Fantastic Four

Fantastic Four's History

To beat the Communists into space, brilliant aeronautical engineer Reed Richards inadvertently created the Fantastic Four after deciding to make an unauthorized test flight into space using an experimental rocket of his own design. While the rocket might have made it possible to travel to other star systems, Reed's financers were losing interest. Reed's girlfriend Susan Storm and her younger brother Johnny insisted on joining Reed on the flight. Reed's old friend Ben Grimm was convinced to pilot the rocket. Once in space, the rocket was bombarded by a wave of cosmic radiation. The craft crashed back down to Earth. Emerging from the ruins of the spaceship, they discovered the radiation had mutated their bodies and had given them remarkable new ablilities. Reed gained the ability to stretch his body and limbs, Johnny was able to fly and become engulfed in flame, and Sue was able to bend light around her body and become invisible. Ben gained incredible strength and durability, but his body was tragically transformed. He now had a muscular orange, rock-like hide.



All four decided to use their powers to better humanity, and founded the Fantastic Four. Individually they called themselves Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Girl, the Human Torch, and the Thing. They were not super heroes in the traditional sense, but rather explorers, facing whatever challenges that may arise as a family. The profits from Richard's patents and royalties funded the teams activities.



Operating from Central City, California, the first menace the FF were called upon to face was the Mole Man and his ever changing cadre of monsters and sub-human races from below the Earth. They were soon thrown into conflict with the shape-shifting Skrulls[1], the first of many alien menaces they would battle in their long careers.



The team moved to the Baxter Building, their New York headquarters and established themselves as mainstream superheroes. Falling out with his teammates after a battle with the Miracle Man, Johnny left the group and encountered amnesiac World War II hero Namor, the Sub-Mariner living as an amnesiac in a flop house. Recognizing Namor from comic books, Johnny dropped him into the sea, hoping to restore his memory. The plan worked, but after Namor found Atlantis in ruins, he declared war on humanity. Johnny rejoined the FF and they drove Namor off.



Reed's former college rival Vicor von Doom returned as Doctor Doom. Doom's attempts at world domination forced the Fantastic Four to face him again again, making him their deadliest and most persistant adversary.



During a trip to the Blue Area of the moon, the Fantastic Four battled the Red Ghost and the Super-Apes and made first contact with a Watcher, called Uatu. With the aid of Ant Man, they battled Doctor Doom in Sub-Atomica. During a trip to ancient Egypt's past, they encountered the Pharaoh Rama-Tut, a time-traveler who would become the man known as Kang the Conquerer. When the Sub-Mariner was reunited with his people, the Atlanteans, the Fantastic Four were caught in the middle of an Atlantean attempt to invade the surface world. Other threats from this period included the Puppet Master, the Impossible Man, the Hulk, the Mad Thinker, the Super-Skrull, and the Molecule Man. Spider-Man made a bid to join the team, but was denied.



The team teamed up with Nick Fury to defeat the Hate-Monger. The Invisible Woman discovered her force-field powers just in time to use them against the Mole Man. The Fantastic Four teamed up with the Avengers when the Hulk attacked New York in his most destructive rampage yet. They met the X-Men for the first time when the schemes of the Puppet Master and the Mad Thinker brought them together. They defeated the planet devourer Galactus , and explored other dimensions, notably the Negaverse.



Sue and Reed eventually married. A difficult pregnancy followed, during which Crystal of the Inhumans took her place on the team. At the last moment, to save the unborn child, the FF had to visit the Negative Zone and borrow the Cosmic Control Rod of Annihilus. Sue's child, Franklin, named after her father, manifested strong and unusual powers almost immediately. When Annihilus kidnapped Franklin to tap those powers, they increased exponentially, and Reed felt he had no choice but to inhibit Franklin's mental activity. Outraged, Sue who left Mr. Fantastic and took Franklin with her.



During Sue Storm's hiatus, the Inhuman Medusa took her place. The old bonds, though, drew Susan back to the team.



During an extended trip to the Negative Zone, a sort of second honeymoon, Sue conceived another child. This unborn daughter began to give off radiation. Despite the efforts of Mr. Fantastic and several other experts, the girl was apparently stillborn.



