This page covers the Marvel comicbook team Fantastic Four . If this is not the page you were looking for check here.
Roster
The Beginning
The first family super team of marvel comics, the fantastic four opened up the genre to a whole new way of telling the old story of family binds above all else. Reed Richards scientist and inventor of the first spaceship capable of reaching planets beyond our moon. The government is about to cut funding for the flight. Reed sees no choice but to launch the ship before the whole thing is scraped. Reed invites his girlfriend Susan Storm along for the trip and her brother Johnny Storm decides to come along in order to keep his sister safe. Lacking a pilot for the trip Reed turns to his former college roommate Ben Grimm who was a test pilot for the United States Air Force.
Everyone ready for launch Reeds gets a warning from the authorities that they unaware of the effects of the cosmic rays on human bodies so far out in space and decline Reed's request for launch.
So one night at the change of the guards they sneak in and launch before any planes could be scrambled to intercept them or even be shot down by missiles. Successful in leaving the earth atmosphere halfway along in their trip they get bombarded by cosmic rays before they expected it which affect all of them and making them unable to continue the trip, so they turn back towards earth and crash land in a small opening in a forested area. Luckily surviving the crash but radically changed.
Ben feels his body become heavy and finds he's turned into a monster. Reed tries to calm him down and realizes that he has wrapped his body around Ben. He now has elastic abilities. Johnny bursts into flames while Sue panics as she turns invisible. Soon they all manage to calm themselves and agree to band together as a team. Johnny calls himself the Human Torch, Sue calls herself the Invisible Girl (and later changes it to the Invisible Woman). Ben calls himself the Thing and Reed decides to call himself Mr. Fantastic. Thus the Fantastic Four are born.
Fantastic Four
As a team of superheroes, they remain a family first. Their headquarters in the Baxter Building also serves as their home. They have fought several enemies and have traveled to many different universes. They have become the foundation of the heroes in the Marvel Universe.
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby run (1960s)
The Fantastic Four made their public debut when a villain named Mole Man (A villain that lives underground) began attacking the surface. He attempted to destroy the human race by unleashing his army of monsters that he created through an atomic blast. The Fantastic Four, led by Mr. Fantastic, would be able to defeat Mole Man and stop his threat on the world. The Fantastic Four continued their illustrious careers as superheroes and unlike Spider-Man, they were well loved by the public and the media by appearing on television and more. The Fantastic Four would be the first to meet The Inhumans, the Kree, and the Skrull races. They also discovered the hidden country of Wakanda. During one of their adventures they would encounter their arch-nemesis Doctor Doom, also known as Victor Von Doom and was a former college classmate and rival of Reed Richards. He had always blamed Reed for one of his experiments going wrong and scarring his own face. Dr. Doom recently became the new ruler of his homeland, Latveria. Dr. Doom kidnapped Invisible Girl (She would become Invisible Woman during John Bryne’s run) and forces Mr. Fantastic, Human Torch, and the Thing to use his time machine to travel back to the past and retrieve a magical stone. The three of them agree to do so and uses the time machine. However, once they finished the mission and returned, they decided to fight Doom instead and were able to defeat him and free Invisible Girl. Reed Richards also created the “unstable molecules” which are used for their costumes. This allows Reed’s costume to stretch as he does, Invisible Girl’s goes invisible when she does, and Human Torch’s doesn’t burn up when he flames on. Reed would also discovered The Negative Zone (Stan Lee and Jack Kirby shared credit for the creation of the Negative Zone and unstable molecules). The Negative Zone is a parallel universe in which all matter is negatively charged. It also has a breathable atmosphere which allows Mr. Fantastic to lead his team in adventures in the Negative Zone. The Negative Zone is mostly uninhabited and Reed was eventually able to map out most of the area.
Fantastic Four vs Galactus
The Fantastic Four would eventually battle against the Galactus, the devourer of worlds. Galactus sent his herald, The Silver Surfer, to search for planets to feed the hungry Galactus and he would eventually discover the planet Earth. What looked like to be a losing battle, the Fantastic Four eventually allied themselves with the cosmic entity the Watcher. They were also able to liberate Galactus’ herald the Silver Surfer, who felt rebellious to Galactus. Reed would eventually be able to defeat Galactus by threatening to use the Ultimate Nullifier (A weapon that erases anything and everything that was stolen by the Human Torch on Galactus’ vessel) on Galactus. Galactus promises to not devour Earth again and leaves.
