The cover art of Fantastic Four #42, which will be released in March 2022, shows that Mr. Fantastic is in big trouble at the hands of his best friend. The preview hints at the leader of the Fantastic Four and the Thing, Ben Grimm, battling to the death, and according to the cover drawn by CAFU is Mr. Fantastic who will come out short.
In 2022, the Fantastic Four will be heavily involved in the Reckoning War, the biggest Marvel Comics event of the year. The first clues referring to this began to appear more than fifteen years ago, and current Fantastic Four writer Dan Slott has been dropping hints and information for a very long time. While the details of the story are still kept obscure, Marvel's solicitations for future issues of Fantastic Four have given readers a taste of what to expect, including a showdown between Mr. Fantastic and the Thing.
Ben Grimm and Reed Richards go back a long way. The two were friends before the fateful space trip that gave the Fantastic Four their powers, sharing a room as freshmen in college. Their relationship, however, was forever changed by the cosmic rays that turned Ben into a rock-like creature. While the two still regard themselves as best friends (to the point that the second name of Reed's first son, Franklin, is Benjamin) there have been times when Ben resented Reed for his transformation. In fact, the very first thing that Ben did after emerging mutated from the crashed spaceship was to attack Reed, a moment that the cover of Fantastic Four #42 seems to call back to. Until very recently (Fantastic Four #19, when the FF discovered the cosmic ray storm had not been an accident but an attack), Ben blamed Reed for the accident that turned him into a monster, and while forgiving his friend, he still harbored a certain amount of resentment.
In the cover, Mr. Fantastic appears beaten and bruised, with the mighty hands of the Thing tightening around his body. While Reed's powers of elasticity are not to be underestimated, the Thing is one of the powerhouses of the Marvel Universe, having gone toe to toe with some heavy hitters like the Hulk in the past. More than Ben's punches, whoever, what Reed fears most is his guilt towards his best friend. Despite being the smartest man on Earth, and one of the most intelligent in the Marvel Universe, Reed has been unable to permanently cure the Thing, or at least give Ben the ability to revert to human form at will. The fact that despite their troubled relationship these two can manage to still be best friends is a tribute to the values of the Fantastic Four as a family, whose strength lies exactly in overcoming hardships.
The "brother against brother" showdown teased for Fantastic Four #42 - written by Dan Slott and penciled by Rachael Stott - could change all that. There are very few reasons why the Thing and Mr. Fantastic would really hurt each other, but one is the fate of the universe being at stake. The Reckoning War promises to do exactly that, but readers will have to wait until 2022 to find out how the Fantastic Four will handle the crisis.