Warning: this article contains spoilers for Fantastic Four: Road Trip #1
The Fantastic Four has always been a story about a family becoming greater than their individual selves, working together to overcome hurdles personified by zany villains and cosmic craziness. But given their space-faring origins and mutilating bodily transformations, it's a conundrum why they're so rarely placed under the scope of horror. As it turns out, writer Christopher Cantwell and artist Filipe Andrade were racked with that same query, so they made Fantastic Four: Road Trip, and in doing so, managed to take the concept of family bonding to a gloriously disgusting new level.
Of course, sending Marvel's first family for a trip down Cronenberg lane has been attempted in the past, and in the case of Josh Trank's 2015 Fantastic Four movie, with lukewarm results. Naturally, fusing the lighthearted exploits of Marvel's heroes with the existential baggage inherent to horror is no easy feat, but Cantwell's one-shot story finds its balance by utilizing the superhero genre's trope for combining the powers of multiple heroes as one and gives it a disturbing new twist when the FF merge to become Marvel's most grotesque hero to date.
Fantastic Four: Road Trip begins with some welcomed familiar trappings as the family makes their way to a secluded cabin near the Grand Canyon. Even those with a passing interest in the horror genre know where this classic setup leads. But it's not a creepy, old harbinger that warns the unsuspecting travelers of the dangers ahead; instead, it's Reed Richards' own curiosity. He pulls the family station wagon over to investigate a nearby meteor crater and unearths some cosmic space dust buried within.
Thanks to Reed's unending inquisitiveness, the presolar material he brings to the cabin begins its work on the family in no time. The Thing's rock-like skin peels from his body, Sue's invisibility goes haywire - putting her innards on gruesome display, Johnny feels the burning power of the heat he's always radiated and Reed turns into a melting pile of flesh. Just when all hope seems lost, Franklin and Valeria find that combining both their bodies into a goopy unit helps regain some stability. So, Reed commands the team to blend together into one gigantic, soupy mess of grossness in order to repair their genetic sequences. The site is one revolting masterpiece to behold as artist Andrade clearly let his pencil go buck wild to create Marvel's most repugnant sight of terror yet.
As a result of their conjoining to become this fantastic monstrosity, the FF manage to finally revert back to their more-than-merely-human original forms. But this short-lived trek into the cosmic horror that has always lived on the narrative outskirts of the Fantastic Four's weirdest adventures will hopefully not go unnoticed. The bizarre nature of their powers acquired by way of space radiation begs to be explored further within the horror genre. Until then, the frightening giant blob the Fantastic Four became in Road Trip will more than suffice.