WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for Fantastic Four #17, by Dan Slott, Luciano Vecchio, Carlos Magno, Bob Quinn, Sean Izaakse, Erick Arciniega and VC's Travis Lanham, on sale now.
The origins of Marvel's First Family has always been pretty straightforward, but Fantastic Four #17 shows there’s always room to dig deeper. So far, we’ve learned the team was trying to reach the planet Spyre when the cosmic rays that gave them their powers struck. It gets worse, as Spyre took them for invaders, calling them the “Four-told,” who posed a “Fantastic threat” to the world of Spyre.
The Overseer, the leader of Spyre, harnessed this threat to empower himself, making his own super-powered army, the Unparalleled, in case the Four-told came back. Fantastic Four #17 reveals the Overseer didn’t just irradiate his own people: he did it to the Fantastic Four, too. The cosmic rays in their origin story were all part of his plan.
The Overseer is not a good guy. He's a dictator creating a superpowered army, exiling people that become monsters and claiming everything is for the good of the society as a whole. He can almost justify it, as from Spyre’s perspective it looked like an invading force was on its way.
Fantastic Four #17 strips that facade away. While Reed and Sue are in the Hall of Heroes, Reed discovers the Overseer didn’t just react to the invasion: he created it. The Fantastic Four would have made it peacefully to Spyre, except that the Overseer created the storm of cosmic rays, making the Fantastic Four look like invaders and giving them their powers at the same time.
The Overseer was setting everyone against each other. Johnny was teamed up as soulmates with Sky of the Unparalleled, who were ordered to kill Sue and Reed on sight; and Ben was leading the people of Lowtown, who were also targeted by the Unparalleled. The Overseers' aims are to sow some discord, get Sky to turn against Johnny, weaken the Fantastic Four and be the leader who not only prepared for but managed to stop the invasion from the Four-told.
Any gambit like this leaves loose ends, and the Overseer didn’t tie them up. Sky doesn’t turn against Johnny and Reed can now expose that the Overseer is the one who created the threat that’s now tearing the planet apart, not the one who saved his people from an invading force.
Even when the story of Spyre is over, there’s a new wrinkle in the history of Earth-616. The Fantastic Four weren’t created by accident — they were a result of malicious actions by a space dictator, which could have some major ramifications for Marvel's First Family. Their attempt to return to Spyre, the mission where it all began, was always going to be big, but they probably never expected it would rewrite their understanding of their own history.
Fantastic Four #18 releases January 20, 2020.