Susan Storm (Earth-616)

From Marvel Database

Invisible Woman

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Real Name

Susan Storm Richards

Current Alias

Invisible Woman

Aliases

Invisible Girl, Susan Benjamin, Malice, Baroness von Doom

Identity

Public

Alignment

Good

Affiliation

founding member of the Fantastic Four; former member of the Avengers, Secret Avengers

Relatives

Franklin Storm (father, deceased), Mary Storm (mother, deceased), Reed Richards (husband), Franklin (son), Valeria Richards (daughter), Jonathan Storm (brother), Nathaniel Richards (father-in-law), Evelyn Richards (mother-in-law, deceased), Cassandra Richards (stepmother-in-law, deceased), Bones (cousin), Marygay Jewel Dinkins (aunt), unnamed child of Nathaniel Richards (brother-in-law), Tara Richards (Huntara, sister-in-law), Kristoff Vernard (alleged brother-in-law), Lyja (sister-in-law)

Universe

Earth-616

Base Of Operations

Rebuilt Baxter Building; formerly Pier 4; Antarctic lab; Four Freedoms Plaza; Belle Port, Connecticut; Baxter Building

Characteristics

Gender

Female

Height

5' 6"

Weight

120 lbs (55 kg)

Eyes

Blue

Hair

Blonde

Status

Citizenship

American

Marital Status

Married

Occupation

Adventurer, former substitute teacher; former actress, fashion model, student

Education

High school education, incomplete college studies

Origin

Origin

Mutate - exposed to cosmic rays

Place of Birth

Glenville, Long Island, New York

Creators

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby

First appearance

Fantastic Four #1
(November, 1961)

History

Susan Storm and her brother, Johnny, lived uneventfully on Long Island until their mother, Mary Storm, died in an automobile accident. Their father, Franklin Storm, a doctor, failed to save her. Despondent, he descended into booze and gambling, eventually winding up in a penitentiary for murder. The children went to live with their aunt Marygay. Susan, only 12, developed a crush on her aunt's boarder, Reed Richards, an honors student at Columbia. When it came time for Susan to go to college, she followed Richards to California, where she half-heartedly tried to break into show business.

Reed was working on an experimental starship when the project lost its government funding. He decided to launch the prototype, certain that the flight would succeed and attract more funding. Susan went along for her own reasons: love of adventure? potential fame? romantic gesture? Ben Grimm, a test pilot, took the controls. Johnny filled out the crew. Reed had made one mistake: he failed to shield the cabin from cosmic rays, and a chance solar flare intensified the radiation. The experience gave each of them superhuman abilities, and perhaps more importantly, it forged almost unbreakable bonds between them. They became the Fantastic Four, and Storm took the name Invisible Girl.^[1]

In the early years of the Fantastic Four, Sue spent much of her time keeping the team together. Reed spent long hours in his laboratory; Grimm moped over his appearance; Johnny acted out like any teenager. Her power of invisibility had little use in battling supervillains such as Doctor Doom and Galactus, but her empathy and common sense prevented several breakups and defections. Even though she was best suited to act as spokesperson for the Fantastic Four, she would have encountered resistance in the early 1960s, so Richards took on that job as well. Her discontent manifested itself in an attraction to Namor, who returned her affections, but the relationship never matured.

She soon discovered new powers: she could turn other objects (besides herself) invisible and project and manipulate powerful force fields.^[2] Although unable to perform offensively on a par with the Thing, she could defend against almost any threat.

Sue eventually married Reed.^[3] 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 Fantastic Four had to visit the Negative Zone and borrow the Cosmic Control Rod of Annihilus.^[4] Her son 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. It was the last straw for Sue, who left Mr. Fantastic and took Franklin with her.^[5]

During Sue Storm's second hiatus, the Inhuman Medusa took her place. The old bonds, though, drew Susan back to the team^[6].

During an extended trip to the Negative Zone, a sort of second honeymoon, she conceived another child. Seeking some peace for this pregnancy, Susan convinced Mr. Fantastic to move to the Connecticut suburbs, where they posed as the Benjamins. This unborn daughter began to give off radiation. Despite the efforts of Mr. Fantastic and several other experts, the girl was apparently stillborn.^[7]

The Invisible Woman being tossed by The Thing

Psycho-Man took advantage of Sue's fragile self-control at this point and amplified her negative emotions. She became Malice, with all of the Invisible Girl's powers but none of her restraint, and attacked the FF. Mr. Fantastic helped her throw off Psycho-Man's influence, but she lost control again when the FF confronted Psycho-Man; she turned his own Control Box on him, which shorted out his nervous system and nearly killed him.^[8] The episode would have lasting effects: the Invisible Girl changed her name to Invisible Woman; she discovered how to use Force Objects (see Powers below); and in the long term, she lost a measure of self-confidence, knowing that Malice still lurked inside her.

