Characters / Earth Twenty Seven M Fantastic Four

Main Character Index: X-Men | The Fantastic Four | The Avengers | Guardians of the Galaxy | Other Heroes | Brotherhood of Mutants | Other Villains | Supporting Characters | S.H.I.E.L.D. | NY City

In General

The First Family^note Left to Right: Invisible Woman, Mr. Fantastic, The Thing, Human Torch

• Badass Family: Reed and Sue are dating, Johnny is Sue's sister and Ben is Reed's unwavering best friend and sort of bodyguard.
• Blue Is Heroic: Their signature blue jumpsuits they wear as the Fantastic Four.
• Brother–Sister Team: Johnny and Sue.
• Chest Insignia: With the exception of Ben (who has it on his belt), the Fantastic Four have a "4" on their jumpsuits.
• Elemental Powers: In an unusual take, only Johnny has powers that actually reflect an element; Reed's elasticity represents water, and he's even capable of becoming almost liquid, Sue can turn invisible and create force fields, which represents air, while Ben is a man made of rocks, although he can't actually control the earth.

Mr. Fantastic (Reed Richards)

^{Click for 1990s Civilian Look} 

• Absent-Minded Professor: Richards has a bad habit of daydreaming about formulas and equations when conversation and persons around him do not hold his interest. He has even been known to lose interest in the middle of his own sentences.
• Aloof Big Brother: His complicated feelings towards his father and the death of his mother made him uninterested in bonding with his younger half-sister Tara Richards.
• Brains and Brawn: The brains to Ben's brawn, although he's still capable of fighting if he needs to.
• Cool Uncle: His uncle Ted Richards helped him better deal with the death of his mother and instilled within him a love and sense of adventure.
• Ditzy Genius: Despite his qualifications, Richards lacks a lot of practical skills. He can barely cook toast. He can build flying cars and space shuttles, but has never passed a driving test. He can write complex equations but struggles to balance a checking account or do his taxes.
• Immune to Bullets: If he was at his normal form and struck by surprise machine gun fire, his body would still absorb the bullets' impact through radical deformation. Richards' skin is virtually impervious to laceration or punctures unless he willfully relaxes his reflexive control over small areas of his body such as he does to allow scalpels and needles to penetrate his skin for medical procedures and scientific endeavors.
• In-Series Nickname: Big Brain, Stretch and Fantastic Elastic.
• Mentor Archetype: His mentors were Giles Peacock, the butler and caretaker of the Richards estate, Franklin Storm, his beloved teacher at the Empire State University, and H.R. Elder.
• Missing Mom: The tragic death of his mother Evelyn Richards affected him a lot, making him distant from his father and his new wife and daughter.
• Mr. Exposition: Just like the Fury Files and Cerebro Files, Reed has his own files for people associated with the Fantastic Four, named FantasticCodex.
• Odd Friendship: He and Ben Grimm have always been an unlikely pair of best friends.
• Official Couple: With Sue Storm.
• Omnidisciplinary Scientist: Richards possess a mastery of electrical, mechanical and aerospace engineering, electronics, chemistry, all levels of physics, computer programming, and human biology. He is a visionary theoretician and inspired inventor, making breakthroughs in various fields. Reed's many patents are so valuable that he is able to bankroll the Fantastic Four without any sort of financial stress.
• Parent with New Paramour: He became estranged from his father Nathaniel in part due to remarrying to his stepmother Cassandra Richards.
• Robot Buddy: As seen in the picture there's his robotic creation H.E.R.B.I.E.
• Rubber Man: Richards possesses the ability to convert the mass of his entire body into a highly malleable state at will. He can alter his form almost instantly and revert to his original humanoid shape in 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. Richards' transformation into a malleable state is reflexive and nearly instantaneous.
• Smart People Wear Glasses: He's near sighted, as such he wears thick rimmed glasses and is easily one of the smartest people in the world.
• Super-Toughness: Due to the great malleability and elasticity of his molecular structure, Richards 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. Likewise, he 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. However, such shocks to his systems are physically exhausting.
• Voluntary Shapeshifting: Richards can stretch, deform, expand, or compress his entire body or parts into any contiguous shape he can image for a variety of uses. He can extend his body in two directions, creating a canopy, parachute, or sheath, its thickness determined by the extent of its distention. As a canopy or cushion-like object, Richards can safely catch falling people and objects or slingshot persons or objects a great distance. As a parachute, he can support approximately an additional 1000 pounds. Richards can also shift his mass to specific parts of his body, making his hands into dense weapons. Another use of his ability is transforming himself into a large bounding ball to move at great speed.

