Reed Richards (Earth-616)

From Marvel Database

Mister Fantastic

Gallery

Real Name

Dr. Reed Richards

Current Alias

Mister Fantastic

Aliases

Stretch, Big Brain, Reed Benjamin, The Man in the Mystery Mask, The Invincible Man, Doctor Doom

Identity

Public

Alignment

Good

Affiliation

Founding member of the Fantastic Four; Former member of the Avengers; secretly a member of the Illuminati, Defenders

Relatives

Nathaniel Richards (Father), Evelyn Richards (Mother; Deceased), Cassandra Richards (Stepmother; Deceased), Ted Richards (Uncle; Deceased), Susan Storm Richards (Wife), Franklin Richards (Son), Valeria Richards (Daughter), Franklin Storm (Father-In-Law; Deceased), Mary Storm (Mother-In-Law), Jonathan Storm (Brother-In-Law), Major John Richards (Grandfather), unnamed Richards child (half-brother), Tara Richards (Huntara, half-sister), Kristoff Vernard (alleged half-brother)

Universe

Earth-616

Base Of Operations

The Baxter Building, Manhattan, New York

Characteristics

Gender

Male

Height

6' 1"

Weight

180 lbs (82 kg)

Eyes

Brown

Hair

Brown

Unusual Features

Greying Hair at the Temples, When asleep, parts of Mr. Fantastic's body relaxes to the point where they "sag."

Status

Citizenship

American

Marital Status

Married

Occupation

Scientist, Adventurer

Education

Reed attended such prestigious universities as the California Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Columbia University, and Empire State University, acquiring multiple scientific doctorates in fields such as engineering, math and physics.

Origin

Origin

Mutate - exposed to cosmic rays

Place of Birth

Central City, California

Creators

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby

First appearance

Fantastic Four #1

History

Reed Richards, the only son of wealthy physicist Nathaniel Richards and his wife Evelyn, was a child prodigy with special aptitude in mathematics, physics, and mechanics. Evelyn died when Reed was seven. Nathanial encouraged and guided young Reed in his scientific studies, and Reed was taking college-level courses by the time he was fourteen. He attended several universities.

It was at State University in Hegeman, New York, that Reed Richards first met two of the most important individuals in his life. He was assigned to room with a foreign student, a scientific genius named Victor von Doom. The imperious Von Doom, taking an immediate dislike to Richards, decided to take other quarters. Instead, Richards gained as his roommate former high school football star Benjamin J. Grimm, who became Richards’ closest friend. Richards was already intending to build a starship for interstellar travel. When he told his ambitions to Grimm, Grimm jokingly said that he would pilot the starship for Richards.

Doom became obsessed with developing a machine that could project the astral form of a being into other dimensions. Reed pointed out a flaw in Doom's calculations, but Doom arrogantly ignored his warning, feeling Reed was trying to upstage him. The machine exploded, scarring Doom's face. He was soon expelled for conducting unethical experiments. As Doctor Doom, von Doom would later become Richards’ greatest rival and enemy.

Reed and Ben later served in the military together. Their time in war increased their trust in each other.

While attending Columbia University, Richards rented living quarters at the Manhattan boarding house owned by the aunt of a young girl named Susan Storm. Though she was still only a child, no more than twelve years old, Susan fell in love with the older Richards, much to his embarrassment.

Three years before Reed Richards tested his starship, his father mysteriously disappeared. In fact, Nathaniel Richards had devised a time machine which he had used to attempt to journey into the future of his own world. However, the machine actually transported him to an alternate Earth with a history considerably different from our own. Reed Richards would be reunited with him while visiting this alternate Earth years later. Before Nathaniel Richards left his own time, he made arrangements that left two billion dollars to his son. Reed Richards spent most of the money on his project to build and launch his starship. This project, based in Central City, California, received further funding from the federal government.

