The Fantastic Four’s New Russian Opposites are Marvel’s Most Tragic “What If”

Contains spoilers for G.O.D.S. #7!The Fantastic Four once set off on a space-faring mission that changed their lives forever, and now Marvel has just introduced another group whose own flight makes them both parallels and opposites to the FF. The tragedy of this other group is that their own accident makes them victims, not heroes. According to all official accounts, there was never a Russian Fantastic Four equivalent, but there’s still one hero who remembers them.

In G.O.D.S. #7, readers are introduced to the cosmonauts of the rocket Vostok 7, a Soviet equivalent to the Fantastic Four whose own space flight was far more tragic. Launching in 1963, Vostok 7 almost immediately disappears, lost somewhere outside the regular universe.

This voyage parallels the Fantastic Four in some obvious ways. For starters, the FF’s own space journey was originally set in 1961, when Fantastic Four vol 1 #1 was published. The FF’s goal at the time was also to beat the Soviets to space, which makes it fun that there was in fact a near-simultaneous Soviet mission doing much the same.

These Russian Explorers Don’t Get The Fantastic Four’s Happy Ending

As seen in G.O.D.S. #7’s present-day story, the crew of Vostok 7 have been trapped, unaging, in another dimension ever since, and begin rapidly aging when they return to reality. While the crew don’t get superpowers like the FF, they’re still changed forever by weird sci-fi science. These parallels aren’t limited to the issue’s plot either. G.O.D.S. colorist Marte Gracia limits his palette to bold shades of red and grayscale in the issue’s opening, mimicking the interior shots of the rocket from Fantastic Four #1, which similarly used hot colors.

G.O.D.S. #7 centers on the character of Dmitri, the son of the Vostok 7 cosmonauts, who risks his own life to rescue his parents from their potentially eternal fate. It ends with Dmitri potentially lost in this dimension forever while attempting to save his lost father. This dimension brings to mind the Negative Zone, the alternate dimension introduced in the Fantastic Four’s adventures. While the Fantastic Four don’t travel to the Negative Zone in their mainstream origin, it’s a staple of alternate retellings of that story, most notably in Ultimate Fantastic Four #1-3, where it’s called the N-Zone.

Jonathan Hickman Loves Both Fantastic Four Parallels and Soviet History

This parallel Fantastic Four is perfectly in character for G.O.D.S. writer Jonathan Hickman. Hickman is fascinated with the idea of characters and groups that parallel each other, and also has a fondness for writing 20th century history into his books. His book The Manhattan Projects also focuses on the scientists of the 20th century, including the Soviets, while another title, The Black Monday Murders, has parallel groups of Americans and Soviets in the 1980s. By invoking the political and social divides of the recent past, Hickman can build his thematic and character parallels in fun, unexpected ways.

Even within the Marvel multiverse, Hickman is fascinated with mirrors and parallels to the Fantastic Four. Hickman’s own Fantastic Four run centers on an interdimensional council of evil Reeds’ Richards and what separates mainstream Reed from them. It’s also under his tenure that the Reed Richards of the original Ultimate Universe becomes the twisted villain The Maker. While Vostok 7 isn’t a literal FF variant, it’s still well within Hickman’s wheelhouse of exploring how different parallel and opposing versions of the Fantastic Four impact the Marvel multiverse in different ways.