Acquiring

Target 09 of 30 · Fantastic Four

Mister Fantastic

IdentityConfirmed

Real nameReed Richards

CodenameMister Fantastic

ContinentFantastic Four

In DoomsdayPedro Pascal (on Marvel's cast list; role not yet named)¹

First seenFantastic Four #1, November 1961²

Created byStan Lee, Jack Kirby²

Threat to DoomRated by fans

?/ 4

No fan ratings yet.

Awaiting the fans

Doom: Rate this threat. Once three fans have, I will pass judgement.

How much of a threat is Mister Fantastic to Doom?

Fan opinion · one rating a day

Marvel's power grid, comics⁶

Marvel's own ratings, 1 to 7 on six stats. They measure raw power, not telepathy, reality-warping or cunning, so they set no ranking here.

Your judgementFan opinion · this device

How shall Your Majesty regard Mister Fantastic?

Level 1 // The briefDecrypted · 30 seconds

WhoA genius scientist whose rocket flight through cosmic rays left his body able to stretch into any shape; he leads the Fantastic Four.³

AbilitiesA body that stretches and reshapes at will, plus a prodigy's scientific genius.³

In DoomsdayMarvel lists Pedro Pascal in the cast but has not named his role; his most recent released role was Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic.¹

Last seenThe Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025), as Reed Richards / Mister Fantastic: He snatches his son Franklin back from Galactus; the baby's powers then revive Sue.⁵

Sources

Level 2 // Surveillance recordOn screen · 5 sightings, 2 in the MCU

Every live-action sighting of Mister Fantastic, and everything Marvel has confirmed.

2005
Fantastic Four FOX
Ioan Gruffudd Here Reed is a brilliant but broke scientist who has to accept Victor von Doom's backing to study a cosmic storm from Doom's space station. When the storm arrives early it leaves him able to stretch, and he spends much of the film trying to reverse the changes, especially Ben's. After the team beats Doom by freezing his metal body solid, Reed finally proposes to Sue.¹²
2007
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer FOX
Ioan Gruffudd Two years on, Reed's wedding to Sue is interrupted when the government asks him to track the Silver Surfer. He builds a pulse device that separates the Surfer from his board, then is forced to work alongside a revived Doom, who steals the board for himself. After the Surfer brings Sue back to life and turns on Galactus, Reed and Sue finally marry in Japan.³²
2015
Fantastic Four FOX
Miles Teller This Reed is a young prodigy whose homemade teleporter wins him a place on Franklin Storm's project at the Baxter Building. After he, Ben, Johnny and Victor take the finished machine to another world without permission, he returns able to stretch, escapes government custody and hides for a year before being brought back. He leads the four against Victor, now calling himself Doom, and gives the team its name afterwards.⁴⁵
2022
Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness MCUCameo
John Krasinski This is the Earth-838 variant of Reed, leader of that world's Fantastic Four and a member of its Illuminati, introduced as the smartest man alive. At the hearing held for the visiting Doctor Strange he explains Incursions and argues that Strange is the bigger danger to the multiverse. When the Scarlet Witch storms the Illuminati headquarters he tries to reason with her by mentioning his own children, and she tears him apart.⁶⁷
2025
The Fantastic Four: First Steps MCU
Pedro Pascal On the retro-futuristic Earth-828, Reed leads a team that has been famous for four years when the Silver Surfer heralds Galactus, who demands Reed and Sue's newborn son Franklin. Reed tries to move the whole planet with teleportation bridges, and after the Surfer wrecks them he helps lure Galactus into the last one, grabbing Franklin from the giant's hand as he falls through. He is left trying and failing to revive Sue until Franklin's powers do it for him.⁸⁹

What Marvel confirmed

The film. Avengers: Doomsday opens 18 December 2026.¹⁰

Sources

Level 3 // Deep archiveThe comics · since November 1961

Origin, the comics by era, abilities and recorded feats.

Origin

Reed grew up in Central City, California, the sole child of Evelyn Richards and her husband Nathaniel, a rich physicist. The boy was a prodigy in mathematics, physics and mechanics, and after his mother died when he was seven his father raised him alone and encouraged his studies. He started college at fourteen, passing through Caltech, Harvard and MIT and a spell at the University of Vienna, and held several degrees by eighteen. Nathaniel later vanished during a time-travel experiment, leaving his son a fortune of about two billion dollars.

While working toward yet another degree at State University in New York, Reed was assigned a foreign student named Victor von Doom as a roommate. Victor moved out in disgust and was replaced by Ben Grimm, a former football star who became Reed's closest friend and joked that he would one day pilot the starship Reed was already planning. Around the same time Reed rented a room in a boarding house run by the aunt of Susan Storm and fell for her at once. When Doom built a machine to reach the dead, Reed warned him about a flaw in the maths; Doom ignored him, the device blew up in his face, and he blamed Reed ever after.