Richards recruited his old friend Ben Grimm, who had become a successful test pilot and astronaut, to pilot the starship. Richards was joined in California by Susan Storm, who was now an adult. Richards and Storm were dating at the time.

Shortly before the starship was to be launched, Richards used his scientific knowledge to defeat the extraterrestrial being Gormuu, who had intended to conquer Earth. Richards’ encounter with Gormuu strengthened his resolve to finish the starship, which he saw as a first step for mankind to defend itself from extraterrestrial threats.

However, the federal government then threatened to withdraw its funding from the project. Richards decided to take the starship on a test flight himself before the funding was withdrawn. Grimm was opposed to the idea, warning that the starship's shielding might prove inadequate protection from the intense radiation storms. Nevertheless, Grimm was persuaded to serve as pilot, and Susan Storm and her adolescent brother Johnny insisted on accompanying Richards as passengers. The four friends stole onto the launch facility, entered the starship, and blasted off. They intended to travel through hyperspace in the ship to another solar system and back. However, unknown to Richards, a solar flare caused Earth's Van Allen radiation belts to be filled temporarily with unprecedented, ultra-high levels of cosmic radiation. Since the ship was designed to shield against ordinary levels of radiation, the cabin volume was subjected to to intense cosmic ray bombardment which irradiated the four passengers and wrought havoc on the ship's controls. Pilot Grimm was forced to abort the flight and return to Earth.

Once back on Earth, the four passengers discovered that the cosmic radiation had triggered mutagenic changes in their bodies. Reed Richards discovered that he could become malleable and elongate his body at will. Richards convinced the others that the four of them should use their new-found powers for the good of humanity as members of a team he named the Fantastic Four. Richards, who became the team’s leader, named himself Mister Fantastic, while Ben Grimm, Susan Storm, and Johnny Storm named themselves the Thing, the Invisible Girl (later the Invisible Woman), and the Human Torch, respectively. The profits from Richard's patents and royalties funded the teams activities.

Under Richards’ leadership the Fantastic Four has become Earth’s most honored team of superhuman adventurers, and has saved the world from conquest or destruction many times. Richards eventually married Susan Storm, and they had a son, Franklin.

Their first child, Franklin, proved to be a vastly powerful mutant whose fluctuating abilities have alternately saved or menaced both the FF and the world, forcing Reed to take steps to contain Franklin's powers. On one such occasion, Franklin's mind was temporarily shut down. An outraged Sue, already resentful of Reed at this point because she felt he did not regard her as an equal, left her husband and quit the team. She was replaced in the FF for an extended period by Medusa of the Inhumans, but Sue reclaimed her spot on the roster after she and Reed finally reconciled. After losing his powers, Reed was imprisoned and impersonated by the Brute, his then-criminally insane counterpart from the High Evolutionary's Counter-Earth, who exiled himself to the Negative Zone after he finally regained his senses.

The FF even broke up for a while, during which time Doom hypnotized Reed into capturing his former teammates as the Invincible Man. The team regrouped after Reed took a solo space flight into the Van Allen radiation belts, guided by information from colleague Stephen Beckley (later Comet Man), regaining his powers at amplified levels, and the FF foiled Doom's latest world-conquering plot. Later, seeking a more normal family life, Reed and Sue established a household in small town Belle Port, Connecticut for a while, living quietly in disguise there as the Benjamin family while continuing to serve with the FF in their original identities.

After a conflict during which he mercifully spared the life of the planet-eater Galactus, Reed found himself placed on trial in an interstellar court by survivors of the many worlds Galactus had consumed; but Reed was exonerated once the last-minute testimony of Eternity proved to the court that Galactus was a necessary aspect of the cosmos. On the family front, Sue's second child was stillborn despite Reed's frantic efforts to save their unborn baby; Reed discovered that his own long-lost father Nathaniel was living a new life with a new family on Other Earth; and an embittered Thing quit the Fantastic Four, partly because a well-intentioned Reed had withheld information from him regarding the state of Ben's ability to resume human form, an ability Ben lost due in part to Reed's misinformation. Ben's hand-picked replacement, She-Hulk, served a long stint with the FF, but eventually left after Ben finally reconciled with the group and rejoined their ranks.

