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Character Details
- Parents were Dr. Nathaniel and Evelyn Richards. Evelyn died when Reed was seven
- Nathaniel encouraged Reed's intelligence, fostering the boy's love of science
- Reed enters college at CalTech at 14, earning degrees in Physics, Robotics, Computer Science, and Electrical Engineering at 18
- Attended Empire State University for post-graduate work. Roomed with Victor Von Doom
- After Von Doom's accident and expulsion, roomed with Ben Grimm. Father vanishes
- After earning Doctorate in physics from ESU, returned to California for post-graduate work at Columbia. Boarded at Dinkin's boarding house. Met Susan and Johnny Storm
- Returned to California to begin work on new shuttle prototype using his own fortune
- Reunited with Ben Grimm, Susan and Johnny Storm. Begins dating Susan
- After Government denies Reed a chance for NASA to test his prototype citing safety concerns, Reed launches in secret with Ben as the pilot, Sue and Johnny as passengers. Shuttle encounters extreme cosmic radiation. After a forced re-entry and crash, the four discover they have superhuman powers
- Reed returns to New York with Ben, Sue, and Johnny, taking up residence in the Baxter Building to ostensibly find a cure for their conditions. They begin to fight superhuman menaces that threaten New York and the world
- Reed and Sue marry, Ben serves as best man
- Over time, the Fantastic Four become the world's premier superhuman team. With the fame comes more success as Reed's inventions and patents support the team
- Franklin Richards is born
- After the birth of Franklin, Reed and Sue enter semi-retirement to raise him. They join the Avengers as reserve members and continue their association with the Fantastic Four
- The Richards' second child, a daughter, is stillborn. Franklin voluntarily dampens his own powers. Reed and Sue re-join the Fantastic Four full time
- After more adventures, Four Freedoms Plaza is destroyed. The Fantastic Four move back to the Baxter Building, preserved from it's own destruction by The Watcher
- Reed takes a sabbatical on a lecture tour at major universities around the world
ADVENTUROUS:
It seems an odd thing to consider the most brilliant mind of hte 21st century to be adventurous, especially given Reed's reputation, but that's exactly what he is. Science, for him, is an exploration, about pushing through old boundries and into new frontiers. It's occasionally about risktaking, even reckless ones. It is the spirit of adventure that the Fantastic Four have embraced and embodied. Other's might do what they do for fun, or sense of duty or patriotism. For them, it's the discovery, the exploration, the adventure.
ANALYTICAL:
Reed is a scientist. Probably the best in the world. Maybe the greatest ever. And like all good scientists he has a keen analytical mind. He excels at tackling a problem, breaking it down into steps, taking it to it's routes and then finding and building a solution. More impressively and what makes him so good in the field is the fact that he can do it in seconds or minutes where it would take others days, weeks, months or even years. Occasionally he can get a little too caught up in the process however, overthinking things that aren't necessarily as complicated as he sometimes makes them.
BRILLIANT:
There is no denying that Reed Richards is brilliant. Centuries from now he'll probably be talked about in the same terms as Newton or Einstein. His mind works phenomenally quickly comapred to most, instinctively grasping relationships and conncetions quicker then most could ever hope to. He has that ability to make intuitive leaps of logic and organize seemingly random bits of information into a whole that makes sense. But it also tends to make him a little abstract or cutoff at times. He simply does think or prioritize in the same way a lot of people do.
COMPASSIONATE:
Despite his brilliant mind, science is more then just the pursuit of knowledge for him. It's about making people's lives better and safer too. It's part of why he has embraced the change he has gone through so readily. He wants to be able to help people, to make their lives better, both though his science, and when necessary, through the judicious use of his powers.
DISTRACTED:
Reed can suffer a two-sided problem at times. He can be a very focused individual, completely dedicating himself to one problem to the exclusion of everything else. It's something that drives his family and friends nuts sometimes. But he can also suffer from the exact opposite. He's been known to leave projects in midstream and take months in getting back to them because something else came up.
LOYAL:
At the end of the day, the Fantastic Four is a family. There isn't one of them he wouldn't give anything for. Ben is his best friend, he loves Sue like no one else and has embraced Johnny like a brother. He can always be counted on in the pinch, no matter what the stakes are.
