Marvel's upcoming Fantastic Four: Reckoning War will finally deliver on a promise made way back in 2005, as She-Hulk's actions lead to a devastating conflict so huge that even Marvel's all-seeing Watchers will be drafted into the fight. Coming in January 2022, Fantastic Four: Reckoning War will see Dan Slott, Carlos Pacheco, and Rachael Stott pick up the dangling threads of Slott's well-regarded She-Hulk run. Mentioned by name in She-Hulk vol. 2 #3, and recently teased in Fantastic Four: Empyre Fallout #1 with the resurrection of Uatu the Watcher, the Reckoning War is set to be one of the Marvel Universe's biggest ever conflagrations.
The Reckoning War spins out of She-Hulk's short tenure as a cosmic judge, following her recruitment by the near-omnipotent Living Tribunal. Petitioned by a race of privacy-obsessed aliens, Jennifer Walters bans a single Watcher from reporting back on the events of his sector of space, but it's later revealed (during a trial to decide whether the Time Variance Authority will remove She-Hulk from the timeline) that this decision spirals out into a devastating event known as the Reckoning War.
Now, as part of Marvel's timeline of eight new comic titles heading into 2022, the Reckoning War is finally about to happen. In celebration, writer Dan Slott took to Twitter to point out that - introduced in December 2005 - the Reckoning War is finally completing its more than sixteen-year journey to the comics, despite the fact that - in She-Hulk #3 - the TVA informed Jennifer Walters that the War was only two years away.
It's likely that many elements of the Reckoning War will be different to how they were originally teased. Slott's prior stories suggest a terrible threat will arise in the sector of space She-Hulk left effectively unobserved, leading to a battle that will pull the Watchers into the Reckoning War despite their species-wide vow of non-interference. A lot has happened since the event was first teased, and it seems that the Fantastic Four will take a central role in the conflict. Marvel's timeline operates such that potential futures can be prevented once witnessed, meaning that while fans have seen one version of the Reckoning War, the upcoming event could throw any number of curve balls.
Thankfully, with She-Hulk soon to enter the MCU as played by Tatiana Maslany, renewed focus on Jennifer Walters seems to have finally created the space to show the full extent of a war so heinous that witnessing it temporarily convinced her that the TVA was right to try and erase her from time. Coming in January 2022, Fantastic Four: Reckoning War will finally pay off an event over sixteen years in the making, and hopefully give She-Hulk the central role she deserves in a major Marvel event.
Sources: Dan Slott