Reed poured his inheritance, plus federal money, into a starship called the Marvel-1. When the government threatened to pull its funding, he decided to launch before it could. Ben agreed to pilot despite fears about the radiation shielding, and Sue and her teenage brother Johnny insisted on coming. The four slipped into the launch site and took off, but a storm of cosmic rays tore through the cabin and forced Ben to bring the ship down. Back on Earth they found themselves transformed, Reed's body now able to stretch and reshape at will, and he talked the others into using their powers together as the Fantastic Four, with himself as leader under the name Mister Fantastic.¹²³⁴

The record, by era

1961-1962
Leading the first family The Silver Age debut
Reed's first mission takes the new team to Monster Isle to stop the Mole Man's attacks on atomic plants. Next, shape-shifting Skrulls frame the Four for a string of crimes; Reed scares off their invasion fleet with monster pictures clipped from comic books and leaves the captured impostors hypnotised into living as cows. Then his old classmate returns as Doctor Doom, takes Sue hostage and sends Reed, Ben and Johnny back in time to fetch Blackbeard's treasure, which Reed pointedly leaves behind.¹²⁵⁴
Key issues: Fantastic Four #1 (1961) · Fantastic Four #2 (1962) · Fantastic Four #5 (1962)
1965-1974
Marriage, Franklin and a family under strain Husband and father
Reed marries Sue at the Baxter Building while Doom stirs dozens of villains into attacking the ceremony; the Watcher lends Reed a device that sends them all home with no memory of it. When the cosmic rays in Sue's body threaten her and their unborn son, Reed raids the Negative Zone and drains what he needs from Annihilus' Cosmic Control Rod. Years later, with Franklin's runaway powers threatening the solar system, Reed shuts down the boy's mind and Sue walks out on him; the family is only whole again once Franklin wakes.¹⁶⁷⁸⁹
Key issues: Fantastic Four Annual #3 (1965) · Fantastic Four Annual #6 (1968) · Fantastic Four #141 (1973) · Fantastic Four #150 (1974)
1966
The Galactus Trilogy The cosmic epic
The Silver Surfer slips past the Watcher's attempt to hide Earth and summons his master Galactus, who sets about preparing the planet to be consumed. Nothing the Four throw at him works, so the Watcher sends Johnny across space to Galactus' ship to retrieve the Ultimate Nullifier. Reed takes the weapon and threatens to use it, and Galactus agrees to leave Earth alone, punishing the rebellious Surfer by trapping him on the planet.¹¹⁰¹¹¹²
Key issues: Fantastic Four #48 (1966) · Fantastic Four #49 (1966) · Fantastic Four #50 (1966)
1984
On trial for mercy Trials of the 1980s
Having once saved Galactus from dying of hunger, Reed is put on trial by a galactic tribunal led by the Shi'ar empress Lilandra on behalf of the worlds Galactus has destroyed. The Watcher even fetches writer John Byrne to record the proceedings, and Eternity is summoned to show that Galactus has a place in the cosmos. Months later Reed has to seek help from the institutionalised Doctor Octopus when Sue's second pregnancy turns dangerous, and the delay costs them the baby.¹¹³¹⁴¹⁵
Key issues: Fantastic Four #262 (1984) · Fantastic Four #267 (1984) · Fantastic Four #268 (1984)
2003-2004
Unthinkable and its aftermath Magic and grief
With Doom now wielding sorcery and holding his family captive, Reed, who has never trusted magic, gets Doctor Strange to coach him through enough spells to turn the fight around. Doom's demonic patrons drag him to hell, but not before he scars Reed's face. Reed then takes over Latveria and secretly builds a prison for Doom, but Doom's escape ends with Reed forced to kill a possessed Ben Grimm at Ben's own request. Reed leads Sue and Johnny to the edge of heaven to bring Ben back, and the Creators allow it, healing Reed's scars as a parting gift.¹¹⁶¹⁷¹⁸
Key issues: Fantastic Four #500 (2003) · Fantastic Four #508 (2004) · Fantastic Four #511 (2004)
2006-2007
Registration The superhero Civil War
Reed sides with Iron Man in favour of the Superhuman Registration Act, persuaded by his own predictive equations that rejecting it would lead to billions of deaths. The Thor clone he helped build kills Goliath, and Sue leaves him to join Captain America's resistance. In the final battle Reed takes a bullet from the Taskmaster that was meant for her. Afterwards the couple step away from the team to repair their marriage, asking the Black Panther and Storm to fill in.¹¹⁹²⁰²¹²²
Key issues: Civil War #4 (2006) · Civil War #7 (2007) · Fantastic Four #542 (2007) · Fantastic Four #543 (2007)
2011-2012
The Future Foundation A new name
When Johnny apparently dies holding back an invasion from the Negative Zone, the grieving team retires the Fantastic Four name. Reed rebuilds it as the Future Foundation, a school and think tank for young geniuses, and brings in Spider-Man because Johnny's recorded will asked for him. Months later a living Johnny comes back through the portal leading Annihilus' captured forces, and the original four reunite.¹²³²⁴²⁵
Key issues: Fantastic Four #587 (2011) · FF #1 (2011) · Fantastic Four #600 (2012)
2013-2016
Incursions and Secret Wars End of the multiverse
Reed returns to the secret Illuminati as whole universes start colliding with Earth, and the group agonises over destroying other worlds to save its own. When the final collision comes he launches a life raft of survivors, but a hull breach kills his family. Freed from stasis on Doom's patchwork Battleworld, he works with his ruthless counterpart the Maker against the God Emperor. The Molecule Man hands Reed the stolen power instead, and he restores Earth, brings his family back, heals Doom's face and sets out to rebuild the multiverse.¹²⁶²⁷²⁸
Key issues: New Avengers Vol 3 #1 (2013) · Secret Wars #1 (2015) · Secret Wars #9 (2016)
2018-2020
Back to Earth The return
After years spent building new realities, Franklin's powers run dry and an abstract being called the Griever at the End of All Things starts collapsing the worlds the family made. Reed tricks her into letting him call for backup and summons Ben, Johnny and every hero who ever served on the team. Back home, he builds the Marvel-2 to finish the flight that created the Four and discovers on the planet Spyre that its ruler had deliberately intensified the cosmic storm, freeing him of decades of guilt over Ben's transformation.¹²⁹³⁰³¹
Key issues: Fantastic Four Vol 6 #1 (2018) · Fantastic Four Vol 6 #2 (2018) · Fantastic Four Vol 6 #17 (2020)
2025-2026
One World Under Doom Doom as emperor
When Doom, now Sorcerer Supreme, declares himself ruler of a united Earth, Reed helps lead the opposition. After Doom admits feeding on his own people's life force, Reed pulls him onto the Astral Plane and fights him as a self-styled Scientist Supreme, using spells reverse-engineered from Doom's own, but is overpowered. Later a dying Doom pays Reed a last visit, asks only whether Valeria is well, and crumbles to ash, leaving behind a will that names Reed its executor.¹³²³³³⁴
Key issues: One World Under Doom #1 (2025) · One World Under Doom #7 (2025) · One World Under Doom #9 (2026)

