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Classic
Marvel Universe superhero team, consisting of:
The four were connected even before the same
Negative Space Wedgie gave them all their powers — Reed and Sue were sweethearts and eventually got married, Johnny is Sue's younger brother, Ben is Reed's best friend since college — and are as much a
family (if occasionally a dysfunctional one) as a team.
Reed is the World's Smartest Man, and his genius is often at least as useful as the powers he got from the accident. The royalty payments from all his inventions fund the Four's adventures,
despite the fact that they never get implemented in the world around them, and lets them live in high style in the time between.
Their number one recurring enemy is Victor Von Doom, better known as
Doctor Doom, who was at college with Reed and Ben and holds an almighty (and unwarranted) grudge against Reed for sabotaging one of his experiments: the experiment actually failed because of Doom's own error, which Reed noticed and tried to warn him about, but Doom's pride will not permit him to accept the truth. Reed may have Doom (narrowly) beat for the title of World's Smartest Man, but Doom is well ahead for the title of World's
Vainest (
though he's not the one calling himself "Mr. Fantastic"...). It really didn't help that the experiment in question literally blew up in Doom's face,
marring his previously flawless good looks. These days he wears an iron mask at all times, usually as part of a full suit of battle armor.
Their book kickstarted the success of
Marvel Comics, and led to
Spider-Man, the
X-Men, and all the others. It also
created many tropes; the FF were the first
superheroes without a
Secret Identity, the first super-team where the members fought each other as much as the villains, and the first place that
Kirby Dots appeared, among others.
There have been several TV adaptations of the family, all
animated;
The Fantastic Four, a 1967
Hanna-Barbera series with many episode plots taken straight from the comics,
The Fantastic Four, the 1978 series with H.E.R.B.I.E the Robot in place of the Human Torch,
Fantastic Four, a 1990s series that aired along with
Iron Man as part of the "Marvel Action Pack", and
Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes, a 2006
animesque French co-production. Ben also appeared in his own show in the late 1970s as part of
Fred And Barney Meet The Thing; on that show he was reimagined as a mild-mannered teenager, who had the power to turn back and forth from the comic-book alter ego with the help of a magic ring. ("Thing Ring, do your thing!")
In 1994,
The Fantastic Four, a low-budget movie never intended to be released, was made by
Roger Corman. Eleven years later,
Fantastic Four, a big-budget movie, was released; it was followed in 2007 with a sequel,
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
Their series contain examples of:
- Action Girl: Invisible Woman, and there have been two female stand-ins for Ben Grimm: She Hulk, and Sharon Ventura, who was transformed into a Distaff Counterpart of The Thing.
- Action Mom: Invisible Woman, mother of two and still telekinetic butt-kicker supreme.
- Alliterative Name: Reed Richards, Susan Storm.
- In fact, Stan Lee has commented that he used this to help keep the names straight. Eventually, Sue's name would cease to be alliterative.
- Artifact Of Death: The Ultimate Nullifier.
- Badass Bookworm: Reed Richards happens to be not only elastic, but the biggest nerd on Earth.
- Barrier Warrior: Invisible Woman pretty much is the archetype.
- Blessed With Suck: The Thing, who has been permanently transformed into a superstrong, hideous rock monster.
- Canon Immigrant: Several robots based on HERBIE from The Fantastic Four have shown up from time to time.
- Catch Phrase: "IT'S CLOBBERN TIME!" "FLAME ON!!"
- Chest Insignia
- Clock King: The Mad Thinker.
- Detachment Combat: The Fantasti-car separates into four smaller vehicles for each of its passengers.
- Didnt See That Coming: The Mad thinker's main flaw, Reed and Doom are occasional sufferers as well.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Considering that Reed had absolutely nothing to do with Doom's experiment failure or his injuries, Doom's grudge is completely unwarranted in the first place; but the sheer lengths that Doom goes to in his search for vengeance frequently go way beyond 'excessive'.
- What's amazing is Doctor Doom's quest for revenge is often as petty as it is insanely over the top. For instance, he's actually tried to break up Reed Richard's marriage as often as kill him.
- Doomy Dooms Of Doom: DOOM!
- Dreaming Of Things To Come: Franklin's special dreams.
- Elemental Baggage: For Johny's power source in creating flame. Occasionally justified by him feeling tired or very hungry after using extremely hot flames.
- Breakout Character: Doom has arguably become just as popular, if not more so, than the FF themselves, due in no small part to his MemeticBadass status amongst fans (which is not that inaccurate, as it turns out).
- Faux Action Girl: The Invisible Girl, originally; though she slowly got better over time, it wasn't until the John Byrne run in the 1980s that she toughened up into a real Action Girl.
- Forgotten Fallen Friend: Doctor Doom's motivation is rescuing his mothers soul from hell (among others). Writers rarely remember this one.
