The Fantastic Four aren't just Marvel Comics' first superhero team: they're the team that transcends the label of "superhero." As one of the pioneers of the genre, theirs was the mold that many other Marvel characters were cast from, paving the way for the comics we know today. But the publisher's difficulties with writing Fantastic Four stories in recent years stems from one key issue: despite being some of the earliest super-powered individuals, the Fantastic Four aren't actually superheroes.

While the team was once the rising star of early Marvel Comics, the publisher has struggled in later years to find a place for the Fantastic Four in its lineup. The team has been disbanded or deconstructed several times, has had its longtime heroes recast as evil villains, and (most critically in the age of the MCU) seen not one but two failed film franchises. Now, with the 15-years-in-the-making Reckoning War event ending with barely a splash, it's clear that Marvel doesn't quite know what to do with this superhero team. But therein lies the key: the Fantastic Four are not, nor have they ever really been, a team of superheroes.

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Fantastic Four Vol. 3 #60 by Mark Waid, Mike Wieringo, and Karl Kesel illustrates this point perfectly. This issue sees a publicity agency baffled when they are hired by the Fantastic Four. To better understand their client, an agent spends the week with the Fantastic Four, seeing their family traditions and accompanying them into transdimensional space, even showing up to routine maintenance around the Baxter Building. After getting to know the family, Shertzer (the publicist) comes to a revelation: that the Fantastic Four aren't superheroes. "They're astronauts," he explains to his firm. "They're envoys. Adventurers. Explorers. Sure, Galactus comes to town, they'll step up...but that's not the job. It just comes with."

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Further emphasis is placed on the fact that, in their spare time, they're a pretty typical family (Johnny and Ben are particularly known for enjoying more mundane pleasures). Rather, it's their work together as a family that allows super-scientist Reed to pursue his crazy theories and experiments, often resulting in discoveries that change the world for the better. Reed, in turn, views the entire construct of the "Fantastic Four" as a mea culpa to his family. It’s why Reed calls himself "Mister Fantastic": By turning them into celebrities and heroes, he's done his best to prevent them from being seen as freaks or monsters due to what happened to them during the doomed mission he pushed them on.

The issue is far from perfect: there's a cringe-inducing encounter with some street rappers, and Ben and Johnny insensitively show up in Native American war bonnets during time-travel shenanigans. Criticism such as author Dan Slott calling the title "the whitest book ever" is justified, rooted as the Fantastic Four are in family tropes from the early 1960s. But even that serves to emphasize the point: the Fantastic Four works best as Marvel’s first family. Their title is strongest when grounded in family issues magnified to super-science extremes, or when the team can serve as explorers and diplomats. They're not super-soldiers; Marvel has Captain America or the Avengers for that. The Fantastic Four transcend the label of superhero by never pretending to be heroes in the first place: they will always be a family of scientists first and heroes second.

More: Marvel Needs to Kill the Fantastic Four to Save Their Legacy