When Reed and Doom seemingly died as a result of their conflict with the alien Hunger, they were actually spirited away by the space-time-warping Hyperstorm, mad son of an alternate-future Franklin Richards. Hyperstorm kept Doom as a tortured captive and trapped Reed in the distant past for months, during which time the world believed both Reed and Doom to be dead. In Reed's absence, Sue took over leadership of the Fantastic Four and served capably in the role, recruiting Ant-Man as the team's new scientist. However, she refused to believe Reed was truly dead, and she rebuffed romantic advances from Namor. Reed was eventually rescued.



When Franklin Richards was kidnapped by Onslaught, the Fantastic Four joined the Avengers and the X-Men to battle Onslaught in Central Park. An enraged Hulk was able to crack open Onslaught's shell. However, Onslaught remained as pure psionic energy, planning to spread across the planet. Thor plunged into Onslaught, trying to contain him. The Fantastic Four, the majority of Avengers, and even Doctor Doom followed. Thanks to this sacrifice, the X-Men finally managed to destroyed Onslaught. The Fantastic Four, Doom, and the Avengers were believed dead, but were instead saved by Franklin, who created a pocket dimension called Counter-Earth to keep them safe. Back on Earth-616, the Thunderbolts moved into the Fantastic Four's headquarters at Four Freedoms Plaza.



After several months away, the missing heroes returned from Counter-Earth and were reunited with Franklin. The set up their new headquarters at Pier Four.



They met Valeria von Doom, visitor from the future, who claimed to be Sue's daughter by Doctor Doom. She proved to be a key to the defeat of Abraxas, an entity related to Galactus. Reed banished Abraxas by using the Ultimate Nullifier, which had an unintended consequence: it returned Valeria to Susan's womb in the present. Everyone learned then, with some dismay, that Franklin had saved his unborn sister by sending her into the future, when technology was available to help her survive the pregnancy. With the help of Doctor Doom, the child was delivered safely. As a condition of his service, Doom named the girl after Valeria, the love of his life.



Later, Doom would exploit his special bond with the young Valeria to employ her as a mystical familiar, using sorcery to mount one of his most ruthless and terrifying attacks on the FF ever. In the end, Doom was taken by his own demonic benefactors, but not before he hideously disfigured Reed's face as a petty parting gesture. Physically and emotionally scarred, Reed led the FF into Doom's now-leaderless Latveria, where he worked obsessively to dismantle Doom's regime, neutralize his arsenal, erase Doom's legacy and create a better state, becoming increasingly tyrannical himself in the process and ignoring threats of international criminal charges from the United Nations. At the same time, unknown even to his teammates, Reed was secretly plotting to retrieve Doom from Hell and place him in a specially prepared other-dimensional prison from which he could never escape; but this transfer was unwittingly interrupted by the rest of the Fantastic Four, allowing Doom to escape long enough to kill the Thing.



Devastated, the remaining FF returned to America, where their standing with the authorities and their reputation with the general public had taken a terrible beating due to the Latverian controversy. The Fantastic Four broke up, Reed and Sue split up, and Reed was even forced to sign over most of his patents to the government as part of a deal to escape prosecution. However, Reed was certain that Ben could be resurrected, and he convinced Sue and Johnny to join him in this quest, which ultimately led them to the gates of Heaven itself using a modified model of Doom's old afterlife machine. Persuaded it was not yet his time, Ben agreed to return to the land of the living with his friends-and the Creators allowed it, even healing Reed's facial scars as a parting gift. With the Fantastic Four back together, Reed led them in rebuilding their reputations and their finances.



Recently, The Civil War split the team once again. Mr. Fantastic supported the Superhuman Registration Act, while Sue and Johnny joined the resistance. During the final battle , however, Mr. Fantastic shielded Sue from an attack by the Taskmaster and was severly wounded. In the aftermath of the war, Sue and Johnny were granted amnesty. Sue and Reed took a leave from the team to work on their marriage, while the recently married Black Panther and Storm filled in for them. The two have since reconciled.