Fantastic Four (Ultimate Marvel)

Fantastic Four
Cover to Ultimate Fantastic Four #39 Art by Salvador Larroca
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Ultimate Fantastic Four (February, 2004)

The Fantastic Four are a fictional superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They are alternate versions of the Fantastic Four, originating in the Ultimate Marvel universe.

While the characters do bear resemblance to their normal Marvel Universe counterparts in some ways, they differ in many aspects. The origin of their powers is different and the team is much younger. The series revolves around the adventures of Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, and siblings Susan and Johnny Storm, who get engulfed in a malfunctioned teleporter experiment and get superpowers: Reed can stretch, Susan projects force fields and makes herself invisible, Johnny becomes a human torch and Ben is a super strong stone giant.

Team roster

Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic

Reed is a child genius who displayed his curiosity from the day he was born. At the age of 11, following a demonstration of his research on the field of teleportation at a school science fair, Reed was recruited for a government program which sponsors young geniuses' research. He continued his research at the government research facility located in Manhattan's Baxter Building. At the age of 21, his research was realized as he and several others attempted to teleport organic material through an alternate plane of existence called the N-Zone. The experiment went awry giving Reed and several others superpowers. His powers enable him to stretch his body parts to incredible lengths and endow him with enhanced durability.

Reed's powers have been increased in comparison to that of his Earth-616 counterpart. He no longer needs to eat nor sleep, and has no internal organs or bones. He can stretch his eyes, specifically the lens so that he does not need his glasses or any other visual augmentation but can only sustain this for short periods. Sue's mother revealed that she knows that Reed's abilities allow him to stretch his brain in order to accommodate and solve almost any problem thus making him effectively a human computer. While Threshold calls him a 'warrior without equal' in "God War" this almost certainly refers to his success in discovering a way to defeat an undefeatable foe (Ultimate Ronan) as opposed to actual battlefield prowess. Sue lauds his expertise in physics.

After Ultimatum, Reed left the Baxter Building and returned home, to the chagrin of his father. In Ultimate Enemy #1, the Richards' house was bombed by an unknown individual. Reed Richards is presumed to be dead. This is unlikely, because in Ultimate X-Men\Fantastic Four Annual #1, a young Franklin Richards is part of a future team of X-Men. It is also revealed that in all of the possible futures, Franklin is Reed and Sue's son. In Ultimate Mystery #3, Reed Richards is revealed to be alive and is seen aiding or leading the aliens to pillage the artifacts stored at Project Pegasus. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that Reed Richards' world view has changed, and he has become something more like an Ultimate Kang the Conqueror. Later he assembles part of the Infinity Gauntlet.

Susan Storm / The Invisible Woman

The eldest child of renowned scientist Franklin Storm, Sue Storm inherited her father's genius at an early age. Since early childhood, she has been one of the prodigies studying and working at the Baxter Building, a midtown Manhattan government research lab. Following her father into physics, at age eight she built a sugar-power rocket and accidentally destroyed her father's car, after which she changed her focus to "inner space" biology. Romancing brilliant Baxter Building classmate Reed Richards, Sue became a formidable scientist in her own right, earning four doctorates in bio-chemical sciences.

Attending the Nevada desert testing of Reed's N-Zone dimensional teleporter, Sue was transported a mere three miles (5 km) into the desert by the device's malfunction. She was discovered by former Baxter Building instructor Dr. Arthur Molekevic, who took her to his underground facilities below Manhattan, calmed her, and helped her gain control of her new abilities, while he sent a "monster" to the Baxter Building to retrieve three who had been transformed by the N-Zone experiment. In the company of those three, Susan fled Molekevic and used her invisible protective force field to take them back to the surface.

Making the study of herself and her three partners her new life's work, Sue spent months investigating their abilities and charting their powers while improving her own understanding of herself. She has deduced the nature of both Reed and Johnny's changes, though her own powers remain unexplained and she is unable to penetrate Ben's skin to determine any more detail than his internal fluid pressure. Sue continues to develop her control of her force fields, using them to create pressurized environments at the bottom of the sea, plugging her own throat to prevent swallowing poison gas, and creating "cushions" to catch falling people and objects. Damage to her force fields also causes her mental strain or, in extreme cases (Ultimate Power #5), to black out.

