ending through no fault of his own), he couldn’t handle the monthly chores associated with a mainstream title. It’s likely he’ll have to have back-up features in short order to help maintain deadlines, or only do two to three issue story arcs with someone else doing fill-ins. The man in these lights (if they happen) brings nothing to the table other than the indie crowd going “gosh-wow” and then not buying it.

    Bagley. Always good. What does this mean for Avengers Assembled? Brilliant is not something worth looking at anymore, as most of the Marvel Icon series are tragically late (Powers, Brilliant, Kabuki).

    Fraction: A pleasing and engaging writer who Marvel is stretching way, way too thin.

    Restarts. A doomed ploy to try and bring in lapsed readers Marvel should know by now that while there MAY be a short there upwards bump in sales, there is an inevitable catastrophic drop off and weakening of the overall brand (Thor, Avengers, Captain America, Fantastic Four,etc…).

    Marvel needs to forgoe the gimmicks they are allowing their marketing department to become reliant on, and just crank out consistently good books. Not 3 to 6 so-so to mediocre ones to a family title in an attempt to pull in more of the collectors desperate to keep their runs intact.

  7. I second chanting MIKE! ALLRED! Will skip on the pom-poms, though.

    Wouldn’t give this a book a second look without him involved. If the story is any good, that’s a bonus . . . although I’d rather have him on the regular F4 book.

    Any Allred is better than no Allred.

  8. Why is Marvel promoting these books with the name of the writer and artist and a giant word like ‘Family’ or “Worthy”?

    Unless you know the Marvel characters – this won’t mean anything to new readers.

    Why not just show a piece of forthcoming art instead and let the audience guess who might be doing the books? That would be a REAL tease.