STRETCHING: The cosmic radiation that infused the Fantastic Four on their first space flight gave them all unique abilities. In Reed's case, it allowed him to change the shape and consistency of his body dramatically. In particular, it allowed him to stretch any portion of his body to extreme lengths, upwards of fifteen hundred feet. He can push his limits further but doing so begins to cause escalating amounts of physical pain. It allows him to extend his reach considerably and grab things that would otherwise be too far away, to attack from a distance, or to travel great distances quickly when he stretches out his legs making each step the equivilent of a city block.
PLASTICITY: While stretching might be the most apparent and obvious of his cosmic gifts, his powers run considerably further then that. When he wills it his body is extremely mallable, capable of bending and twisting into entirely new shapes. This allows him to do any number of useful things. He can thin himself out to the point of being no thicker then a sheet of paper, making it possible to slip through anything that is not truely airtight. He can reshape his body into any number of items, though he usually prefers simpler ones like gliders should be be airborne, or parachutes, rafts, bouncing balls or the like. Any number of simple, useful items that come in handy from time to time. His control over these powers are fine enough to actually allow him to alter his appearance, to appear as someone else entirely. When he wants he literally might as well be made out of moulded plastic or rubber, capable of taking on almost any shape.
BODY ARMOR: Because of the nature of his skin, Reed is particularly difficult to hurt. He is pretty much impossible to cut unless he concentrates on allowing himself to be, for instance with the need for medical treatment. Likewise, his body is capable of absorbing the impact of bullets, either killing their momentum dead or serving as a sort of trampoline effect, sending them hurtling back on the same trajectory. He is even capable of engulfing a moderate explosive device and using his body to absorb the blast, though such efforts exhaust him badly as he must deal with a great deal of force applied incredibly quickly across a large portion of his body.
COMPUTERS: There are very few things that Reed can't make a computer do, in large part because he has built some of the most advanced ones in the world to help with his experiments. He has also played with alien computer technology from time to time which certainly gives him a leg up in that particular department. Heck, he's even manage to create artificial intelligences, computers that can think and grow for themselves. Just don't ask him to setup the PVR to record Sue's favorite show. That's Johnny's job.
SCIENCE: First and foremost, Reed is a scientist. A brilliant one at that. One of the greatest minds humanity has spawned really. While his area of expertise is electronics and physics, part of what makes him such a special mind is the fact that there are very few scientific subjects on which he does not have a near expert knowledge about. Chemistry, biology, genetics, geology, they are all fascinating to Reed and he is forever reading up on a wide range of topics making him far more versed in any of them then any standard pH.D. When it comes to electronics, well, only a handful of men in the world are anywhere near him. Men like Stark, or von Doom. And physics? He is decades if not centuries ahead of anyone else in the field.
HAND_TO_HAND: In truth, Reed is a man of science, not violence. But that also means he's not dumb. He's learned that sometimes there are problems that can't be solved with reason and talking, no matter how much they should be able to be solved that way. And when you encounter those sorts of people you had better know how to defend yourself and take them down. Of course, it helps that he can twist himself into just about any shape with amazing agility, has much greater reach then, well, just about anyone and thanks to the plasticity of his body, is practically immune to injury. That said, Reed has let Ben teach him some practical combat training over the years and like all things, picked it up fast. If his powers suddenly vanished tomorrow, he wouldn't be helpless, though it wouldn't be a good idea for him to take on a trio of armed gunmen without them either.
PILOT: Reed has his pilot's license, but more then that he has piloted some of the most advanced aircraft in the world. Largely because he's built them. The Fantasticar is a state of the art flying craft in and oh itself, not to mention he built a craft to take himself and his friends into Space. Only the best military pilots ever get the shot at space travel and he's done in and come back which gives a good idea of how capable a pilot he is.
LEADERSHIP: Reed doesn't look or seem the natural leader type. He's a scientist afterall, while Ben is ex-military and Johnny has always had a reckless treak in him, an act-first, regret-later sort of personality that some associate with leadership. But Reed is thoughtful, capable of looking at any situation and breaking down. He is also surprisingly decisive when called for, fully capable of settling on a course of action that plays to the strengths of all his assets.
