SPOILER WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Fantastic Four #1 by Dan Slott, Simone Bianchi, Sara Pichelli, Skottie Young and Esad Ribic, on sale now.
The Marvel Universe has felt a little emptier ever since the conclusion of Secret Wars, which resulted in the supposed deaths of Reed Richards and Sue Storm (along with both their children), thus irrevocably fracturing the First Family. Those left behind, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm, haven’t faired well. Ben has been working through his grief alongside his longtime girlfriend, Alicia Masters, while Johnny has been making his way through every excuse in the book to keep from admitting that his sister and brother-in-law might be gone for good.
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Those conflicts, both internal and external, come to a head in Fantastic Four #1. Johnny gingerly takes steps towards accepting the death of his family, while Ben seems ready to start a new chapter. Johnny’s journey goes down in much the way you might expect (there’s a lot of hot-headed blustering and zipping around in the sky while on fire involved), but Ben’s path feels a bit more meaningful, as he finally takes steps towards cementing a family of his own. Fantastic Four #1 marks the moment when Ben proposes to Alicia, and it seems like Marvel might finally get the pair's relationship right this time around.
First things first, though. Matrimony has been in the air not just at Marvel Comics, but also in the industry in general -- largely to unfulfilling effect. Earlier this year, Colossus and Kitty Pryde were set to be married. Over at DC Comics, the same could be said for Batman and Catwoman. Neither plan worked out particularly well, though Rogue and Gambit did end up getting a semi-shotgun kind of wedding and then a honeymoon in space, so that’s nice. Still, no one could blame comic book fans for being wary of a new superhero proposal so soon after others fizzled spectacularly.
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Additionally, it’s hard not to look at the relationship history between Ben and Alicia and be skeptical. First introduced in Fantastic Four #8 back in 1962, Alicia was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. She was first introduced as a tool of deception for her surrogate father (though she quickly threw off those familial shackles). Later, she was instrumental in convincing the Silver Surfer to leave Galactus’ service and fight for Earth, though that would eventually lead to tension between her and The Thing. In time, she would be replaced by a Skrull-in-disguise who struck up a relationship with Johnny Storm. Things got understandably weird when the real Alicia was liberated, as her feelings for The Thing had never actually waned, but Johnny was left with the ghost echoes of a relationship.
With such a strange, rocky history behind them, it would be reasonable to assume that Ben and Alicia’s wedding is destined to be a bust. Except, that’s not the vibe one gets from reading the comic -- which is just... so dang wholesome.
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Case in point, Fantastic Four #1 opens with Ben and Alicia adopting kittens. Outdoors couple activities don’t really get much more wholesome and endearing than that. Also, during the scene, Alicia lets slip that she has been thinking about their relationship from a long-term perspective, almost admitting that she has always assumed that “we” would have pets (she quickly corrects herself with an “I’d” in place of the “we’d”). If it seems like you could easily insert the world “kids” into that sentence in place of “pets,” it’s because you could. It’s because you could totally do that.
Later, someone sets off a Fantastic Four signal flare. Johnny flames on right over to the source of the call, but Ben just decides it’s time to wrap up their shopping spree. Here we get another look at the couple’s rebooted relationship, with Ben being able to openly share a secret with Alicia while she listens patiently -- sort of like couples do, ideally. Ben can unload some of his feelings and Alicia offers some encouraging advice. The reader gets the sense that the same could be said if the gender roles were swapped. It's a big upgrade. So, it’s no surprise that Ben pops the question a few short pages later, given all the evidence at hand, and it’s even less surprising that Alicia answers him with an enthusiastic, “Yes!” She has been waiting 56 years, after all.
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It’s also worth pointing out that this is Marvel’s First Family. Many superhero groups have a lone wolf or me-against-the-world mentality innately baked into them, or simply an unwritten clause that states none of their members can be happy (the X-Men, for example, can only know misery). But intense family bonds are built into the DNA of the Fantastic Four, who are basically just a big family of nerdy explorers. Also, the superhero group was host to one of the biggest and earliest wedding in the history of Marvel Comics -- that, of course, being the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm all the way back in 1965.
That’s not to say that Reed and Sue’s wedding was a cakewalk. Fantastic Four Annual Vol. 1 #3 reveals that the couple’s big day was anything but, as it includes 26 villains in its mere 24 pages, along with three bonus Super-Apes. The issue sees Doctor Doom effectively chum the waters for supervillains using a high-frequency emotion charger. The device compels the Marvel Universe’s biggest antagonists from the time to crash the wedding and really muck things up. A massive melee ensues before the Watcher (of all celestial beings) carts Reed off and essentially lets him steal a doomsday device that solves all their problems. In the end, all of Marvel’s heavy hitters, heroes and villains alike, end up coming out for the big day, but, and here’s the crucial point, Reed and Sue get their wedding.
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Ben and Alicia will get a similar resolution with any luck, though it’s possible that the potential return of Reed and Sue in a later issue will throw a wrench into their wedding plans. Hopefully, though, the couple can overcome the beauty and the beast complex that has defined their story for so many years and become one of the few Marvel couples to get married and not have to suffer for their happiness.