There's probably no superhero team that's as strongly associated with one lineup as the Fantastic Four. Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Thing, and Human Torch are a perfectly balanced quartet of heroes. The aloof one, the balanced one, the grumpy one and the impulsive one. Dad, Mom, and two uncles. The Four who were at the center of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's genre-defining run are always going to be the center of the franchise.

Unlike most super-teams, the Fantastic Four all got their powers at the same time. Specifically, when they were test-flying an experimental rocket and got bombarded by cosmic rays. So their story isn't that of a group of superheroes finding each other, like the Avengers or the Justice League, and it's not a story of characters with similar backgrounds being gathered for a specific purpose, like the X-Men or the Suicide Squad. With the Fantastic Four, the story is about the family, and becoming superheroes is just one of the many interesting adventures they're had.

Of course, that doesn't mean there have never been replacement members in the Fantastic Four. She-Hulk has been a member a couple of times, most notably when she filled in for the Thing while he had a solo title in the 1980s. And then there was a story in the early '90s where Wolverine, Ghost Rider, Spider-Man, and the Hulk became "the new Fantastic Four" for one adventure. Both a clever jab at comic book sales stunts, and quite a stunt itself, the story has been returned to several times. And Spider-Man has since been a more legitimate FF member when he filled in for the (temporarily) departed Human Torch.

So naturally most of this Fantastic Four fan art focuses on the original team, but a few artists do choose a different lineup. A lot of the artwork plays with their team uniforms, another factor that separates the FF from most heroes. Some artists radically re-imagine the Fantastic Four, while others just try to capture their classic spirit. And of course a few artists pick just one of the four to focus on. Most are interested in the team dynamic, which is what the FF is all about. This is the best Fantastic Four fan art.

 

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