Venom War: Fantastic Four #1 cover In Venom War: Fantastic Four #1, two enemies of Marvel’s first family clash and decide to make it their problem.

With the Venom War storyline heading to a conclusion soon(ish) comes yet another tie-in, this time Venom War: Fantastic Four #1. When Marvel’s first family gets stuck in a time loop caused by Doctor Doom and Kang the Conqueror, how will they find their way out? That’s what writer Adam Warren is tasked to work out.

Venom War: Fantastic Four #1 is tricky to review as someone who mostly hasn’t been keeping up with the ongoing storyline. I know the basic premise of it —Eddie Brock and his son Dylan fighting over which one of them gets to be the host of Venom— but I’m unclear on a lot of the other details and context going on around this issue. That’s probably my own fault for picking up a tie-in from an event I’m not following, but on the other hand, some tie-ins don’t really require that investment. (Ex. Venom War: Daredevil #1 is mostly standalone in nature.)

This one is not the latter. Not only does it assume the reader has been reading Venom War up to this point, but it also heavily features Normie Osborn —Norman Osborne’s grandson, AKA Red Goblin— and that’s a whole other thing to know. Kang is here also. Remember when he was going to be the MCU’s new Thanos? Time changes, huh. (That was a time pun.) And then on top of that, this issue is dense. Lots of exposition and timey-wimey stuff that would make even the most ardent Doctor Who fan’s head spin. There’s also the fact that the Fantastic Four themselves share a large charge of the page count with the aforementioned characters —plus Doctor Doom— so fans of theirs may not even get much out of this issue if that’s their main interest. But like I said, people who’ve been reading Venom War just might get more out of this than I did.

At the very least, Venom War: Fantastic Four #1 is a great showcase for artist Joey Vasquez, who gets lots to do here. His style is cartoony in the best possible way; it leans into the zany Saturday morning-esque nature of this story, which essentially amounts to Doom and Kang playing Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots. I’m not sure if it’s totally worth the hefty $4.99 price tag that’s increasingly the norm in comics, but at least it looks fantastic. (Pun unintended this time.)