Sue left the FF again, this time with Mr. Fantastic, to spend time with Franklin, who had regained his faculties and needed full-time mentoring.^[9] They worked part-time with the Avengers for a while. They also helped the Silver Surfer resuscitate Galactus, during which Sue came in contact with the Infinity Gems. Distrustful of such power, she fell prey to Malice again. The soul gem tried and failed to combine Reed's and Sue's souls, which brought forth the In-Betweener and sent Malice back to Sue's subconscious.^[10].

The FF, as always, pulled them back.^[11] In the Infinity War, Sue had to confront her doppelganger and incorporate its evil into herself. That boost allowed Malice to regain control temporarily^[12]. Sue Storm struggled against Malice's influence, inevitably losing ground. When Malice manifested again, her son (as Psi-Lord from a possible future) drew Malice's essence into himself.^[13] She has not reappeared since, and Psi-Lord has returned to his future.

That was only the beginning of a tumultuous period. Reed disappeared for some time, apparently killed.^[14] Sue Storm became leader of the FF, recruited Ant-Man to take over Reed's role, and quickly grew into her new responsibilities. Effectively a widow, Sue had to fend off many potentials suitors, especially Namor. She never gave up looking for Richards, though, and after a long search, she found him stranded in the past. Their reunion was bittersweet; Reed felt threatened by Sue's newfound competence and confidence.

The whole team appeared to die next, in the final battle with Onslaught, who had kidnapped Franklin (now back at his "normal" age). Instead they (and the Avengers) found themselves on Counter-Earth, in a pocket universe Franklin had created to save them. In a sense, they had been reborn and had to start their lives over.^[15]

Once the heroes on Counter-Earth realized what had happened, they returned to their original homes. There Doom's favors, as always, had strings attached. His main focus had shifted from science to sorcery, and he used Valeria as a focus to cast spells against the FF. His own hubris led to his downfall--his infernal patrons dragged him to the underworld of Haazareth.^[16]

With Doom gone, Richards claimed Latveria in the name of the FF and began dismantling Doom's arsenal.^[17] The international community saw it as a test of sovereignty and protested. Doom returned to find himself in a trap--to escape, he possessed Sue, then Grimm. To put an end to Doom once and for all, Richards killed Grimm.

For his reckless behavior in pacifying Latveria, as well as for murdering Grimm, Sue left him again. To avoid charges, Reed gave up most of his patents and thus most of his income. As further atonement, he convinced Sue and Johnny to follow him to Heaven, where they succeeded in returning Grimm to life.^[18]

Invisible Woman (Susan Storm)

With their fortunes and their reputations in disarray, they took regular jobs and lived in regular homes. Sue became a teacher.^[19] She also trained in the martial arts under Iron Fist. Reed Richards eventually revealed that he had staged the loss of his fortune, because he wanted the others to experience the normal lives they lost in his experimental starship. With few regrets, they returned to their former lives. To help Johnny develop responsibility, Sue forced him to become the business manager for FF Inc., a job he gradually grew into.

A game of musical powers ensued. A band of aliens, survivors of Galactus, came to Earth to neutralize Susan. They had developed a planetary cloaking device, and only Susan could help Galactus bypass their device. Reed Richards used another device that, as far as the aliens could tell, removed her powers; instead, it traded Sue's and Johnny's powers. The immediate threat over, Reed reversed the trade. As a "reward" for derailing the cloak project, Galactus made Johnny his new herald for a short time. An aftereffect of Johnny's power cosmic removed everyone's powers temporarily.^[20]

Most 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 ^[21], however, Mr. Fantastic shielded Sue from an attack by the Taskmaster and was severly wounded. Invisible Woman helped clean up New York in the aftermath of the war and, along with the other Secret Avengers, was granted amnesty. She has reconciled yet again with Reed.

Even more recently, Sue went on a speaking tour around the world. When she went to her hotel room, Reed was there, but he was actually a Skrull in disguise. The Skrull squeezed Sue's brain with a force field and neutralized her. This Skrull then returned to New York and opened the portal to the negative Zone, trapping Johnny, Ben, and the two Richards children inside.

