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Mr Fantastic (Reed Richards)
History:
 Born in Central City, California, Reed is the son of Nathaniel and Evelyn Richards. Since Nathaniel is a scientific genius, it’s no surprise that Reed is too. Reed has always been something of a prodigy, enrolling in college level courses at the age of fourteen. Reed attended numerous colleges including State University in Hegeman, New York.
At Empire State University, he met and became roommate of Benjamin J. Grimm. Reed had already begun designing a starship capable of traveling in hyperspace. Sharing his plans with his new roommate, Grimm jokingly volunteered to pilot the craft.
When Reed continued his education by attending Columbia University in Manhattan, he rented a room in a boarding house owned by the aunt of a young girl named Susan Storm. To his embarrassment, the young girl instantly fell in love with him. Even though Reed had to move on, they continued to carry a torch for each other. Moving on to Harvard where Reed earned a Ph.D. in both physics and electrical engineering, all this by the age of 22. After spending six years in the military, Reed began using his inheritance, along with government funding, to finance his research. Determined to reach the stars, the project began, based in Central City.
Susan Storm, now an adult, moved into the area and within a short time found herself engaged to Reed. Likewise, Reed’s old college roommate had gone on to become a successful test pilot and astronaut and was indeed slated to pilot the craft.
All seemed well: however, when the government threatened to cut funding and cancel the project, Reed, Ben, Sue and her younger brother Johnny, all decided to sneak aboard the starship and take it up immediately. They knew they had not completed all the testing that had been planned but Reed was confident they would be safe.
However, when their ship passed through the Van Allen belt they found their cockpit bombarded with nearly lethal doses of cosmic radiation. Reed had somehow neglected to account for the abnormal radiation levels in the atmosphere. The cosmic rays wreaked havoc on the starship’s insufficient shielding and they were forced to return to earth immediately.
The crew successfully lands, and soon discovers that the rays have given them more powers than any humans have ever possessed. Reed found that his skin was malleable and that he could elongate any portion of his body at will. Each member of the fateful crew in turn discovered how they had been significantly changed.
Deciding to use this unexpected turn of events for the benefit of mankind, Reed convinced the others to band together as The Fantastic Four, Sue as The Invisible Woman, Johnny as The Human Torch, Ben as The Thing, and Reed as the stretchable Mr. Fantastic.
Mr. Fantastic was chosen to lead the group. Under his guidance, the team went on to become Earth’s most celebrated band of heroes. Together, they would save the world countless times. Ever driven by his the quest for knowledge, Reed is believed by most to be the Earth’s foremost intelligence. There is little he cannot create, fix, or understand given time. The patents and royalties on his inventions alone have funded the group over the years. |
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Invisible Woman (Sue Storm)
History:
 Born in Glenville, Long Island, the daughter of medical doctor Franklin Storm and his wife Evelyn Storm, young Sue is smitten when she meets Reed Richards, A Columbia University graduate student 10 years her senior, who lives in a New York apartment owned by Sue’s aunt. When Reed moves on to Harvard, Sue continues to carry a torch for him so much so that, some 10 years later, while trying to establish herself in Hollywood as an actress, she looks him up at a rocket facility in Central City. The two rekindle their romance.
It was at Sue’s insistence that she and her little brother Johnny accompanied Reed and his best friend Ben on the maiden voyage of Reed’s starship.
However, when their ship passed through the Van Allen belt they found their cockpit bombarded with nearly lethal doses of cosmic radiation. Reed had somehow neglected to account for the abnormal radiation levels in the atmosphere. The cosmic rays wreaked havoc on the starship’s insufficient shielding and they were forced to return to earth immediately.
After they crash-landed, Sue was startled when she found her physical self-starting to fade from view. In short order she realised she could turn this ability on and off and thus the Invisible Girl was born.
Sue became a founding member of the Fantastic Four. Later she realised that she could also create force fields’. These force fields could not only be used as a defensive weapon, but as offensive weapons as well. This ability greatly enhanced her usefulness to the team in combat situations.
Susan eventually married Reed and the two had a son whom they named Franklin. Due to the mutated nature of his parents, the boy became a mutant of immeasurable power. Susan, however, could not have been more happy. She and Reed vowed to give him all the love and attention he needed no matter what catastrophic event might be happening around them.
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The Human Torch (Johnny Storm)
History:
 Johnny Storm was a teenager when he accompanied his older sister, Sue, and her boyfriend, Reed, and their friend, Ben, in stealing aboard Reed's experimental rocket ship to give it its test flight, but instead became transformed by the cosmic radiation that leaked through the faulty shielding to turn Johnny into a flame-powered super being. Taking his name from the Golden Age Human Torch, Johnny helped his friends in forming the Fantastic Four, and has adventured with them ever since, enjoying his identity of the Human Torch almost as much as his hobby of car racing, and had many other adventures outside the Foursome, including extensive team-ups with Spider-Man.
On the FF's encounter with the Inhumans, Johnny met and soon fell in love with Cyrstal, who later joined the Foursome as a member. There relationship did not last, and Crystal returned to her home in Attilan.
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The Thing (Benjamin Grimm)
History:
 Ben Grimm, former war veteran, met Reed Richards in college, and when Reed began his work on an experimental rocket ship, Ben offered his services as a pilot. When Reed actually was ready to launch, however, Ben had second thoughts, and only decided to go ahead with it when Reed's fiancee, Sue Storm, convinced him. So Ben, Reed, Susan, and her brother Johnny, took the rocket into space, where the radiation shielding proved faulty. All four were hit by intense cosmic radiation, and the ship crashed back down to Earth, where the four discovered they had all gained superhuman powers. Ben was partially crushed, mentally, with his transformation into what he regarded as a monster, but he joined the others in vowing to protect mankind. He's joined them on innumerable adventures across the entire known Multiverse (and many unknown aspects of it as well), including the Negative Zone, the Skrull Galaxy, and the underwater city of Atlantis here on Earth. During this time, he developed a relationship with Alicia Masters.
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