This is from the reviled Tom DeFalco FF era, so it’s not great. Just making that clear up front.
The event officially starts in Fantastic Four: Atlantis Rising #1, which is the fourth(!) comic in the “Fantastic Four family” of books, alongside the main title, Fantastic Force, and FF Unlimited. They could have easily told this story in any of those three books. But they didn’t.
Anyway, in FF: AR, Nathaniel Richards (dead Reed’s daddy from the future) steals some stuff from Uatu on the moon, and inadvertently nearly destroys Attilan, the Inhumans’ city that is also located on the moon. Kristoff Vernard, who is not Doctor Doom, shrinks Attilan to save it, and then Black Bolt’s brother Maximus steals tiny Attilan.
What does this have to do with Atlantis? Nothing yet. We’re just adding to the cast and complexity of an event that nobody wanted to read anyway. Let’s get to the Atlantis part of the story…
In Namor #62, Morgan Le Fey began lifting Atlantis out of the ocean. Thor, who actually IS Thor–not Thunderstrike–even though his costume is different and terrible, rushes to help.
Morgan Le Fey has a magic sapphire that enables brain control, and she takes over Thor’s mind. She then offers to give Atlantis to The Inhumans (the Atlanteans had to flee because they couldn’t survive above ground), to replace their shrunk city. Only it’s not the Inhumans Royal Family–because Black Bolt is currently in exile–it’s their Genetic Council, and apparently, they are all a$$holes.
They send the Crimson Cadre (an Inhuman version of X-Force) to attack Hawaii. Why Hawaii? I really don’t know. Why attack? Again, don’t know. The comic suggests that it is to “distract” the United Nations from the raising of Atlantis, which of course makes no sense. The U.N. is certainly capable of paying attention to more than one thing at a time.
Anyhow, The Fantastic Force beat up those dastardly and nonsensical Inhumans. Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four take on Maximus to stop him from claiming Attilan, and Maximus manages to shrink them like the city itself was shrunk.
At this point, I’m lost as to why any of this is happening and I’ve stopped caring about the details. Future Franklin somehow is split up into both Future Franklin and 616 Franklin Richards, but then gets re-absorbed again (why? Why? WHY???). Triton is healed from his injuries incurred during the final issues of Namor’s series, and restored to his normal self. Llyron, Namor’s clone, redeems himself by being nice to displaced Atlanteans. Thor fights the Fantastic Four but eventually gets free of Le Fey’s control.
And The Inhumans–without Black Bolt and the royal family (i.e., the Inhumans we care about)–are still occupying Atlantis, rebranding it as the new Attilan–and they re-grow Attilan so it smashes over Atlantis.
And for some reason, Johnny Storm decides he’d rather be on the Fantastic Force than the Fantastic Four. Kristoff seems to join them, too. How odd.
Oh my God that was painful. And it’s not over yet. We still have several “fallout” comics to deal with. If you hit the Atlantis Rising tag, below, you’ll see them.
Atrocious art and a story that has lots of fists and destruction but doesn’t make a lot of sense. Yep, it’s 1995 all right.
Even more annoying: When did Johnny Storm start pumping iron?? He’s never cared about physical fitness before. At his power-level, he can afford not to. I’d be the same way. If I were the Human Torch, or Cyclops, or Havok, or Iceman, or any super-being with an incredible level of superhuman ability, you’d never catch my ass at the gym! The only thing Morgan le Fey needs is a big stud-daddy like Thor or the Sub-Mariner to bend her over and cool her jets!