Marvel Comics released a teaser image promoting a possible Fantastic Four relaunch. The image promotes a new #1 issue to be released in March 2011, called FF #1: A Beginning.

The current Fantastic Four team of writer Jonathan Hickman and artist Steve Epting will be staying on the book, which is a good thing as they have been doing a great job of it. The series is currently in the middle of the “3” storyline which has promised to change the book in a big way, with one of the main characters set to die. The teaser image seems to tie into that with three hexagons next to each other. Perhaps it’s some kind of chemical symbol? (Hickman is a very smart guy, and he has made the Fantastic Four suitably smart.)

I’m sure this image will make more sense once we reach the end of the current storyline, but I’m just happy to see that Hickman and Epting will be remaining on the book for the foreseeable future. I do think it’s a little weird for Marvel to reset the numbering on one of their longest-running series, especially given their recent habit of changing the numbering on their series to ignore relaunches (see: Thor, Captain America, and next month when Invincible Iron Man jumps from issue 33 to issue 500).

I’m sure the reason is that Marvel is looking for a new #1 issue to get readers on board with what should be one of their flagship titles but has not been able to find an audience in a long time. If you haven’t been reading Fantastic Four, I would give one of the Hickman storylines a look, so long as you can deal with some oftentimes confusing ideas. It may not be for everyone, but it’s been very interesting, and it has gotten me to read FF for the longest stretch of time in my comics-buying life.

[Source: Marvel]