Reed and Sue's wedding
Reed and Sue eventually married in 1965 and it became a celebrity event. The couple continued their newly married life in the public eye for years to come. Later Sue would become pregnant with a baby boy whom would be named Franklin Richards. Due to Sue being pregnant, she had to take a temporary leave on the team. The Fantastic Four decided to recruit the Human Torch’s girlfriend, Crystal. However due to the pollution on Earth, it forced Crystal to leave the Fantastic Four soon after. Sue eventually gave birth to Franklin on 1968 in Fantastic Four Annual #6, and returned as an active member on the Fantastic Four. However, Sue and Richards’ relationship became dysfunctional because Sue began hating the life of a celebrity. Sue left the Fantastic Four and the Inhuman named Medusa would fill-in for Sue while she took a break. Sue eventually returned to active duty in the Fantastic Four again. Lee and Kirby ended their run when Kirby left Marvel in 1970.
John Bryne Run
During the 1970s the Fantastic Four had many artists and writers who would continue the Fantastic Four’s public career as superheroes. A roster change would come up when the Thing temporarily lost his powers. Reed decided to hire mercenary Power Man (Luke Cage) to fill in for Ben. Reed eventually finished developing an exoskeleton that mimics his strength as the Thing, and Ben returns to the Fantastic Four as an active member. John Bryne would take over the Fantastic Four in the 1980s where critics would call “the best run since Lee and Kirby.” Bryne was most celebrated for his modernization of Invisible Girl. He changed her name to Invisible Woman and made her a more confident woman and also gave Sue more control over her abilities, making her the most powerful member of the Fantastic Four. The Fantastic Four would participate in the Beyonder’s “Secret Wars” on an alien planet. During their time in the Secret Wars, the Thing was able to change to his human form and the Thing form at will. After the heroes were victorious against the Beyonder, the Thing decided to stay on the alien planet as he was happy to be able to change his forms at will. When the Fantastic Four returned to Earth, they recruited She-Hulk to fill-in for the Thing. Later, Sue would appear to have become pregnant with a second child but instead, Sue suffered a miscarriage. Eventually The Thing would decide to return to Earth, however upon his arrival he discovers that his girlfriend, Alicia Masters, was dating his teammate and friend Johnny Storm (Human Torch). The Thing left the team to travel to world and She-Hulk would remain on the roster in his place. During one of the Fantastic Four’s missions, they traveled to Mole Man’s realm where they discovered the Thing snooping around there. The Thing rejoined the Fantastic Four and they were able to defeat Mole Man before he destroyed California. She-Hulk left soon after for other reasons.
Fantastic Four in Heroes Reborn
Heroes Reborn
Sue and Reed would eventually decide to leave the Fantastic Four in hopes to give their son, Franklin, a normal life. Johnny would eventually marry Alicia Masters despite Ben’s feelings towards Alicia. Even with Johnny marrying Alicia, The Thing became the leader of the Fantastic Four. Crystal (Johnny’s former lover) and Sharon Ventura (who went by the alias Ms. Marvel) joined the team. The Thing met Sharon during his time away from the Fantastic Four. During the new team’s first mission they were in another shuttle accident that was exposed to cosmic radiation. It mutated the Thing even more by giving him spikes on his body, and also transformed Sharon into a female version of the Thing. Reed and Sue would eventually return to the Fantastic Four, however soon after Ben would lose his powers temporarily again and is changed back to his human form.
Back to life
Later, Marvel editor-in-chief Tom DeFalco decided to retcon Johnny and Alicia’s relationship. They revealed that the real Alicia was actually kidnapped by the Skrull Empire and was replaced by a shape-shifting Skrull named Lyja. When they discovered this, Lyja had fallen in love with Johnny and decided to help the Fantastic Four resuce the real Alicia. After Ben and Alicia were able to reconcile, She-Thing (Sharon Ventura) had already fallen in love with Ben and decided to ally with Dr. Doom afterwards. However, Dr. Doom mutated her even more and she eventually left for good. Franklin Richards was later kidnapped by a time-traveler named Nathaniel Richards (Father of Reed Richards) and took him to the future to raise him there. He brought Franklin back as a teenager, who dubbed himself Psi-Lord. It was later revealed that in a future timeline, Franklin would father a child with Rachel Summers who would become a super villain named Hyperstorm. For a time, it had appeared that Mr. Fantastic was killed by Dr. Doom, who also was badly wounded and dying. However, it was later revealed that Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Doom were not dead, but were kidnapped by Hyperstorm right before their deaths. The Fantastic Four eventually discovered this and were able to free Reed and defeat Hyperstorm with the help of Galactus. When the team returned back to Earth, Nathaniel decided revert Franklin back to his original age as a child.