Seeking a more normal family life again, Reed and Sue retired from the FF altogether to concentrate on raising Franklin, leaving Ben in charge of the group. To replace them, Ben recruited his friend Ms. Marvel (Sharon Ventura) and Crystal (who had already served as Sue's FF substitute during and after Sue's first pregnancy); however, Reed and Sue's retirement was short-lived. After teaming with several Avengers to rescue a captured Franklin during the demonic Inferno invasion, Reed and Sue reluctantly agreed to join the Avengers, who were critically short-handed at the time. But Reed was too accustomed to leadership himself to serve smoothly under Captain America for long, so Reed and Sue amicably stepped down from active Avengers membership after only a few missions with the team. Tthey later resigned their Avengers membership altogether after rejoining the Fantastic Four. They remain friends and allies to the Avengers, though.

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 FF 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, but then the entire FF appeared to die in battle with the psychic monster Onslaught, though they secretly survived in a new "Counter-Earth" parallel world created instinctively by Franklin. They eventually returned to Earth.

An even more surprising resurrection unfolded during the team's reality-warping conflict with the cosmic being Abraxas when Franklin revealed he had used his powers to rescue Sue's seemingly stillborn second child years earlier, and that this child had been raised in an alternate future to become the Marvel Girl (Valeria Von Doom) who was now an ally of the present-day Fantastic Four. As a side-effect of Abraxas's defeat, Marvel Girl was restored to her original state, as an unborn child in Sue's womb. This time, Sue's pregnancy resulted in the birth of a healthy baby girl, christened Valeria in memory of Doctor Doom's first love. (Doom had insisted on naming the child in exchange for assisting with the difficult birth.) Later, Doom would exploit his special bond with the child 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 FF 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. For a time, he also steered the team into taking on more conventional civilian occupations as life experience; but his chief goals continued to be raising a family, protecting humanity and seeking knowledge in all corners of the universe and beyond.

Reed was one of the members of the "Illuminati", unknown to his wife. During the Civil War, Reed Richards was one of the leading figures, along with Iron Man, on the side favoring the Superhuman Registration Act. He speculated that this would lead to conflict with his wife, which came true when a clone of Thor, created by him and Iron Man, went out of control and killed Goliath and nearly killed all the rest of the Secret Avengers until Sue stepped in and saved them. Soon after, Sue left Reed, along with Johnny, to join the Secret Avengers in hopes that it would drive Reed to end the conflict quickly.

Peter Parker demanded to see the conditions inside the detention facility designed by Reed to hold unregistered superhumans. After being escorted to and from the prison by Iron Man, Parker returned with more doubts than ever about whether he is on the right side and asked Reed why he supports the Superhuman Registration Act, a question Reed answered by telling the story of his paternal uncle, Ted. A professional writer, Reed remembered his uncle as "funny", "colorful" and "accepting." As a boy, Reed loved spending time with Ted. Unfortunately, Ted was also "an eccentric" and "stubborn." Because he had a career in the arts and because he stood out, Ted was called before HUAC. He was expected to disclose whether or not he was a communist and to name anybody he thought might be a communist. Rather than submit to the committee's wishes, Ted used the time to angrily rebuke those on the committee, concluding his statement by telling them to "go to hell." He was imprisoned on contempt of Congress charges for six months, and was unable to find work after he'd served his sentence. He was even shunned by Reed's father. Ted lost everything, which Reed said finally "killed him" without going into greater detail.

