Fantastic Four: Solve Everything, the Jonathan Hickman Era Reading Order (2009-2012)

From 2009 to 2012, writer Jonathan Hickman wrote a pair of series focused on the Fantastic Four, Marvel's first family. These series reinvigorated a waning franchise by telling a single massive story across both series and 60 issues, divided into arcs for good stopping points along the way. This storyline brings together prophecies, time travel, the multiverse, aliens, Dr Doom, and Galactus for a heart-warming epic.

This reading order covers Dark Reign: Fantastic Four, Fantastic Four #570-588 and 600-611, and 2010's FF. Some prior knowledge of the Fantastic Four, Dr Doom, Galactus, and the Inhumans would be helpful, but is not necessary to enjoy the run. Spoilers for Hickman's run and some other Marvel events from the mid-to-late-2000s.

Quality:★★★★★ Cohesion:★★★★★ Accessiblity:★★★☆☆

1. Dark Reign: Fantastic Four (2009) #1-5
• This miniseries technically takes place during Mark Waid's Fantastic Four run, but is written by Jonathan Hickman and is basically a prelude to his run. It is a decent introduction to the Fantastic Four as a group, but does feature President Norman Osborn trying to arrest the Fantastic Four for not aligning with the government. Fortunately, this is largely explained during the miniseries.
2. Fantastic Four (1961) #570-588
• This is the main introduction of Jonathan Hickman's run and introduces all of the plot points going forward, including the aliens, Inhumans, Dr Doom, and the prophecy involving the end of the world.
3. FF (2010) #1-11
• After Fantastic Four #588, the series got cancelled and rebooted as FF, following the Fantastic Four as they lead the Future Foundation towards Hickman's endgame. This series is basically one long story arc that doesn't quite end here.
4. Fantastic Four (1961) #600
• The Fantastic Four series comes back with issue #600, a culmination of all the plot points from the rest of Hickman's run, but not the finale. For the rest of the run, Hickman writes both Fantastic Four and FF, which intertwine continuously to tell two connected stories.
5. FF (2010) #12-14
6. Fantastic Four (1961) #601-603
• These two arcs both spin out of Fantastic Four #600 and build towards the same thing, but are generally self-contained. They could theoretically be read in either order, but FF continues from #600 better. As a general rule, FF focuses on the Future Foundation, specifically Franklin and Valeria, while Fantastic Four focuses on the Fantastic Four proper.
7. FF (2010) #15
8. Fantastic Four (1961) #604
• These two finish off the arc that has been building since Fantastic Four #600 and generally tell the same events from different perspectives, but FF #15 ends partway through Fantastic Four #604. After these two issues, everything else is largely epilogue.
9. FF (2010) #16-18
10. Fantastic Four (1961) #605(&605.1)-608
• Both FF and Fantastic Four clean up the events of the previous arcs before spinning into their own things, but FF #16 is a direct sequel to Fantastic Four #604 and thus goes better first. There is also a Fantastic Four #605.1 that is an alternate universe story for another Reed Richards.
11. FF (2010) #19-21
12. Fantastic Four (1961) #609-610
13. FF (2010) #22
• FF #21 takes place in Wakanda at the same time as the Wakanda two-parter in Fantastic Four #607-608 while FF #22 is a sequel to Fantastic Four #610, retelling part of that issue from a different persepctive.
14. Fantastic Four (1961) #611
15. FF (2010) #23
• These issues are the finale of Hickman's run, tying together all loose plot points and character arcs for the main characters. Fantastic Four #611 focuses on Valeria and Mr Fantastic while FF #23 focuses on Franklin.