Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe: Fantastic Four 2005

    (Marvel, 2005)
™ and © Marvel Characters, Inc.

In the late 1990s, Marvel Comics killed off four of it’s longest running titles—The Avengers, The Fantastic Four, Captain America, and Iron Man. Then, for the next twelve months, origins were rewritten and revamped, drawing in more reader interest with retold stories and fantastic art. These titles were restarted yet a third time and the entire project became known as Heroes Reborn.

The idea of restarting classic story ideas caught on, so back in late 2000, Marvel opened up an Ultimate Universe literally starting an entire comic line of modernized Marvel characters from scratch with Ultimate Spider-Man, followed closely by the Ultimate X-Men. Later, the Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate Iron Man popped up and even the mighty Avengers became The Ultimates, a subdivision of S.H.I.E.L.D. under the command of a completely modernized Nick Fury (picture Samuel L. Jackson with an eye patch). The names are the same, but the style of art and story are unique and very habit forming. It’s gotten so complicated, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard so Marvel has added to it’s never ending handbook series the players and characters of two of their Ultimate universe titles.

All the friends and foes of the Ultimate Spider-Man and Ultimate Fantastic Four are pulled together in this 2005 update that will answer many questions just in case you missed a few issues.

— Ron Black
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