After relating the story to Parker, Reed opined that his uncle was wrong to take such a stand, to pick a fight he couldn't win, and to fail to respect the law. Reed believed that whether the law is right or wrong is irrelevant, and that if a law is wrong it will eventually be changed by people working within the system rather than those who choose to rebel against that system. He felt that laws were the only thing holding society together and that if people started choosing which laws they'll obey and which they wouldn't without having to worry about the consequences, the human race would become "...savages, up to our necks in blood."^[1]

However, it was later revealed that Reed's true motive for supporting the registration act was due to his development of a working version of Isaac Asimov's fictional Psycho history concept. His application of this science indicated to him that billions would die in escalating conflicts without the presence of the act. In the final battle of the war, he was shot by Taskmaster saving Invisible Woman's life. He survived, however, and Sue returned to him in the aftermath of the battle, having been granted amnesty.

With their marriage in jeopardy Reed and Sue agree to “take a break” form the Fantastic Four to focus on each other. While away on a second honeymoon Reed asked The Black Panther and Storm take their places on the team.

Reed and Sue returned to face the Hulk.^[2] Reed managed to create a machine which projected an image of the Sentry and replicated his aura of calm. He used this machine on the Hulk just as he was about to defeat the Thing. The Hulk did not fall for the hologram and destroyed the machine and defeated Sue as she tried to defend Reed. The Hulk then viciously attacked Reed, and even though his pliable body could absorb the punches, it eventually became too much for Reed and he passed out. He was then thrown in Madison Square Garden, which had been turned into a gladiatorial arena by the Hulk.

Betrayed by a Skrull disguised as Hank Pym

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Gifted superhuman powers by cosmic rays bombarding his body. Mister Fantastic represents the element of water.

Hyper-Intelligence: Mister Fantastic’s natural mental abilities were greatly augmented by the Cosmic Rays that gave him his powers.

Plasticity: Mister Fantastic possesses the ability to convert the mass of his entire body into a highly malleable state at will. How his body's respiration and circulatory systems function at these distorted extremes is as yet unknown. Mister Fantastic can alter his form in a matter of seconds, often much less (depending on the complexity of the shape), and revert to his normal humanoid shape within a similar time. The greater the distance he stretches or the more extended the size of the object he becomes, the weaker his overall strength becomes. Mister Fantastic's transformation to a malleable state is reflexive and nearly instantaneous: if he was at his normal form and taken unaware by machine gun fire, his body would still absorb the bullets' impact through radical deformation. Mister Fantastic's skin is virtually impervious to laceration or punctures unless he willfully relaxes his reflexive control over small areas of his body. In that case, scalpels and ordinary needles can penetrate his skin.

Dense Flesh

Due to the great malleability and elasticity of his molecular structure, Mister Fantastic is able to absorb the impact of any type of man-made ballistic projectile by deforming his body along the path of the projectile's trajectory at the point of initial impact.

• Contain Explosions – Mister Fantastic may use his elastic form to contain explosions by enveloping them and allowing their force to expand him. He can enclose and absorb the energy of a large explosive, on the order of 8 to 12 pounds of TNT (excluding exotic, high density explosives). Such shocks to his system are physically exhausting.
• Redirect Projectiles – After his body absorbs the kinetic energy of a ballistic projectile's impact, Mister Fantastic can expel the object back along its trajectory by flexing his body like a trampoline if he is adequately braced.

Elongation

Mister Fantastic can extend his limbs, torso, or neck to great distances: the maximum length he can distend before his body segments become painful is about 1,500 feet. (Although he can extend discrete body parts, such as a single finger, an ear, or an eye, he seldom if ever isolates such parts in his elongations.)

• Grappling – Mister Fantastic may restrain opponents very efficiently by using his elastic form to entangle them.
• Movement - Mister Fantastic can move at great speeds by stretching to his destination.

