The Invisible Woman Is Body-Horror Nightmare Fuel as Her Powers Finally Go Haywire

The Fantastic Four‘s Invisible Woman is getting a nightmarish redesign, as her powers go haywire like never before. Susan Storm is perhaps Marvel’s ultimate underrated powerhouse, with the ability to render almost anything invisible (including the Sun itself) and to create hard-light constructs which have proved capable of imprisoning the Hulk and even hurting a Celestial in the past. Now, fans see her powers turned against their wielder.

In a post shared to Instagram by Peach Momoko, fans see Invisible Woman’s powers go badly wrong. Captured by tar-like sludge, Sue’s body turns transparent, revealing the apparent liquefaction of her skeleton and internal organs.

The art is part of a line-wide ‘Nightmare’ variant cover initiative taking place over December, with Invisible Woman’s fate depicted on the cover for December 6’s Fantastic Four #14, from Ryan North and Iban Coello.

Related: Marvel’s Invisible Woman Deserves To Be An Avenger Again

Marvel’s Nightmare Variant Covers Drag Heroes Into Darkness

Every Superhero Has a Dark Side

Each of the Nightmare variant covers comes from Peach Momoko (Star Wars: Visions – Peach Momoko, Ultimate X-Men), with Marvel claiming the images “highlight the unsettling truths of your favorite characters.” In this image, Invisible Woman’s powers can’t save her, as a gigantic eye sees her despite her invisibility. At the same time, her transparent body reveals seemingly non-human biology, matching past stories that have emphasized how – beyond their squeaky-clean hero surface – the team’s powers have always flirted with body horror. Momoko’s art will appear on the following issues.

Body Horror Is Nothing New to the Fantastic Four

The FF Aren’t Human, And Their Powers Often Go Wrong

Even when the Fantastic Four first appeared in Marvel Comics, the darker aspects of their powers weren’t ignored. After all, each of the heroes had been mutated by radiation, with no reason to believe they’d survive the process. When Sue turns invisible, she’s terrified, and is uncertain if her powers will ever reverse.

While she mastered her abilities as the Invisible Woman, her new genetic structure has caused problems since, especially when it comes to pregnancy – Sue was only able to safely give birth to her daughter Valeria because of Doctor Doom’s mystic aid. This fact offers a particularly grim reading of Momoko’s art as Sue’s personal nightmare experience of pregnancy. Of course, Sue isn’t alone – Reed Richards’ powers caused a breakdown of his entire genetic structure, while the Thing’s slow-aging means he will die a truly ancient man, outliving everyone he loves.

Thanks to the grotesque potential of their powers, the Fantastic Four have dealt with plenty of horror, from Fantastic Four: Road Trip (Christopher Cantwell, Filipe Andrade) to the zombie FF who appeared in Ultimate Fantastic Four (Mark Millar, Greg Land), to their powers destroying them in the recent Fantastic Four #10 (Ryan North, Leandro Fernández.) However, Momoko’s gorgeous art is particularly unsettling, partially because it leaves so much room for interpretation.

While the Fantastic Four may be Marvel’s First Family, that only makes it more disturbing to subject them to horror – as Peach Momoko’s upcoming art of the Invisible Woman‘s ‘Nightmare’ shows.

Fantastic Four #14 is coming December 6 from Marvel Comics.

Source: Peach Momoko