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Fantastic Four #35 reveals that the lives of Marvel’s First Family could have been very different if Reed Richards wasn’t inspired by another hero.
WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Fantastic Four #35, available now from Marvel Comics.
The Fantastic Four have thrilled fans for over sixty years with their high-flying adventures and interstellar exploits, but the beginnings of Marvel’s First Family couldn’t have more different. The story of how they became endowed with their incredible powers is one that has been told time and time again, while their rise to stardom has been given much less attention. As it turns out, their journey from unwitting victims of cosmic radiation to superpowered celebrities wasn’t difficult to make, especially after Reed Richards was inspired by one of Marvel’s first heroes, the original Human Torch.
“Stars” (by Mark Waid, Paul Renaud, and VC’s Joe Caramagna from Fantastic Four #35) returns to the team’s origin as revisited by Reed during an interview. As the leader of the First Family thinks back to that fateful day, he considers how horrifying the transformations were that he and the others endured after being exposed to cosmic radiation. Seeing the suffering of those closest to him left Reed desperate to help in any way that he could.
Not long after meeting with his teammate Johnny Storm, who was deeply disturbed by the uncontrollable powers he had gained, Reed realized that it was up to him to save his friends from lives of misery. As he toiled with the problem one night, a magazine caught his eye with a picture of Marvel’s first superhero team, the Invaders, on its cover. Hovering just behind Captain America and Namor was the original Human Torch, and that iconic image was all it took for Reed Richards to decide the Fantastic Four needed to become famous.
First introduced in “The Human Torch” by Carl Burgos from 1939’s Marvel Comics #1, the original Human Torch is one of the very first Marvel superheroes. Created by Professor Phineas T. Horton, Jim Hammond was an android of incredible power who was also capable of independent thought. The only flaw of note in the Human Torch’s design was the same one that gave him his name: his body burst into flames upon contact with open air. This wasn’t something that couldn’t be overcome with a little bit of hard work and applied science, however, and soon enough the Human Torch was fighting alongside the Invaders as part of Marvel’s first generation of heroes.
Once Reed realized how much becoming celebrities had helped others who would have otherwise become science experiments, he set about acquiring that for himself and his friends. Nothing was off the table when it came to giving those he loved new lives with new names and ridiculous new accoutrements to drive home just how fantastic they had become.
The fact that the Fantastic Four became celebrities out of necessity is not a shocking revelation at this point. However, the fact that it was one of Marvel’s earliest heroes who inspired Reed to led them down that road is surprising, although it does make sense.
It’s heartwarming to know how much a simple change of lifestyle helped pull the various members of the Fantastic Four back from the depths of their worst moments. It is also enlightening to discover that the first Human Torch’s light was the one that illuminated that path, and it speaks to how much of an impact one of Marvel’s first heroes left on the world.
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