Back in April, I painted two of the Fantastic Four team for Marvel United – The Thing, Ben Grimm and The Human Torch, Johnny Storm. I immediately started on Mr.Fantastic, Reed Richards and Invisible Woman, Sue Storm. Somehow(!) it’s taken me until a few days ago – yes, November – seven freakin’ months! – to get Reed and Sue finished.

As I mentioned in the original post for Ben and Johnny, I went with white belts, collars and gloves for the team since when I was actively buying and reading comics, the FF were in their John Byrne phase, as opposed to their earlier (and more current) black accessories. They’re even black rather than white on the character cards and artwork for the game, but my brain completely glossed over that part.

I was never a Fantastic Four comic buyer or reader back in the day, but they did appear in various crossovers and as guest starts with the characters and comics that I did buy, like Spidey and the X-Men and in that era, they would have generally had the white rather than black.

I was a little apprehensive about painting the faces and hair on these models as pretty much all of the MU figures I’d painted for myself since the faces are a LOT larger than those found on our typical 28-32mm figures. In the end, I just went for it on both (after that aforementioned multi-month pause) and it seems to have worked out pretty well in the end. To be fair, it took the easier dark skin on Luke Cage to give me the confidence to get back to Reed and Sue.

Now the Fantastic Four are completed – but not every figure from the box – there’s still Doctor Doom, The Silver Surfer and the Super-Skrull to come! At this point in 2023, I see those three becoming a “Finish painting a Board Game or Expansion” painting goal for 2023, especially since I’d also be aiming to paint my Marvel Zombies versions of those characters in parallel. Regardless, I do look forward to getting these models onto the table! 😀