Powers and Abilities

Powers

The Invisible Woman recieved her powers when cosmic rays bombarded her body. The Invisible Woman's powers represent the element of air.

Mr. Fantastic suspects that Sue Storm somehow taps into hyperspace when she uses her powers. As yet, the only limit seems to be her own reserve; she is reluctant to stretch her powers until absolutely necessary.

Invisibility: The Invisible Woman has the mental ability to manipulate ambient cosmic energy for a variety of effects, including the rendering of herself and other objects invisible, and the construction of solid, invisible force fields. In an as yet unknown manner, cosmic energy interacts with the cells of her entire body in such a way as to produce a new form of energy with unusual properties. By a simple act of concentration, she can cause all wavelengths of visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light to bend around her without distortion; she also somehow directs enough undistorted light to her eyes to retain her full range of vision while invisible. An observer, unaware of the peculiar path light takes around her body, would have the sensation of seeing through her. The Invisible Woman can also mentally project the invisible energy produced within the cells of her body in order to render other people or objects invisible. The largest volume she can as yet turn invisible at a single time is approximately 40,000 cubic feet of volume (1,133 cubic meters), equivalent to a small swimming pool. She has sufficient control over her power that she can turn parts of her body selectively invisible. She is also able to make objects that have been turned invisible by other sources visible by letting her own energy projection interfere with that other method of invisibility. Further, she can make energy that is not in the visual portion of the electromagnetic spectrum visible by a similar interaction. Sue can also sense something made invisible by physical means (such as a machine) but not by magical or psionic means.

Psionic Force Fields: While the cells of the Invisible Woman's body produce a certain energy manifestation, the cells of her brain produce a different, more potent manifestation. Through concentration, she is able to project a field of psionic force which she can manipulate into a number of relatively simple forms: rectangular planes, cylinders, globes, domes, cones, etc. The complexity of the shape is limited by her ability to imagine (mentally visualize) a particular form and keep it in sharp mental focus: not even she is able to see the forms she creates. The size of a given psionic force projection is also limited by her ability to imagine. The smallest force projection she can visualize (and maintain the visualization) is the size of a marble. The largest solid force projection she can visualize and maintain is about 100 feet in diameter. She can project larger force-objects if they are hollow. For instance, she could visualize and project a dome of 1 foot thick about a mile in diameter (4,700 feet) and a dome 1 inch in thickness she can project for about 3.2 miles. Small objects at high speeds become missiles; large objects at slow speeds become rams. She can make these objects grow or shrink as desired, up to a size of 100 feet (30 meters).

The Invisible Woman is able to use the projection of her psionic force to travel through the air. By projecting a rising column beneath her feet and simultaneously causing it to expand and topple at the same time, then creating another column that catches her, shrinks, rights itself and then repeating the process, she is able to effect a zig-zag flight path. She is able to reach an average speed of about 25 miles per hour, until she becomes fatigued by the concentration, after about 4 hours.

Since her power is an extension of her mind and body, the Invisible Woman is affected by inertial forces acting upon her projections. Thus if a car traveling at 60 miles per hour hit a wall of her force that was 6 inches thick, unless she generated a bracing shape against a sufficiently sturdy object, she would be affected as though she were hit by the car directly. The Invisible Woman is able to control the surface of the fields rigidity to a certain extent. She can cause the surface of the field to be very hard, depending on its thickness (steel-like at about 2.5 feet), or as resilient as foam rubber. By making the field more resilient she is able to absorb more of the inertia of impacts within the field without having them transmitted to her body. She is also, through training, able to alter the shapes she creates while utilizing those shapes, often to absorb or deflect the force of impacts. When she creates objects of fields that are at the limit of her ability to mentally visualize, they tend to be resilient rather than rigid. As she has grown in the use of her powers. Currently these fields can withstand impacts of Class 100 strength, a literally astronomical level: the FF, Doctor Doom, and Annihilus once survived passage through a black hole by using these fields (and some help from the Cosmic Control Rod).^[22]

She is capable of generating and manipulating multiple psionic force fields simultaneously.

Abilities

Sue has some modest experience and ability in the field of acting, and has recently taken up teaching. She is a capable unarmed combatant. She is renowned for her changing hairstyles (once said to match the Wasp's changing costumes).