Invisible Woman (Susan "Sue" Storm)

^{Click for 1990s Civilian Look} 

• Affectionate Nickname: Sue, Suzy and Stormy.
• Alliterative Name: Sue's full name is Susan Sarah Samantha Storm.
• Bare Midriffs Are Feminine: In casual clothes she did, and she's the only female among the Fantastic Four.
• Barrier Warrior: Storm is also 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 a particular form and keep it in sharp mental focus — thus simpler forms are the strongest. She can make these objects grow or shrink as desired. Her force fields appear to block most types of energy from passing through them including kinetic, thermal, and psionic.
• Dead Guy Junior: Her second middle name Samantha comes from her late paternal grandmother Samantha Lowell.
• Eye Scream: Storm can make other people blind by making their optic nerve invisible.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: She's the responsible to Johnny's foolish.
• Invisibility: Sue has the mental ability to manipulate light for a variety of effects, including the rendering of herself and other objects invisible. By a simple act of concentration, she can cause all wavelengths of visible, infrared, and ultraviolet light to bend around her without distortion. Storm can also mentally project the invisible energy produced within the cells of her body in order to render other people or objects invisible – however affected persons will not be able to see anything as light has bent around them, plunging them into darkness. The largest volume she can as yet turn invisible at a single time is roughly equivalent to the space of a full-size sedan. Storm 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.
• Logical Weakness: As Storm's force fields are invisible, light passes through them and thus they cannot be used to block lasers. Also sound travels through the fields mostly unaffected and thus those shielded by Storm's force fields could become targets of sonic weaponry or sound-based attacks.
• Master Actor: Susan spent her childhood as an actress in training and further refined the craft while in college, having a minor in dramatic arts. She once performed briefly on Broadway.
• Official Couple: With Reed.
• Promotion to Parent: With their father's failing health, Sue was forced to become something of a surrogate mother for Johnny, which didn't go very well.
• The Smurfette Principle: The only female of the Fantastic Four.
• Super-Senses: Storm has the ability to see in a previously unknown spectrum of light that is not affected by her invisibility which allows her eyes to retain some degree of vision while invisible and allows her to see things which typical senses cannot perceive, such as her force fields and ethereal creatures such as ghosts.
• Team Mom: She's got plenty of practice due to taking on a maternal role towards her brother Johnny.

Human Torch (Johnathan "Johnny" Storm)

^{Click for Flame On Look} 

^{Click for 1990s Civilian Look} 

• The Baby of the Bunch: The youngest of the Fantastic Four and easily the most immature.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Shield testing shows Johnny is actually pretty smart, but he's lazy and causes more troubles than he solves.
• Character Catchphrase: "Flame On!" which he uses to trigger his powers. It's even written in his belt.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Storm can mentally control the ambient heat energy within his immediate environment, even when he is not aflame. He can reduce objects temperatures to about 44° F, raise them to several hundred degrees, or extinguish open flames. While in control of any flame, including those emitted by his own plasma shell, Storm can elect what is and what isn't burned by the fire, allowing him to carry persons while in-flight without injuring them. His radius of influence is about 80 feet. The heat energy he takes from the environment is absorbed into his own body. If he takes in a critical amount while not aflame, he will become aflame.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: He's the foolish to Sue's responsible one, being trouble-making, hot-headed and something of a slacker.
• Flight: Storm has sufficient positive buoyancy to float in midair when his body is sheathed in his ectoplasmic shell. Using pyrokinetic propulsion, Storm can provide enough lift to carry himself and around an additional 200 pounds. He can achieve an average flight speed of 140 miles per hour and accelerate up to near-supersonic speeds by forming a jet from his feet directed behind him.
• For Want Of A Nail: He actually took the amulet of Zarathos from the study of Professor Brandeis and was very close to actually becoming the Ghost Rider, only to lose it at a stunt driving show while looking for Reed, where it would end up in the possession of his namesake Johnny Blaze.
• Immune to Fire: Storm is unaffected by heat and flames. His flesh cannot be scalded or burned by any heat source — at least those under 100,000° F. Storm also seems to have a degree of resistance to cold, likely due to his internal body temperature being much higher than an average person.
• In-Series Nickname: Johnny, Flamebrain, Flamin' Numbskull, Hot Guy, Hothead, Hotshot, Matchhead, Matchstick, Pipsqueak, Sundance, Torch, Torchie.
• Missing Mom: His mother Mary Storm left the family when he was only three years old, which affected him far more than his father or sister realized at first, which led to his hotheaded, trouble-making self.
• Official Couple: Currently dating Doris Evans.
• Playing with Fire: Storm can generate shapes composed of fire from any point on his body. He can form fire into long streams, spheres, or even more complex shapes like letters in skywriting. These fiery constructs will only retain their shapes as long as he concentrates upon them. The heat of these projections is generally around 2,800° F.
• Super-Toughness: Storm is exceptionally durable, even when not sheathed in his ectoplasmic shell. He has been known to stay conscious after getting a light sucker punch from Ben.
• Token Flyer: He's the only member of the Fantastic Four that can fly on his own power.
• Wreathed in Flames: Johnny possesses the psychic ability to control ambient heat energy and transform his body (wholly or partially) into fiery plasma. Upon activation of this ability (usually after shouting "Flame On!"), Storm is enveloped by several layers of ectoplasm, heated to approximately 780° Fahrenheit, in addition to an aura that he can superheat at will. With concentration, Storm can generate much higher levels and flames about himself or lower his temperature. On average, Johnny can retain this form for one to two hours per day before requiring a hearty meal and a brief rest.