Susan has proven capable of standing her own, and after the team went public, she assumed the codename "Invisible Woman." Her force fields have been the Four's ace in the hole, saving their lives when Nihil dumped Reed and Ben into the near-vacuum of the N-Zone and single-handedly stopping the time-traveling Chrono-Bandits. She co-created the chrono-tunnel with Reed, and has conducted biological studies of the Kree alien Mahr Vehl and extra-dimensional life in the N-Zone.

Though her newfound fame has brought her unsought attention from the likes of billionaire playboy Tony Stark and the Atlantian criminal Namor, she remains romantically attached to Reed despite her concerns about his over devotion to science. As it was shown in Ultimate Secret #2, she's also more sexually forward than her original counterpart.

Sue has the power to render herself and others invisible to the naked eye. She also has the power to generate nearly impenetrable invisible force fields. Sue can manipulate her force fields in a variety of ways, including levitating herself and others, firing destructive force-blasts, and causing objects to explode by projecting and expanding force fields inside them.

Benjamin Grimm / The Thing

Gifted physically as a youth, Ben Grimm is Reed's best "and only" friend. When they were in school together, Ben would protect Reed from various bullies, including ones "three years younger", and in exchange Reed would help Ben with his math homework. Ben moved on to college and was invited to watch Reed's teleportation experiment. Grimm woke up as the Thing in Mexico City. The teleportation through the N-Zone gave him an orange rocky hide which boosts his strength and makes him nigh-invulnerable to physical damage and physiologically stressful conditions (such as a toxic breathing environment), and he no longer feels differences in temperature. However, despite Ben's seeming happy-go-lucky disposition, the transformation has caused deep psychological trauma. In the "Diablo" arc, he is briefly transformed to blue. At the end of ultimate Doomsday Sue proposes to him and he accepts.

After Ultimatum and the dissolution of the Fantastic Four, Ben approached General Ross and asked to enlist in the Air Force. In Ultimate Enemy #1, he returns to the Baxter Building to see Sue, and confesses that he is in love with her, but never acted on it because of Reed.

Johnny Storm / The Human Torch

Susan Storm's younger brother is a short-tempered teen, who is enamored with good-looking girls and has a rock-star attitude. The obvious "cool factor" of his powers only serves to heighten these personality traits: Johnny's powers engulf him in flames that enable him to fly and shoot fiery projectiles. This power sometimes has detrimental effects on his body, as Johnny burns, or more accurately fuses, his own body-fat to provide his 'fuel', and every so often, he "hibernates" and sheds off the skin cells that protect him from his own flames, growing new ones. Regardless, he finds the idea of being a real superhero incredibly exciting and firmly intends to sign up with The Ultimates once he is old enough, rather than continue hanging around the Baxter Building with the nerds and geeks. He is indeed a high school dropout and a Spider-Man fan (he makes a guest appearance in the "Superstars" arc).

After witnessing his father die in the Ultimatum wave, Johnny has a breakdown at the Statue of Liberty and was captured by the demon Dormammu. Sue and Ben save him, and after Franklin Storm's funeral he leaves for Europe. In Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man #1, Johnny shows up on Peter Parker's doorstep, and Aunt May chooses to let him stay with them.

Team history

Up until the middle of the series' second year, the team did not use the above code names, nor were they referred to as The Fantastic Four. The lack of code names was a frequent source of humor for then writer Warren Ellis, who frequently had Sue, Ben and especially Johnny give themselves outlandish names like "Invisible Ninja-Girl", "Asbestos Thing", and "Human Dashboard Lighter". However, in the Ultimate Spider-Man "Superstars" arc and the Ultimate Spider-Man game, Johnny was referred as Human Torch and in the game, the team was the "world-famous" Fantastic Four.

However, the events of the "N-Zone" arc required that the military fashion a public image for the four. The "Crossover" story arc began in medias res, with the four already a public team known as The Fantastic Four, each of them possessing codenames identical to their 616 counterparts. Their jumpsuits remain largely unchanged, save for the added '4' insignia.

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