The Fantastic Four would later battle the psychic being known as Onslaught. Onslaught was too powerful for the Fantastic Four and all the heroes of Earth, it became a losing battle. However, the heroes devised a plan to defeat Onslaught but at the cost of all non-mutant hero lives. The Fantastic Four and all the heroes decided to sacrifice themselves in order to destroy Onslaught and were seemingly killed in the process. Since Reed had developed so many advanced technologies, the Government attempted to seize all his equipment, however Nathaniel traveled back to this reality and stored all of Reed’s equipment into the Negative Zone. However, with Franklin’s reality-altering powers he was able to store all the sacrificed heroes in a pocket universe and was able to bring them back to life on this reality’s Earth.
The team would later return from the heroes reborn Earth, and have to cope with the fact that they had been considered dead for more than a year. During this time the team resided in Pier 4, since Four Freedoms Plaza now belonged to a group of super villains, masquerading as heroes known as, The Thunderbolts. It was also around this time when the team came in contact with a teenage girl calling herself Valeria Von Doom, who claimed to be the daughter of Susan and Doom in the future. Sue was apprehensive at first with the girls story but eventually she and the rest of the team came to accept Valeria as both ally and friend.
In a struggle against Abraxas, Valeria forfeited her life in order to help bring back Galactus to life. But she would not die. She is transformed into the form of a fetus and transferred into Sue's womb, making Valeria's story true except for one notable difference. She had been Reed's daughter all along. Sue was pregnant again but all would not go well for the Invisible Woman.
Due to Sue's cosmic radiation exposure it became difficult to give birth. With Reed away solving a world crisis, Johnny turns to Dr. Doom and asks him to help his sister. Doom was successful in the delivery but forced Sue to allow Doom to name the child. Doom would name her Valeria Richards after a woman that he had once loved.
Mark Waid Era
The Mark Waid era saw the Fantastic Four we see a lot of new concepts and amazing arcs come to light. His first stories on the book dealt with the Fantastic Four as Imaginauts and how they dealt with the fame that they always had their way. We also saw glimpses of Johnny as a much more responsible man, thanks to his sisters conjecture.
We also witness Doom's ruthlessness in trying cause harm to the Fantastic Four at any costs. He sold his loves life, Valeria (his first love) in an attempt to gain more of the magics that were always in his blood and which he denounced for a life of science. Seeing now that having both would help him in his end, he betrayed her to demons and was able to get the magical knowledge he yearned for.
To add to that, when Doom delivered baby Valeria, he cast a spell on her that would make her his magical familiar and he used the connection to carry out a devastating attack against the team. In the instant she uttered "Doom" demons kidnapped Franklin and Reed and Johnny tried desperately to save him before Johnny was burnt badly by demon fire.
Sue and Ben hurry to Reed to tell him what's happened when they discovered Johnny wailing and notice his burnt flesh. The explain what happen and the team sets out to rescue Franklin and heal Valeria from this affliction Doom gave upon her. They travel to Latveria where the team is ambushed by Doom. He takes Valeria and uses his magic in order to have the team suffer through painful versions of each others powers. He gives Johnny, Reed's stretching abilities, stretching him to his limits. He gives Sue a painful version of her brother's flame power. He has Ben fight off dozens of monsters. And finally he sticks Reed in a room full of magical information.
But with the help of Doctor Strange, (or should I say his astral projection), Reed escapes and saves his family. Together they defeat Doom, and rescue Franklin and Valeria. Doom was vanquished and left in Hell by Reed, but not before Doom instilled a parting gift on him and scarred his face. This encounter would have lasting affects on the team and Reed.
Civil Wars can break up families too
Recently
New team members
The Fantastic Four have been split up due to the Civil War with Reed Richards on Iron Man's side, Johnny and Sue on Captain America's side and the Thing being neutral and going to France. Iron Man was for the registration of superhumans where as Captain America felt it violated an individual's civil rights. Reed even went so far as to help create a clone/cyborg hybrid of Thor with Tony Stark. The clone proves to be unstable and kills Ben Foster, also known as Goliath. In a final battle between the two sides, Taskmaster is about to shoot at Sue, Reed intervened and got shot instead. Seeing this, Sue smashes Taskmaster down with an invisible construct. When Captain America decided to surrender, the heroes had to face all the destruction their fight had caused.
Sue has decided to try to repair her relationship with Reed. Reed is able to convince her to take a second honeymoon. They leave the team and head to the moon of Titan. Worried about leaving Ben and Johnny alone, circumstances have brought the Black Panther and his wife, the former leader of the X-Men, Storm. On their first adventure, they head out into space and end up helping to save Epoch from the Silver Surfer, who is back in the service as one of the heralds of Galactus.