Capabilities

Plasticity

Can make his whole body malleable and reshape it in seconds; the change is reflexive, so even surprise machine-gun fire is absorbed.¹

Elongation

Stretches his limbs, neck or torso to about 1,500 feet, and moves quickly by stretching to where he wants to go.¹

Shape changing

Takes almost any shape he can picture: parachute, glider, trampoline, hammer fists, keys for locks, or flat as a sheet of paper.¹

Dense, elastic flesh

Soaks up bullets and contains explosions by deforming, and can pack his mass into one spot, once putting 70 percent of it in a fist to hit Namor.¹

Super-genius intellect

Called the smartest man on Earth, with a photographic memory and mastery of physics, engineering, chemistry, biology and travel to other dimensions.¹

Martial arts

One of Earth's best judo experts and a master of body-striking techniques.¹

Sorcery

Recently learned magic, reaching the Astral Plane and copying the abilities Doom used against Dormammu after studying that battle.¹

Source of power

Cosmic rays bombarded his body on the Fantastic Four's space flight, making his whole body stretchable.¹

Recorded feats

comics Though weakened, he shielded the other heroes from a 150-billion-ton mountain dropped on them until the Hulk caught it; the strain knocked him out. Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars Vol 1 #4 (August 1984)³⁵¹
comics Bulked his body up to the Thing's size and strength and hit the psychic entity Onslaught hard enough to stagger him. Onslaught: Marvel Universe Vol 1 #1 (October 1996)³⁶¹
comics Given the Beyonders' power by the Molecule Man, he worked with him and Franklin Richards to rebuild the destroyed Multiverse. Secret Wars Vol 1 #9 (March 2016)²⁸¹
screen Steered the Excelsior to a neutron star so its gravity would trap the pursuing Silver Surfer, escaping as the star destroyed their FTL engine. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)³⁷³⁸
screen Climbed onto Galactus above New York and pried open a socket on his back with a pole, leaking lava, until Galactus grabbed and stretched him. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)³⁷³⁸
screen As Galactus fell through the teleportation bridge, he leapt from a building onto the giant's hand, grabbed baby Franklin and jumped clear. The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025)³⁷³⁸

Notes from the archive

The unnamed professor in one of the short stories in Amazing Adult Fantasy #7 (December 1961), who outwits a disguised alien, was later retconned into a young Reed Richards, so the wiki lists that tale as his retroactive first appearance.¹³⁹
In Fantastic Four #262 (1984) writer-artist John Byrne draws himself into the story: the Watcher whisks him away from his desk to act as the official chronicler of Reed's trial for saving Galactus.¹³
For all his genius, Reed is said to have failed his driving test four times.¹⁴⁰
In only the team's second adventure Reed ends a Skrull plot by having three captured alien spies turn into cows and then hypnotising them into believing that is all they are.⁵⁴¹

Sources