ENGINEERING: Reed isn't just a theoretical scientist, musing over string theory and how many dimensions actually exist. He puts his thoughts into action, creating highly advanced devices that take advantage of his ideas, building some of the most extraordinary and advanced technology on the planet… and beyond. He is seemingly always coming up with some new marvel, from computers, to specialized weaponry and tools, to vehicles and devices with unique and diverse effects, even robots. And now and then he'll put out something a little more commerical, both to pay the rent and because it is usually something useful to everyday people.
FIELD_GADGETEERING: It is one thing to put together a rocket pack in the comfort of a hi-tech, fully-stocked, state of the art lab. It's another to do it out in the field with limited time and resources. The former is pretty remarkable. The later is absolutely amazing. That's the sort of thing that Reed does on a regular basis. Sometimes it seemss like he could build a nuclear generator out of two stones, a handful of twigs and a bucket of water. He might not be quite that good. But you might not want to leave any twigs laying about if you think you've got him beat and helpless.
FANTASTIC FOUR: First and foremost, Reed Richards is a member of the Fantastic Four. They are perhaps the first of the modern day superheroes and have engendered a great deal of good will because of that. While some like the X-Men and mutants in general might be feared, the Fantastic Four has always tended to be respected, even verging on celebrity status. Likewise, it is always them that Reed turns to first when there's a problem. Sue, Johnny and Ben are like a family and they've been through so much together already. With even more to come.
SUPERHERO COMMUNITY: Reed is a highly respected member of this community and there are few people out there that he hasn't come across at one point or another. He is frequently the first person that people turn to when there is a scientific problem out there and he has developed close ties to the Avengers, Spider-Man and even the X-Men. He is, in someways, the elder statesmen of their unique community so it's no surprise that he should command a degree of respect amongst them.
SCIENTIFIC COMMUNITY: When all is said and done Reed's name will probably go into the history textbooks right next to Newton and Einstein as the foundation of modern scientific thought. He's really that much of a giant in the field, that far ahead of the curve. So it should probably come as no surprise that he's pretty highly regarded in the scientific community. While he is well versed in most fields, outside of Physics and electronics there are those who know more, or might have more specialized capabilities and he is not blind to that fact. There are few people who wouldn't consult with him if he asked and in turn, he has always been good about making himself available to the community at large.
GOVERNMENT: As some of the earliest of the modern 'heroes', Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four have managed to garner a great deal more goodwill then many of those that have come after. Combine that with the fact that Reed is almost universally hailed as one of humanity's finest minds and it is no surprise that extremely difficult scientific problems have usually been passed his way from government sources. He has frequently had access to top secret information and while there is far from an open door policy, he'd certainly have a better chance of getting help in turn from the authorities then many of his peers.
MILITARY COMMUNITY: Over the years, Reed has had a… lukewarm relationship with the military. He has provided them with certain technologies to be sure, and has been consulted on matters of national defense when there is some scientific threat out there but he's also been called in to debunk some of the Pentegon's hightech, high cost boondoggles over the years to and that's something that generals and admirals tend to take to heart. Still, given the past help he's provided he has a warmer relationship with them then many.
BAXTER BUILDING: The Fantastic Four make their home in the Baxter Building, right in the heart of downtown Manhatten. It is a landmark of the city and while they originally started out as tenents, the success of Reed's inventions allowed them to purchase the building sometime ago. It beat the constant eviction threats that came from their work. The top floors of the building are given over to their needs while the lower ones are leased out to provide another revenue stream for the team. Within, they keep their living quarters, Reed's lab, storage facilities for the many potentially dangerous inventions both made and gathered by the team, and facilities on the roof to launch their aircraft.
INVENTIONS: Reed has designed a host of inventions over the years. Some are for rather common items that have gone into wide circulation and hence provide the return that funds both his further inventions and their activities as the Fantastic Four. Others are not meant to be used by outsiders and they are the big reason that several floors of the Baxter Building are given over to nothing but storing his creations. Some are nothing more then intellectual exercises, means of proving that some assumption on his part is demonstrably true. Others are devices of limited use. How often does one have to deetect extra-dimensional energy anyways? Others are dangerous, weapons and devices of great power, especially if used in the wrong fashion by those not to be trusted. Either way, they always are a potential source of help should they suddenly need some obscure invention.