Fantastic Four Suit
Reed had invented specialized suits made of unstable molecules which could adapt to him and his teammates' powers. For him, his suit allows him to stretch to great lengths without tearing it. The costume also makes them harmless against electrical attacks. They are also computers. In them, they have something equivalent to a computer. It forms a network, keeping the team up to date. It also displays data for them and touchpad controls are available on their gauntlets. The costume is like a GPS, providing their location. It has a scanner which can scan things in their environment, being able to scan things like how many people are in the room next to them.
New Fantastic Four
Hulk -in the Grey Hulk and the Professor personality in different occasions.
Wolverine
Ghost Rider -Danny Ketch version.
When a female Skrull captured the original team, she impersonated the Invisible Woman to recruit a new team to avenge the "death" of the original and to steal a weapon from the Mole Man. The team reassembled again by Doctor Strange to arrest the Human Torch for his action that destroyed a quarter of a city.
Alternate Realities
Earth-33
Here the Fantastic Four never got their powers.
Earth-717
In this reality the Fantastic Four were the Russian superhuman fighting group known as the Ultimate Federalist Freedom Fighters.
Earth-721
In this reality only Reed Richards and Ben Grimm were aboard the spaceship where the original four was exposed to cosmic rays, which resulted in Reed Richards becoming Thing and Ben Grimm became Mr. Fantastic. Furthermore Johnny Storm was believed to have died in Vietnam, but he became Gaard and later Vangaard. Sue Storm married Ben Grimm.
Earth-952
The Fantastic Four of Earth-952 were Heralds of Galactus.
Earth-982
In the MC2 reality the Fantastic Four is replaced by the Fantastic Five. The team is lead by the Human Torch, and its members are Lyja, (Ms. Fatastic), the Thing, with parts of his body replaced with cybernetic prosthetics, Franklin Richards, taking the name Psi-Lord, and Reed's robot named Big Brain, which he control in The Negative Zone.
Earth-1610
The Fantastic Four of the Ultimate universe is composed younger versions of the original four, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and Thing. The origins of these four is diffrent than the original. Reed Richards enters a Think Tank in the Baxter Building along with Sue Storm her father Richard Storm, one of the caretakers her brother Jhonny Storm and Victor Van Dame. He started in the think tank trying to create a teleportation device and joined work with Victor to get better results. When they had finally aquried results that seemed promiseing they tried it out. Ben Grim a chilhood friend of Reed went to see the launch. The five of them were side by side trying to teleport an apple but got teleported instead. The teleportation consisted of going through something called the Negative Zone and the moment the five entered the N-Zone affecting their DNA giving them superpowers.
Reed could strch todifferent lenghts and didn't need to eat ,drink or air. Sue could generate invisible force fields and arange light making her invisible. Jhonny could generate fire and fly. Ben turned into a rock brute with super streanght. When Reed, Sue, Ben and Jhonny came together once again fced an old Baxter teacher now going as the Mole Man. The four face his mole men and won. Later they decided to find Victor. They found him in Latveria where he was manipulating the locals with dragon tatoos. He now had metal instead of skin. He went against the four but he could not be arrested in Latveria. When going back Reed decided to go to the N-Zone to revert the process on himself and Ben. The four went up in space and teleported into the N-Zone where they made first contact with Ultimate Annihilus. Then they faced an old think tank jelaous brainiac going as Thinkerer. Reed made contact with himself from another universe becoming the Ultimate Frightful Four. Jhonny went to school with Peter Parker (AKA Spiderman). Sue's mother came into the picture asking for help locating Atlantis having the Fantastic Four face Namor. Reed went back in time to stop the N-Zone accident creating an alternate universe where Thor is president and Skrulls help humanity. Well in the end they killed them so Ben went back to stop Reed from stoping the accident. Again they faced the Frightful Four zombies and Doom went down aong with them. Spider-Man had a clone crisis and went to the FF for help. One of the clones who thought was Peter's father asked Sue to be his friend before dying. Reed cured MJ from a moster transformation she was having because of the clones. The gave the Scorpion clone to SHIELD. Ga Lak Tus was going to desroy the world and the FF did their part in stopping him. The Fantstic Four then went up against Gallowglass and Ronan. They also faced their father Thanos and got out of the problem with the help of Seed. Then they faced Diablo a guy who created a teleportation from past to present and relied on magic. The four also went up against the Silver Surfer herald of Phsyco Man. Sue then had to face Red Ghost while Reed was finishing the Cosmic Cube. Whe he finished the cube it automatically protected New York from an attack from Seed.
Earth-1987
The Fantastic Four of Earth-1987 consisted of Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch and She-Hulk.
