N-Zone

It required the recommendation a friend whose opinion I trusted before I began delving into Ultimate Fantastic Four. This is because, let's be honest, the Fantastic Four are a bit rubs, and even though, yes, I love Warren Ellis and Mark Miller I still couldn't quite bring myself to read it. As it turns out I'm pleased to have been proven incorrect in my assumptions! The fantastic Four themselves still have some of the worst super powers ever, there's no way round that, but Millar and Ellis make it work and the stories are a bloody brilliant read.

Issues 13-18, written by Ellis, are to date my favourite story arc. Reed plans a trip back to the titular N-Zone, the alternate dimension that gave them rubbish super powers in the first place. The N-Zone is a brilliantly created piece of Science Fiction, an unsettling dying universe populated by the desperate remnants of intelligent life. The Four do a spot of sight seeing before happening upon a space station huddled close to a dying star for warmth. It is here that our heros meet the wonderfully creepy Nihil, an ancient creature not quite ready to join his universe in its death throws. Needless to say, it all kicks off.

A genuinely unexpected story arc and all the more brilliant for it. Cracking Stuff.