FINANCES: If he truly wanted to, Reed could probably be a billionaire several times over. He's a genius and many of his inventions have potential applications beyond what he uses them for. Heck, his Artificial intelligence programs and sentient robots and holograms alone who leave him one of the richest men in the world. But he's not interested in that. Instead, he has patented enough 'safe' technology to keep the money rolling in. Combined with merchandising and rents from the Baxter Building, the Fantastic Four have plenty of revenue steams to fund their activities, Reed's continuing experiments and explorations, and live very affluently.
COSTUME: Reed designed the costumes that the Fantastic Four wear. Or at least the practical parts. Sue handled the 'look' of them. It was Reed's discovery of Unstable Molecules that make them a possibility. The costumes are specially designed to function with their individual powers. Obviously stretching, twisting his body type like he does should leave Reed well, naked. Instead his costume stretches with him, no how much his form might elongate, no matter of twisted or tangled it might become his costume does not become a burden. Likewise, the uniforms are designed to moderate temperature, keeping the wearer comfortable in extremes of temperature. That doesn't mean he can be exposed to the void of space, or stand on a sun comfortably, but in all but the most extreme climates on Earth, the outfit remains comfortable. It is likewise hooked up to a satelitte system in the Baxter building that allows him to be tracked if necessary, monitors his vital signs, and lets him speak to other members of the team anywhere there is satellite coverage. Anywhere without (IE. spacee or other dimensions) such contact is done with more conventional radio with a much more limited range of around thirty miles.
INTELLIGENCE: It's been said before, but it bears repeating. Reed Richards is more then just smart, more then just a genius. He is one of the greatest minds that humanity has produced, capable of dealing with insights and notions centuries beyond what most of the rest of the species could hope to deal with. His mind is perhaps the most perfect biological machine on the planet and it is that, more then anything else, that makes him such a formidable member of the superhero community. His powers might not seem the most impressive, especially compared to his teammates, but when coupled with his almost limitless mind… well, that's where the magic comes from.
FAILURE: Reed is an incredible successful man by any measure. He is a genius of unparrelled stature, he is a successful scientists with patents worth millions and worldwide acclaim, and he has a smokin' hot significant other. He is the golden boy who so rarely fails. Which is why it is especially grating when he does. He has a hard time of letting go of his failures. While things might have worked out mostly for the best, he can't forget about the fact that it was his impulsive decision to test out his rocket that led to the accident that all gave them their abilities. His recklessness. And it could have been so much worse. Like for Ben. Over the years he has tried repeatedly to 'cure' Ben of his condition, give him back some semblance of a normal life, and while he has managed temporary success from time to time, he still hasn't succeeded. That's especially hard to take for a man who can seemingly do anything.
FAME: Reed is probably the most famous living scientist in the world today. His little gadgets are used by billions, he's consulted by politicians and militaries on scientific matters and he is a frequent spokesman for the superhero community. All that exposure means recognition, it means that his privacy is frequently invaded and it means that a life already full of all sorts of complications can usually be counted on to provide a few more at inopportune moments.
FAMILY: Reed has a plastic like body that makes him extremely difficult to hurt physically. So as a number of people have learned over the years, his big weakpoint is with his 'family'. Getting at Sue, Johnny or Ben is one of the surest ways to neutralize Mr. Fantastic. Or make him a very, very serious enemy.
ENEMIES: You would think that someone as even tempered as Reed wouldn't have much trouble staying on people's good side. But such is simply not the case. Somehow he just seems to keep racking up the opponents. Even before he was Mr. Fantastic he had started big, alienating a fellow student at Empire University in Victor von Doom who would go on to become his most implacable foe. And in the years since the space flight that has given him his powers the list of those with a grudge has only grown.
VIEWPOINT: One of Reed's biggest sources of trouble is that he simply doesn't see the world through quite the same lenses as they rest of those around him. He has a highly organized, highly intelligent mind but occasionally, social nicities escape him because of that. Nothing is more likely to irritate Sue then his tendency to lock himself in the lab for days at a time with hardly a word. He can get extremely wrapped up in his work and well, kinda forget about the people around him. It also makes it occasionally difficult to deal with those truly irrational foes. His mind is so fundamentally different it can be extremely difficult for him to understand their ways and motivations, too busy to try and impose so rational view on actions that are anything but.
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Logs
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