Earth-2149
In the Zombieverse the Fantastic Four as most other heroes are transformed into zombies. They also crosses over to Earth-1610.
Earth-7712
In this reality the Fantastic Four were the original four, but with different powers and codenames: Big Brain (Reed Richards), Dragonfly (Ben Grimm), Mandroid (Johnny Storm) and Ultra-Woman (Sue Storm).
Earth-58163
In the House of M reality, Reed Richards, Susan Storm, and John Jameson died on the experimental space ship crashed back on earth. Only Ben Grimm survived and mutated into the Thing, but his intelligence was greatly reduced. Doctor Doom took him and formed the Frightful Four with him as team leader, with powers similar to Mercury, Kristoff Vernard as the Inhuman Torch, and Valeria Von Doom as the Invincible Woman
Earth-311
In the year 1602, The team is called the Four of the Fantastick. They are composed of Sir Richard Reed, Susan Storm, John Storm and Captain Benjamin Grimm. The galleon ship encountered a magical rift similar to that of the Bermuda Triangle, which gave them their individual powers.
Earth-187319
In this reality, the team is called the Four Fantastics, that is lead by Victor Von Doom, with members Susan Storm, Johnny Storm, and Bruce Banner. Their enemy is Reed Richards.
Earth-9031
All four of the Fantastic Four gains Human Torch's powers.
Earth-9032
All four of the Fantastic Four gains Mr. Fantastic's powers.
Earth-9033
All four of the Fantastic Four gains The Thing's powers.
Earth-9034
All four of the Fantastic Four gains Invisible Woman's powers.
Appearances in Other Media
Animated Series
1967: Produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, this is the first Fantastic Four animated series and portrayed characters that were designed by Alex Toth. The series was twenty episodes long and ran on ABC from 1967 to 1970 until it was cancelled.
1978: Produced by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and Marvel Comics Animation, this is the second Fantastic Four animated series. In this show, the Human Torch was replaced with the robot H.E.R.B.I.E. because Torch was tied up with movie rights for a film that was never made. This series will be released on Region 2 DVD in 2008 in the UK.
1994: The third Fantastic Four animated series, it began its run on September 4, 1994 and ended February 24, 1996. The series consisted of two seasons with thirteen episodes each.
2006: Titled, Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes, this series is based not only on the comic but the film as well, is produced by Moonscoop and airs on Cartoon Network. The DVD's are released in volumes with four episodes each and are distributed by Warner Bros. Television Distribution (outside USA) and 20th Century Fox (USA).
Films
The Fantastic Four: Unreleased, this was a low-budget film finished in 1994. It was simply made so that the property could be copyrighted, though the directors (Roger Corman/Bernd Eichinger) and creators were left unaware of this fact, and so it was not intended to be released. The film depicted the origin of the Fantastic Four and their first battles with Dr. Doom and Mole Man.
Fantastic Four: Released in the US on July 8, 2005 it was the third superhero film of the year (Elektra and Batman Begins being the first and second respectively). The film was directed by Tim Story and released by 20th Century Fox, and though it was the first Fantastic Four film to be released it was the second to be filmed.
This film told of the forming of the Fantastic Four and how they got their abilities. It was also a tale of their change in mindset when they slowly began to accept that it was their duty to be heroes, they were not destined to be normal, even Ben came to terms with this. The film also depicted the origins of the team's nemesis Dr. Doom and showed the characters developing their powers, pushing them to their limits and learning how they work. In the end, when working as a team they find themselves able to defeat Dr. Doom, his "dead" body is then shipped off to Latveria.
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer A sequel to the Fantastic Four film of 2005, this film was also directed by Tim Story. Rated PG, this film was released in North America on June 15, 2007 and some of its stars include:
Ioan Gruffudd (Mr. Fantastic)
Jessica Alba (Invisible Woman)
Chris Evans (Human Torch)
Michael Chiklis (Thing)
Julian McMahon (Doctor Doom)
Kerry Washington (Alicia Masters)
Beau Garrett (Frankie Raye)
Doug Jones (Silver Surfer)
Laurence Fishburne (Surfer's Voice)
Stan Lee (Stan Lee)
This film starts off quite some time after the last movie ended and focuses on the upcoming marriage between Sue and Reed and their relationship/future as well as the threat the Silver Surfer poses to the world. Once again the team finds themselves needing to work together as the Earth will be devoured if they do not, forcing them to do things like working with the resurrected Doom. Eventually they try and capture the Surfer but when they succeed they realize it was the wrong thing to do and Sue frees the alien, after creating a bond with him. She learns a lot about him and eventually it is this relationship that causes him to help the Fantastic Four by driving away Galactus, turning against his master.
