Fantastic Four Week: Ranking all the Fantastic Four #1 Covers

Continuing what has apparently become a trend, I am here to celebrate Fantastic Four Week (prompted by the release of Fantastic Four First Steps) by ranking all the Fantastic Four #1 covers! Like most long running series, this list is backloaded with more modern covers from the era of “let’s reboot a series every couple years/creative team change!” but the long and foundational history of Fantastic Four means this is an assortment of covers featuring some of the all time great comic book artists, from Jack Kirby to Jim Lee to Alan Davis to Alex Ross! Which one is the best of all? Read on to find out!

#8 – Fantastic Four Volume 4 (2012) by Mark Bagley

An oddly common approach that will emerge from looking at these covers collectively is that of rendering the Fantastic Four such that they’re all reacting to something just off-panel, to varying degrees of rage, confusion and fear. This is the most pedestrian of those efforts, not helped by the fact that everyone seems to be looking at a different thing just off-panel.

#7 – Fantastic Four Volume 5 (2014) by Leonard Kirk

This one goes all-in on the “react to something off-panel” approach by zeroing in just on the FF’s faces. It gets points for being different, but also loses points for showcasing so little of the group as a whole. This would work much better as a random issue of the series rather than the first issue of one.

#6 – Fantastic Four Volume 8 (2025) by Humberto Ramos

The idea here is stronger than the execution. It’s nice to see Sue front and center for a change, and using her to divide the team into three different “sections” is a clever departure from the usual “banding together to face off against some off-panel threat” composition. That said, the effect is muddied somewhat by the fact that only having four team members means we only get three sections, and I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with Human Torch, who looks alternately like some kind of fiery bird man and like he has a thick walrus mustache.

#5 – Fantastic Four Volume 2 (1996) by Jim Lee

For the first Fantastic Four #1 in over thirty years, Jim Lee deploys a classic arrangement to bring the FF into the then-new “Heroes Reborn” universe, in which Marvel handed over the direction of several of their classic characters to Lee and Rob Liefeld for 90s makeovers. Lee gets props for drawing in Sue’s forcefield and flattening Reed as well stretching his arm, but his Thing is very oddly proportioned, and the whole thing is overly rendered (even by mid 90s Image standards).

#4 – Fantastic Four Volume 6 (2018) by Esad Ribic

Here we have a cover that succeeds by being atypical. Instead of presenting the FF in their usual mode as heroic science heroes standing fast against some unseen foe, Ribic leans into the body horror elements at the heart of the FF’s powers. Johnny is more torch than human; Thing more like an enraged Hulk than Aunt Petunia’s favorite nephew. Sue is an ethereal ghost lady . And Reed is a creepy old guy stretching out to grab you, the reader. This is the Fantastic Four as horror movie villains. It wouldn’t work for every first issue cover, but it works at least once.

#3 – Fantastic Four Volume 3 (1998) by Alan Davis

No stranger to classic superhero compositions, Alan Davis delivers a straightforward but well-rendered “team mustering for battle” cover to celebrate the return of the Fantastic Four to Marvel proper. Putting the burning 4 logo on Johnny is a nice touch, and I always like when Thing wears a shirt of some sort.

#2 – Fantastic Four Volume 1 by Jack Kirby

One of the most iconic and homaged covers of all time, and an effective one, which puts each member of the group in their own little vignette that showcases their power/personality. So why isn’t it my top cover? Well, by design, this is a cover meant to make the reader think they’re buying a monster story, of the kind that was Marvel’s bread-and-butter at the time, as opposed to a return to its earlier superhero storytelling. As such, it’s really the monster that’s the focal point of the cover, not the Fantastic Four.

#1 – Fantastic Four Volume 7 by Alex Ross

When you want a richly-drawn, pseudo-realistic cover with a classical feel, you go to painter Alex Ross. His cover for the second most recent volume of FF takes the top spot thanks to the way it melds modern energy with classic Kirby vibes and the kind of bright pop art sensibility of the Silver Age. In a lot of ways, this is the cover the original Fantastic Four #1 could have had if Marvel wasn’t trying to hedge its bets by playing up the monster angle.