T H E F A N T A S T I C F O U R
♦ R E E D R I C H A R D S / S U E S T O R M / J O H N N Y S T O R M / B E N G R I M M ♦
♦ S C I E N T I S T S / A D V E N T U R E R S ♦
♦ N E W Y O R K C I T Y ♦
♦ F U T U R E F O U N D A T I O N ♦
♦ S C I E N T I S T S / A D V E N T U R E R S ♦
♦ N E W Y O R K C I T Y ♦
♦ F U T U R E F O U N D A T I O N ♦
C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:
”There’s a lot of things you need to get by in a universe as crazy as this one. Worhmole skippers, dimensional anchors, tachyon particle emitters, transluminal warp cores. But the one thing you need more than anything? Is family.”
”Didn’t Vin Diesel say that?”
”Johnny, I swear to God. We’re having a moment here.”
”Speakin’ a moments, how’s about we remind these jerks what time it is?”
”And what time would that be?”
”Aw, c’mon, Stretch, you know darn well. It’s about a quarter-past Clobberin’ Time!”
”Didn’t Vin Diesel say that?”
”Johnny, I swear to God. We’re having a moment here.”
”Speakin’ a moments, how’s about we remind these jerks what time it is?”
”And what time would that be?”
”Aw, c’mon, Stretch, you know darn well. It’s about a quarter-past Clobberin’ Time!”
Earth-1961.
The brilliant scientist Dr. Reed Richards, his colleague and business partner Sue Storm, Sue’s celebrity idol younger brother Johnny, and ace fighter pilot Captain Ben Grimm launch an experimental spacecraft, intending to be the first humans to achieve interstellar travel. When they reach their destination, however, they find not an inhabitable planet lush with extraterrestrial life, but a maelstrom of debris and a raging storm of cosmic radiation. Upon returning to Earth, Richards and company discover this radiation has mutated their bodies in extraordinary ways.
Already beloved public figures, it takes little time for Reed, Sue, and Johnny to adapt to their new lives as metahuman adventurers, though Ben takes significantly longer to adjust. Operating out of the incredible spire they call the Baxter Building, the newly-christened Fantastic Four push the boundaries of possibility, exploring the far frontiers of reality, meeting strange new life forms, battling monsters and madmen, and saving mankind from apocalyptic disasters time and time again.
As they grow in fame and in influence, the Fantastic Four also attract powerful enemies. From the matter-warping Molecule Man to the brutish Blastaar of the Negative Zone, new evildoers continually menace the world that the Four vowed to protect. No threat, however, is as destructive, as dire, as diabolical, as Doctor Doom, dictator of the land of Latveria, and sworn enemy of Reed Richards. Time and time again, Doom’s obsessive vendetta against Richards and his friends put the world itself at stake, and time and time again the Fantastic Four just barely manage to defeat the mad monarch.
These adventures come to a bitter end, however, as does their entire world. A flash of silver in the sky heralds the end, and all of Reed’s brilliance, all of Sue’s spirit, all of Johnny’s fire, and all of Ben’s strength amount to nothing. Even the conniving machinations of Doctor Doom himself are little more than the buzzing of flies when the end comes. In a final move to save his own people, Doom encases the entire country of Latveria in a cosmic warp bubble, disappearing from the universe completely. Reed and the other members of the Four try valiantly, but they are helpless to stop their world from being devoured. Using the same ship that took them to space to begin with, Reed warps the gleaming tower of the Baxter Building out of their dying universe and into the unknown…
Our Earth. 2010.
The planet is besieged by an extraterrestrial invasion, the Chitauri Swarm. The military is helpless to stop the alien horde. As the Chitauri flood into the Earth through wormholes, the rifts in the spacetime continuum make the fabric of reality thin enough that something can enter from outside.
In the midst of the chaos and devastation, a gleaming white skyscraper capped with the number '4' seemingly appears out of thin air, taking the place of an office building that had just been destroyed by the Chitauri. Emerging from the building are four individuals-- a man with an elastic body, a woman who can turn completely invisible, a teenager who can become a living flame, and a giant made of unbreakable stone-- who quickly ascertain the situation and begin the business of saving lives and helping to end the alien threat. They introduce themselves as the Fantastic Four, and while they may not call this Earth their home, they make it explicitly clear that they are here to help.
In the twelve years since arriving in this universe, Reed and the Fantastic Four have attempted to ingratiate themselves with the inhabitants of this Earth as best as possible, using their incredible resources to help rebuild in the aftermath of the invasion and sharing the wonderous technology of their world with those Reed believes they can trust. The Baxter Building has become the home of the Future Foundation, a non-profit center for scientific advancements of all disciplines, offering everything from next-generation quantum mechanics to free lessons and tutoring for grade schoolers. Between trying to bring this comparatively primitive world to a higher level of scientific understanding and facing off against a whole new breed of monsters and lunatics, the Fantastic Four work tirelessly to bring about a bright new tomorrow.
All the while, Reed toils in his private moments, trying desperately to bring back the world he lost…and to prevent this world from suffering the same fate.
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