The "Ultimate" Fantasti-Car

Were any of you fans of the Ultimate line of comics from Marvel? I enjoyed them up to a point, but eventually they all seemed to run out of steam. If you haven't yet sampled them, I'd suggest picking up their earliest stories (say about two or three years' worth of issues), when their writers' creative juices were really flowing. They offer fresh, innovative takes on the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Spider-Man, et al., in the "Ultimate" universe where these characters evolved a little differently than their counterparts here on "our" Earth.

For one thing, you'll discover the "ultimate" Fantastic Four are considerably younger than the FF we're familiar with, which takes a little getting used to. The camaraderie amongst the four is on more level ground, which sacrifices some of the fire and unpredictability of their interaction but is still fun to read. For instance, with the unveiling of the Fantasti-Car, which in this reality was created by Reed when he was 13 and was looking for some quick transportation to visit his parents, we see that Reed and Johnny cut him no slack when it's pulled out of mothballs for a mission and they learn of the name he gave it.

And during the mission briefing, we learn that Ben's "calling card" also has a little history to it:

Unfortunately, there's one little detail about the "Fantasti-Car" that Reed doesn't bother to mention until the last minute:

Fear not, the Fantasti-Car's maiden flight is a success...

...at least until it gets an explosive reception from Dr. Doom.

In future posts, we'll check out some other samplings from the Ultimate books.