Right off the bat I want to say that I am far from an expert on anything, including comic books, but as a life-long fan of Marvel in particular I found the abscence of their first family to be a void not properly filled by the various Avengers or X-men team lineups. Don't get me wrong, I've always been partial to shell-head, and I've finally gotten around to reading the Claremont run on X-Men, but I always dug the out-there scifi and character interactions in "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine." Being primarily a trade reader, I'm hardly up to date on current goings on at either of the two major companies, hell I'm just getting to Scott Snyder's Batman stuff now, I have never ordered single issues. That is, until Marvel announced the return of the Fantastic Four.

The story is pretty redundant, granted this is setting up the return of the Richards family, still most of the issue feels very similar to the previous Marvel-Two-In-One books. A good portion dealing with Ben and Johnny's attempts to move on after the disappearance of Reed, Sue, Franklin and Valeria. The rest being a flashback to a previous adventure with the whole team, with some okay jokes thrown in. Obviously by the end Ben and Johnny learn that the unlikeliest of their hopes are true and the Richards are in fact still among the living and trying to contact them. That's about it, except for a backup story involving Doom being Doom and taking his nation back from a despot.

Overall, the art is competent. The writing is okay, save for a few groaner jokes, the interactions between Ben and Johnny are on point with the usual sibling-linke banter. I'm hoping the pace picks up by the next issue.