Marvel Age Fantastic Four, Vol. 3: The Return of Doom (2025 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

Before the advent of Marvel's all-ages Marvel Adventures imprint, the House of Ideas introduced young readers to their most popular characters with Marvel Age. Along with incorporating a handful of Manga inspired titles from Marvel's failed Tsunami line, Marvel Age retold the earliest adventures of Spider-Man, the Hulk and the Fantastic Four. Updated with modern twists, writer Marc Sumerak and artists Alitha Martinez and Joe Dodd followed the original plots of Marvel's First Family created by legends Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. 

Volume 3 of Marvel Age Fantastic Four, 'The Return of Doom' reprinted the last 4 issues of the all-ages series. 

Issue #9 sees Mr. Fantastic dogged by creditors in 'The End of the Fantastic Four.' Recent bad investments lead Reed Richards to accept an offer from Prince Namor, the Sub-Mariner to star in a reality series starring the FF. In a challenge show similar to Survivor, it's a battle for survival as all of Namor 's challenges are secretly rigged as fights to the death!

Issue #10, the title story, ushers in 'The Return of Doctor Doom!' Victor Von Doom has escaped from am orbital prison constructed by Mr. Fantastic thanks to a pair of aliens called Ovoids. From the creatures' space ship, Doctor Doom discovers a way to switch bodies with Reed. Now Doom's mind is in Richards' body and the leader of the Fantastic Four is trapped inside the iron armor of Doom.

After escaping from the clutches of their arch-enemy, the Fantastic Four meet 'The Impossible Man!' In this retelling of the classic second story of issue #11, the are plagued by the madcap antics of the shape-changing visitor from the planet Poppup.

Issue #12 retells the team's epic first encounter with the green colossus, The Incredible Hulk. After another top secret project is destroyed, the United States Army calls upon the FF to investigate. General Thunderbolt Ross is convinced that the sabotage is the result of another Hulk rampage. Dr. Bruce Banner is convinced it's something else and he should know since he's secretly the Hulk!

Featuring modernized versions of some of the greatest Marvel stories ever written, the Marvel Age imprint only lasted from 2004-05. It's predecessor, Marvel Adventures vastly outlived Marvel Age, running from 2005-2012. The success was large part to the addition of Darwyn Cooke who crafted a story Bible that set Marvel's best and brightest into new adventures that were nostalgic without relying completely on the scripts of Lee and Kirby. The artwork was less manga heavy as the Marvel Age books were and reflected a more sleeker style that was more commercial. As with all good things, the imprint was dismantled in order to usher in books based on the Disney XD animated lineup that were set in the Marvel cinematic universe. Being that the Fantastic Four were the property of Fox Studios, young readers were no longer able to find new comic book exploits of Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, The Invisible Woman and The Human Torch by 2013.

Completing this review completes Task #8 (Starring the Human Torch) of the 2025 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.