Shape Changing

Mister Fantastic can stretch, deform, expand, or compress his entire body or parts thereof into any contiguous shape he can imagine for a variety of uses:

• Imitation – Mister Fantastic may alter his basic physical features, allowing him to take on the appearance of any other man with similar hair and skin tone. One time, Mister Fantastic actually increased his size and mass density, in effect bulking his body to "Thing"-like proportions while increasing his strength to the same levels as well.
• Canopy, Parachute or Sheath - Mister Fantastic can extend his body in two directions, creating a canopy, parachute, or sheath, its thickness determined by the extent of its distention.
  • Gliding - Mister Fantastic can transform himself into aerodynamic shapes such as parachutes or hang-gliders. In this form he can support an additional 1000 pounds (enough to hold the rest of Fantastic Four).
  • Cushion – Mister Fantastic may form his elastic form into a trampoline and other cushion-like objects, allowing him to safely catch falling people and objects.
  • Sling Shot – Mister Fantastic may use his elastic form as a slingshot to hurl objects with great force.
• Geometric Shapes - Mister Fantastic has compressed his body into the shape of a solid sphere, a cylinder, a cube, a toroid, and a rectangular prism: he can assume the shape of any solid that he can envision clearly, of a volume no greater than 1.7 cubic feet (a sphere about 18 inches in diameter). He can generate thin-walled shapes that enclose great volumes of space.
  • Fist Weapons – Mister Fantastic may form his fists into large hammers, maces…etc, which improve his physical effectiveness in hand-to-hand combat.
  • Bouncing Ball - Mister Fantastic can transform himself into any of a number of resilient shapes, such as balls or springs that allow him to leap or bounce great distances.
• Two-Dimensionality - Mister Fantastic can flatten himself to the thickness of an average sheet of typing paper (.0035 inch) or narrow himself to a diameter small enough to pass through the eye of a #10 beading needle (about .045 x .06 inches).
• Infiltration - Mister Fantastic can lower his body’s cohesion to such an extent that he can actually flow through minute openings.
• Open Locks – Mister Fantastic may form his fingers into various types of keys, allowing him to open most forms of mechanical locks.
• Wind Generation – Mister Fantastic may form his hands into fans, allowing him to generate wind by twirling them at great speeds.
• Semi-Solid Liquid State - Mister Fantastic can willfully reduce his body into an almost liquid state in order to flow out of small cracks or passages.
  

Abilities

Reed in avengers

Scientific Genius-Level Intellect: Even without his augmented hyper-intelligence, Dr. Richards is the unquestioned supreme scientific intellect on Earth, his closest rival being the mind of Doctor Doom. Reed possesses a mastery of electrical, mechanical and aerospace engineering, electronics, chemistry, all levels of physics, and human and alien biology. A visionary theoretician and inspired machine smith, he has made breakthroughs in such varied fields as space travel, time travel, extra-dimensional travel, biochemistry, robotics, computers, synthetic polymers, communications, mutations, transportation, holography, energy generation, spectral analysis and more. He is one of the few people on Earth to be an expert on other dimensions and the methods by which to travel to and through them. Reed’s patents are so valuable that he is able to bankroll the Fantastic Four, Inc., without any undue financial stress. Not only has Reed proven himself to be a genius in virtually every science native to Earth, he has shown himself to be more knowledgeable than even some of the most highly advanced alien civilizations in the known universe as well.

Hypnotism: Mister Fantastic is trained in hypnosis.

Technological Achievements

Strength level

Mister Fantastic possesses the normal human strength and build of a man of his age, height, and build who engages in moderate regular exercise.

Weaknesses

Personality

Reed is an intellectual who prefers to examine foes and if possible negotiate with them before actually fighting them. He is often intrigued by the scientific implications of a problem, so much so that he almost forgets there is a problem in the first place. As Ben once put it, if an alien stubbed his toe, Reed would want to spend ten years studying it. Reed is an extremely likable fellow who keeps a pleasant smile on his face. However, he does occasionally lapse into depression over long-standing unsolved problems, most notably Ben’s inability to return to human form and Franklin’s mysterious potential. Reed is a humanitarian who will try to prevent any intelligent being from suffering. This can lead him to do controversial things that fly in the face of all apparent logic, such as when he once revived Galactus.

