After a three-year run on Marvel’s First Superhero team book, Jonathan Hickman is leaving “Fantastic Four” in October. In an interview with Marvel.com, Jonathan Hickman announced he will be finishing his story arc on the Fantastic Four and Future Foundation after “Fantastic Four” #611 and “FF” #23. By the time he leaves the books, Hickman will have been the “Fantastic Four” writer for three years, introducing storys such as the death of Johnny Storm, the council of Reeds and launching the Future Foundation.
“I always had an end point in mind, but along the way I really fell in love with writing Marvel’s First Family and I also had all these dangling bits to clean up, so I agreed — [and] wanted — to stay on,” Hickman told Marvel.com. “Then all the gears started turning on all the [Avengers Vs. X-Men] stuff and what comes after and it just became obvious that October would be a good time to hop off.”
While Hickman will be leaving “Fantastic Four” after revitalizing the franchise, fans can catch his work on “Avengers vs. X-Men” later this year and read his take on the Ultimate Marvel universe in “Ultimate Comics Ultimates” alongside co-writer Sam Humphries beginning in issue #10. Hickman’s creator owned “The Manhattan Project” hits March 7 from Image Comics.
“Personally, I just hope that I continue to evolve as a creator — that FF was better than the things I wrote before [it], and that what I write after FF will be the best thing I’ve done,” Hickman said. “We’ll see.”
To say that the readers will miss Hickman as writer is an understatement. He has brought the motto “Worlds Greatest Comic Magazine” back to the Fantastic Four comic book. When I was younger I enjoyed reading Stan lee and Jack Kirby’s version of the Fantastic Four, the first 100 comics will for ever be classics in story and first time ever done stories. Kirby’s art work was years ahead of it’s time and characters like the Silver Surfer, Galactus, and of course Doctor Doom, just to name a few, were brought to life with his art. Early on in Fantastic Four #4 Namor the Sub-Mariner was reintroduced to silver age readers and during the early issues the the hidden race the Inhumans, the Black Panther, an African king who would be mainstream comics’ first black superhero; the rival alien races the Kree and the shapeshifting Skrulls and so much more that shaped the Marvel Universe. The early writers included Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, John Byrne, Roger Stern, Steve Englehart, Walt Simonson, Tom DeFalco.
I never forget the work of John Byrne on the Fantastic Four, very good stuff. Byrne revitalized the slumping title with his run. Byrne brought to the Fantastic Four the amazing stories of the early years into the modern times. The Fantastic Four grew as a family and the Invisible Girl became the Invisible Woman and one of the most powerful woman in the Marvel Universe. Some writers have been worthy of taking on Marvels First Family and telling us about them.
Jonathan Hickman did some of the best writing in resent Marvel history and made the Fantastic Four and now FF very fun to read. He kept the Marvel tradition alive and wrote about major events and seemly hopeless situations and made them into a very interesting story arc. I can’t wait to see how he closes the run on the Fantastic Four. We wish Jonathan the best on your current and future projects. Stay tuned comic faithful for more. 🙂 Walt
Hickman is a good writer think he will do well what ever he does.