- This is largely because he succeeded (with the help of Doctor Strange) years ago.
- Four Temperament Ensemble
- Game Of Nerds: Reed Richards makes the occasional baseball analogy
- Genius Bruiser AND Gentle Giant: The ever-lovin', blue-eyed Thing, Ben Grimm, although his smarts are usually overshadowed by super-genius Reed. Ben lampshades this as he assembles a cosmic ray device, musing that he's watched Reed long enough to play Mad Scientist himself.
- Goo Goo Godlike: Franklin Richards.
- Heroic Spirit: Thing saves the world once just from showing how he wouldn't give up.
- Hidden Depths: Johnny generally acts like a teenager on hormonal overdrive, but he's generally portrayed as a skilled mechanic at the very least, and a competent planner at his best.
- Hidden Elf Village: The Fantastic Four discovered Attilan, a hidden city, which was the retreat of the Inhumans.
- Honorary Uncle: Ben Grimm, to Franklin
- I Gave My Word: Doom.
- Just Ignore It: The first time they fought the Impossible Man.
- Kirby Dots
- Large Ham: TREMBLE WITH FEAR BEFORE DOOM'S TITANIC MONOLOGUES!
- Ben and Johnny tend to ham it up when they're bickering, particularly Johnny's fire-based pranks, Ben's threats that he hardly ever follows through with, and his endless fire-based insults (match-head, flame-brain, etc.)
- Legacy Character: The Human Torch is loosely based on the Golden Age Human Torch.
- Marvel Universe
- Minor Injury Overreaction (Reed and Dr. Doom, as explained above.)
- Mistaken Age
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: Dr. Doom never actually finished his doctorate, but he sounds scarier with a "Doctor" in front of his name. Reed Richards, who finished several doctorates, chooses to go by Mr. Fantastic.
- Most Common Super Power: For a time during the mid-90s, the Invisible Woman wore a skimpy costume with a cut-out "4" on her cleavage.
- Mysterious Parent: Nathaniel Richards
- Nakama: One of the canonical examples.
- The Notable Numeral: The titular heroes and their enemies The Frightful Four
- Not Wearing Tights: For the first two issues. They only started wearing them because of fan demand.
- Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Reed Richards is this trope incarnate.
- Pals With Jesus
- Personality Powers: Especially noticeable with the hot-headed Human Torch and the solid and stubborn Thing.
- Justified via Retcon when it's revealed that their powers were, in fact, based on their personalities, as Reed gave them their powers.
- President Evil: Doctor Doom, who seized control of the Ruritania-esque Eastern European nation of Latveria.
- Psychic Nosebleed: Often, when Sue Storm is holding a forcefield against a particularly strong opponent.
- Reed Richards Is Useless : Where do you think they got the name?
- Not completely, however. If it weren't for unstable molecules, 3/4 of the Fantastic Four would be running around like this
◊.
- Steven Ulysses Perhero: Victor Von Doom.
- Status Quo Is God: The Thing gets turned into a human about once every few years, but always gets turned back, usually because he needs to help someone out.
- Stripperiffic: Unusual for a comic series in that the team's main female member only rarely falls under this trope, preferring a modest blue bodysuit identical to the ones Reed and Johnny wear, but it does happen - like when she wore this costume for a few years in the 1990s.
- Super Hero
- Superpower Lottery: Franklin Richards.
- Team Mom: Sue.
- Teen Genius: Reed already had doctorates when he was twenty. Valeria, his and Sue's daughter, is currently building rooms that are Bigger On The Inside. At the age of four.
- What do you expect from the daughter of Doom and Reed (long story).
- They Do: Reed and Sue.
- Vitriolic Best Buds: Ben and Johnny.
- What Have I Become: Ben Grimm.
- What If: Marvel's What If? comic line does have stories of these kinds about the Fantastic Four, but most interesting is What If? Vol. 2 #11, which told four stories about the team all having the same power. These stories are designated in the Marvel Encyclopedia Vol. 6 as Earth-9031 (all flaming), Earth-9032 (all stretchy), Earth-9033 (all monsters), and Earth-9034 (all with invisibility powers).
- What Kind Of Lame Power Is Heart Anyway: Susan used to have only invisibility in the early stories until Lee and Kirby realized that it was next to useless compared to the male members' powers. As a result, they gave Susan her force field powers, but it was only later under John Byrne's period that she learned to really make it a kick ass power set, using it with a new aggressiveness in battle. Since then, different writers have her being considered not only the most powerful member of the team, but one of the most powerful heroes, period.
- To give an example, she's used those forcefields to knock out the Hulk. (And according to her fellow superheroes, she never shut up about it.)
- Of course, most of the time Hulk is able to break her force fields, so only being able to knock him out once isn't that impresive.
- Its pretty damn impressive. It means she can do it if she has to.
