The Fantastic Four is a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The team debuted in The Fantastic Four #1, helping usher in a new level of realism in the medium. It was the first superhero team created by artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby and editor/co-scripter Stan Lee, and through this title that the "Marvel method" style of production came into prominence.
Galactus is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Formerly a mortal man, he is a cosmic entity who consumes planets to sustain his life force, and serves a functional role in the upkeep of the primary Marvel continuity. He was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and first appeared in Fantastic Four #48.
Doctor Doom is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in The Fantastic Four #5. In his comic book appearances, Doctor Doom is depicted as the monarch of the nation of Latveria whose goal is to bring order to humanity through world conquest. He serves as the archenemy of Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four, though he has also come into conflict with other superheroes in the Marvel Universe, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, the Black Panther, the X-Men, and the Avengers. While usually portrayed as a villain, Doom has also been an antihero at times, working with heroes if their goals align and only if it benefits him.
Benjamin Jacob "Ben" Grimm, also known as the Thing, is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is a founding member of the Fantastic Four. The Thing was created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby, and he first appeared in The Fantastic Four #1.
Mister Fantastic is a superhero character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. The character is a founding member and the leader of the Fantastic Four. Richards has a mastery of mechanical, aerospace and electrical engineering, chemistry, all levels of physics, and human and alien biology. BusinessWeek listed Mister Fantastic as one of the top ten most intelligent fictional characters in American comics. He is the inventor of the spacecraft that was bombarded by cosmic radiation on its maiden voyage, granting the Fantastic Four their powers. Richards gained the ability to stretch his body into any shape he desires.
The Human Torch is a superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is a founding member of the Fantastic Four. He is writer Stan Lee's and artist Jack Kirby's reinvention of a similar, previous character, the android Human Torch of the same name and powers who was created in 1939 by writer-artist Carl Burgos for Marvel Comics' predecessor company, Timely Comics.
Invisible Woman is a superheroine appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the character first appeared in The Fantastic Four #1. Susan Storm is a founding member of the Fantastic Four and was the first female superhero created by Marvel during the Silver Age of Comic Books.
Franklin Benjamin Richards is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is usually depicted as a supporting character in Fantastic Four. He has been portrayed as a child and as a budding superhero, albeit inexperienced.
Ultimate Marvel, later known as Ultimate Comics, was an imprint of comic books published by Marvel Comics, featuring reimagined and modernized versions of the company's superhero characters from the Ultimate Marvel Universe, later known as the Ultimate Universe. Those characters include Spider-Man, the X-Men, the Ultimates, the Fantastic Four, and others. The imprint was launched in 2000 with the publication of the series Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate X-Men in 2001, followed by The Ultimates and Ultimate Fantastic Four in 2002 and 2004 respectively providing new origin stories for the characters. The reality of Ultimate Marvel is designated as Earth-1610 as part of the Marvel Comics Multiverse.
The Skrulls are a fictional race of extraterrestrial shapeshifters appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They first appeared in Fantastic Four #2 and were created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. They originated from the planet Skrullos and their empire is located in the Andromeda Galaxy. Their infiltration of Earth was a major event in the Marvel Comics universe as shown in the crossover event Secret Invasion.
Marvels is a four-issue miniseries comic book written by Kurt Busiek, painted by Alex Ross and edited by Marcus McLaurin. It was published by Marvel Comics in 1994.
Fantastic Five is a fictional superhero team appearing in American comic books which were published by Marvel Comics. The team exists in the MC2 Universe, an alternate future to the Marvel Universe. A continuation of the Fantastic Four, the team was originally composed of the Human Torch, his wife Ms. Fantastic/Lyja, the Thing, Big Brain, and Psi-Lord.
The Super-Skrull (Kl'rt) is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics, generally as an enemy of the Fantastic Four, the collective powers of whom he possessed. The character, created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, first appeared in Fantastic Four #18, and has been depicted as both a supervillain and an antihero. The character has also appeared on television and in video games and novels.
Gravity is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character was created by Sean McKeever and Mike Norton, who wanted to create their own character inspired by the college-aged Spider-Man from the 1980s they grew up with.
The Sensational Spider-Man is a comic book series starring Spider-Man and published monthly by Marvel Comics for 41 issues between 2004 and 2007. It was originally published under the Marvel Knights imprint.
Earth X is a 1999 comic book limited series published by American company Marvel Comics. Earth X was written by Jim Krueger with art by John Paul Leon. Based on Alex Ross' notes, the series features a dystopian version of the Marvel Universe.
The Illuminati are a fictional secret society group of superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The characters joined forces and secretly work behind the scenes. The Illuminati was established to exist in their first published appearance in New Avengers #7, written by Brian Michael Bendis. Their history was discussed in the special New Avengers: Illuminati. The group was revealed to have been formed very shortly after the Kree–Skrull War.
"World War Hulk" is a comic book crossover storyline that ran through a self-titled limited series and various titles published by Marvel Comics in 2007, featuring the Hulk.
"Secret Invasion" is a comic book crossover storyline written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Leinil Francis Yu, that ran through a self-titled eight-issue limited series and several tie-in books published by Marvel Comics from April through December 2008. The story involves a subversive, long-term invasion of Earth by the Skrulls, a group of alien shapeshifters who have secretly replaced many superheroes in the Marvel Universe with impostors over a period of years, prior to the overt invasion. Marvel's promotional tagline for the event was "Who do you trust?".
Maker is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is the Ultimate Marvel's version of Mister Fantastic, initially presented as a heroic, morally altruistic and scientifically driven superhero and a younger, modernized alternate version of Reed Richards, who later turns into the villainous Maker, after enduring a series of tragedies and immense mental trauma; he eventually becomes part of the regular Marvel Universe, serving as an enemy and evil foil to his parallel universe counterpart, the New Avengers, and Eddie Brock/Venom, serving as an example of what his Earth-616 counterpart could have been had he used his powers and intellect for evil and malice. However, during both the 2019 to 2020-21 Absolute Carnage and King in Black storylines, the Maker revealed he'd been correlating with the Council of Reeds and had utilized the many Symbiote Codexes he'd extracted from the various heroes and villains who'd been previous hosts as a means to repeat his long-standing, but now altruistic goal: restoring his native dimension, the Ultimate Universe, which he sets out to enact in the 2023 miniseries Ultimate Invasion.