The Thing (Benjamin "Ben" Grimm)

^{Click for Civilian Look} 

• Ace Pilot: Grimm is an exceptionally skilled and talented pilot, proficient with many varieties of both conventional and exotic aircraft.
• The Ageless: Ben doesn't appear to age, nor is he affected by standard illnesses.
• Bald Head of Toughness: Ben no longer has any hair as The Thing, and he's one of the toughest heroes out there, capable of exchanging blows with the Hulk.
• Blue/Orange Contrast: His orange skin contrasts well with his blue pants.
• Brains and Brawn: He's the brawn to Reed's brains, although he's pretty smart himself.
• Character Catchphrase: As always "It's clobbering time!".
• Cigar Chomper: As seen in his casual picture, Ben enjoys his cigars. Thanks to his condition he doesn't have to worry too much about his health.
• Determinator: Grimm has remarkable willpower. He is so stubborn, that he would never surrender or retreat (unless forced to do so by the passionate request of a dear friend).
• Faster Than They Look: Despite his abnormal size and weight, Grimm is able to move as fast and as freely as he did when he was human.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Ben now only has four fingers in his hands instead of five.
• Gentle Giant: He's huge and heavy, but despite his rough edges he remains a pretty nice guy.
• Good Old Fisticuffs: Grimm is uniquely gifted in the art of hand-to-hand combat (a skill he honed long before his transformation), though his fighting style tends to be a rather loose brawling technique of his own making. This style often incorporates collegiate wrestling techniques, Boxing, Jujitsu, and football style blocking and tackling.
• Hidden Depths: Ben is a master saxophone player and he even has a minor in music theory.
• Nephewism: After the death of his parents and brother he ended in the care of his uncle Jake and aunt Petunia, who helped Ben discover his love of music, piloting and football.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: The rock-like composition of Grimm's body renders him highly resistant to physical injury. His body can resist extremely powerful impact forces, such as the force of the Hulk's punches. He can also withstand exposure to high levels of explosives, such as being struck with explosive shells or being shot point-blank with a high-caliber firearm without sustaining injury. His body can also withstand extreme temperatures. Richards postulates that adamantium, vibranium, or diamond-tipped weaponry would have a good chance of inflicting serious injury upon Grimm.
• Parental Abandonment: His father Daniel was an alcoholic who ended up killed by his wife Elsie before taking her own life. That and the death of his brother Daniel Jr.'s during a gang war made Ben lash out violently at school. It was only after he started living with his uncle Jake and aunt Petunia that his heart of gold shined through.
• Rock Monster: Grimm possesses a smooth, orange, rock-like hide. The process of his transformation caused his musculature, bone structure, internal organ composition, soft tissue structure, and skin to greatly increase in toughness and density.
• Super-Strength: Grimm has inhuman physical strength. The level of the strength appears to be comparable, though not equal, to the might of the Hulk. Grimm can overturn, lift, or throw full-size automobiles without much effort.
• Super-Toughness: Grimm's advanced musculature produces considerably less fatigue toxins during physical activity than the musculature of a normal human. At his peak, he can exert himself for about 24 hours before the build up of fatigue toxins in his blood begins to affect him. Incidentally, Grimm's lungs are of greater volume and efficiency than a normal man's, enabling him to hold his breath underwater for up to 9 minutes.
• Undying Loyalty: For Reed, something even Nick Fury respects to this day.
• Walking Shirtless Scene: He doesn't bother with a shirt while in his Fantastic Four suit.

---