Strength level

Susan Storm has the strength of a normal human female who engages in moderate regular exercise.

Weaknesses

The size, number, and movements of these objects are limited only by her powers of concentration. Once she stops concentrating on an object, it ceases to exist.

Paraphernalia

Invisible Woman (Susan Storm)

• Fantastic Costume: Sue's clothes are made from unstable molecules so that they turn invisible along with her. Woven into the cloth is an electronic network of transceivers and sensors that tracks her location, condition, and other data. The network relays this information to the rest of the team. A keypad and screen on one glove allow Sue Storm to call up and view the same information from anyone else.

• [[Fantasti-Flare]]: This small flaregun fires shells that produce a burning 4 symbol. It doubles as an incendiary weapon.
  

Transportation: Fantasti-Car 2, Avenger's Quinjet, Xantha (or Skrull) Saucer, Fantasti-Copter, U-Car (submarine), Fantasti-Car 1 (the "flying bathtub") (superseded), experimental starship (destroyed), and many others
Weapons: None known.

Notes

• No special notes.

Trivia

• In What If? #1, Sue Storm left Mr. Fantastic for Namor.
• In the Ultimate universe, Sue Storm was a brilliant researcher in her own right, who gained her powers when a dimensional transporter, built by Mr. Fantastic, malfunctioned.
• In Marvel 1602, Sue Storm was permanently invisible, more like an astral self.

Invisible Woman in Other Media

• In the movie Fantastic Four (2005), Sue Storm (played by Jessica Alba) is a genetics research scientist working for Victor von Doom. This Invisible Woman's powers (like those of the others) are powered by strong emotion, and her normal clothing doesn't turn invisible when she does. She is in the middle of a love triangle between Reed Richards and Doom, who proposes to her. After she gains the powers (but not the name) of the Invisible Girl, she spurns Doom. When Mr. Fantastic proposes to her, she agrees to marry him.

• In the movie Fantastic Four 2: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Sue played by Jessica Alba. In this film, Sue and Reed were going to be married on the roof of the Baxter Building, until finally, Silver Surfer came and destroyed their marriage because he sensed the Cosmic radiation sensor which was created by Reed Richards. Johnny Storm attempted to stop the Silver Surfer, but Silver Surfer was stronger than Johnny and defeated him. Because of contact between himself and Silver Surfer, Johnny can exchange his powers. This is first revealed when Sue touched Johnny's forehead, checking if he's ill or not. The Fantastic Four tried to stop the Silver Surfer, with the aid of Victor von Doom, until they revealed that Silver Surfer wasn't a bad guy. Then, it was revealed that Victor von Doom just trying to take Silver Surfer's surfboard, which is Silver Surfer's power core. Then Fantastic Four helped the Silver Surfer to take his surfboard back, and Silver Surfer betrayed Galactus, and saved the world. Sue Storm died in this movie, but for a few seconds. She died because of Dr. Doom. When Dr. Doom took Silver Surfer's surfboard, he tried to kill Silver Surfer. Sue then tried to protect him her force fields, but, since the spear from the surfboard apparently could phase through anything, it phased through Sue's force fields, and stabbed her right in her heart. She then destroyed the spear with her force field, but it was too late. Because of Silver Surfer's cosmic power, and with aid from surfboard which he took back from Dr. Doom, he saved Sue from death. Finally, after saving the world, Reed and Sue married, now in Japanese style, because their fantastic airship crashed in Japan (Jessica Alba in kimono, Ioan Gruffudd still using tuxedo). In this film, Invisible Woman made a great evolution of her power. In first film, she had trouble rendering other object invisible, and she also couldn't sustain her force fields for long periods of time. But in this sequel, she could render Mr. Fantastic's invention invisible, and also render a single zit invisible...(few hours before her first marriage..)

See Also

• Appearances of Susan Storm (Earth-616)
• Character Gallery: Susan Storm (Earth-616)
• Fan-Art Gallery: Susan Storm (Earth-616)
• Quotations by Susan Storm (Earth-616)
• Images that include Susan Storm (Earth-616)

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Links and References

• Fantastic Four
• Franklin Richards
• Reed Richards
• Namor
• Marvel Directory
• Fantastic Four movie featurette - The Invisible Woman
• DMOZ - Open source directory listing for The Fantastic Four
• Official Marvel UK character biography
• The Women of Marvel Comics Invisible Woman Page
• Episode featuring the Invisible Woman