Best known for powerful painted illustrations of classic superheroes, acclaimed comics cover artist Alex Ross switches to a boldly inked line, dynamic layouts, and eye-popping coloring (with Josh Johnson) for Fantastic Four: Full Circle, his first solo effort at writing and drawing a full superhero graphic novel. The book is a passionate, rollicking homage to the dazzling art and storytelling of Jack Kirby, the great Marvel superhero comics artist and co-creator of the Fantastic Four, the innovative superhero team–Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic; Sue Storm, the Invisible Girl; Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, and Ben Grimm, The Thing–he created with the legendary Stan Lee in 1961. In this new story, a mysterious figure invades the Baxter Building, the Midtown Manhattan Tower where the FF is based, leading the quartet to return to the Negative Zone, a hair-raising and brutal anti-matter universe parallel to our own, where they battle a series of old super enemies and resolve lingering questions surrounding a deadly conflict from long ago. In this 8-page excerpt, Ross offers a short reprise of how the Fantastic Four gained their powers; before following our heroes as they leap into the vividly rendered cosmic vortex of the Negative Zone. Fantastic Four: Full Circle by Alex Ross, will be published in September by Abrams ComicArts.