Paraphernalia

Equipment: Although the Fantastic Four have numerous devices, crafts, and weapons, there are some items that Reed Richards carries with him at all times.

• Fantastiflare: Launches a fiery "4" into the sky that is used during combat situations to let other members of the group know their location.

• Fantastic Costume:' Like all the FF's costumes and the rest of Reed's wardrobe, his suit is made of "unstable molecules". This means that the suit is attuned to his powers, which is why Johnny's costume doesn't burn when he "flames on", Sue's costume turns invisible when she does, and Reed's costume stretches with him. The costume also insulates them from electrical assaults. In addition, the team's uniforms are also, in essence, wearable computers. Their costumes have a complete data processing and telemetry system woven into the material of the uniform on a molecular level. This forms a network with the entire team, providing a constant, real-time uplink of everyone's physical condition as well as their location and current situation. The suit is capable of displaying data and touch-pad controls on the gauntlets. Its sensors can track all of the team's uniforms and provide a picture of their immediate vicinity. The suit has an intricate scanner system which can detect things around the wearer, from how many people are in the next room to what dimension or planet they are on. Reed can also up-link the bodysuit to any computer by stretching his fingertips to filament size and plugging them in to an I/O data-port. With this, Reed can establish a fairly comprehensive database of any computer's cybernetic protocols and encryption algorithms.

• Power Gem
  

Transportation: None known.
Weapons: None known.

Notes

• Reed has a long-standing rivalry with Doctor Doom, because the latter regards him as responsible for his deformities and he continually vies to prove himself superior, especially intellectually. They have thus battled many times, but Reed has almost always emerged triumphant.
• Along with his penchant for inventing, Dr. Richards is often known to rewrite works of Stephen Hawking and decode alien languages.
• In Neil Gaiman's Marvel 1602, his power is associated with the classical element of water. The association to the element of water was also brought up in Heroes Reborn Fantastic Four, X4: X-Men and Fantastic Four, Ultimate Fantastic Four and in the Marvel Boy mini-series by Grant Morrison.
  

Trivia

• No trivia.
  
  

Appearances in Other Media

Ioan Gruffudd as Mister Fantastic

Most recently, Mr. Fantastic was played by actor Ioan Gruffudd in the 2005 film Fantastic Four alongside Jessica Alba as Invisible Woman, Michael Chiklis as the Thing, and Chris Evans as the Human Torch. It was directed by Tim Story. Many fans thought the characterization of Reed Richards to be a weak portrayal by Gruffudd, saying the character lacked the confidence and personality of its comic book counterpart. Others, including Stan Lee, thought Gruffudd was an excellent choice of casting and pulled the character off quite well. In the films, Mr. Fantastic is a brilliant mathematician and physicist, humble genius and gifted idealist who has always reached out to the stars. He has the ability to bend, stretch and extend his body in any way imaginable. Reed holds himself responsible for the accident which transformed the Four, and wraps himself around his work to reverse their condition. Accustomed to being pulled in different directions, Mr. Fantastic works to realize his potential as boyfriend to Sue, scientist to humanity, and leader to the Four.

Prior to 2005, however, Alex Hyde-White played Mr. Fantastic in the 1994 unreleased film produced by Roger Corman. As the film was never officially released, allegedly due to poor quality, only illegal copies of the film are available.

See Also

• Appearances of Reed Richards (Earth-616)
• Character Gallery: Reed Richards (Earth-616)
• Fan-Art Gallery: Reed Richards (Earth-616)
• Quotations by Reed Richards (Earth-616)

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• Search News for: Mister Fantastic · Dr. Reed Richards · Reed Richards (Earth-616)
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Links and References

• Official Marvel Picture site
• Official Fantastic Four movie webpage