Fantastic Four (Comic Book)/Characters

Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic)

 * Absent-Minded Professor: Sometimes extending as far as Ditzy Genius. Whenever there's a Broke Episode, Reed is usually the culprit.
 * Alliterative Name
 * Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: In universes when Reed is not bound by Status Quo Is God, he's capable of even more amazing scientific accomplishments than in the main 616 verse.
 * Badass Bookworm: Something that tends to get lost in many adaptations. People like to forget that in his younger days he did some very Indiana Jones-esque missions for the US government and, oh yeah, stole a rocket and tried to fly to the moon.
 * Bizarre Human Biology: The body of Ultimate Marvel's Mr. Fantastic is an infinitely extensible fluid-filled sack containing, in place of an alimentary canal and other organs, just a squishable bolus of microbes that perform all metabolic functions. Yes, we know; Fails Biology Forever. Chalk it up to Rule of Cool and leave it at that.
 * Karma Houdini: For the most part during the Civil War storyline. He did some pretty heinous things without any repercussions.
 * A certain level of Fanon Discontinuity will do that, though.
 * My Greatest Failure: Being responsible for changing Ben into the Thing, as well as his failure in being able to reverse it, gives Reed a lot of grief.
 * Omnidisciplinary Scientist
 * Papa Wolf: Don't mess with his kids.
 * Reed Richards Is Useless: Once Fridge Logic catches up with him, anyway.
 * Also subverted in that he does invent many things that have everyday uses. Most of them are bought by companies with competing products in order to keep them from hitting the streets and putting them out of business.
 * Rubber Man
 * Science Hero
 * Skunk Stripe
 * Teen Genius: Entered university at age 14, had doctorates when 20.
 * What the Hell, Hero?: Reed will usually always pick out the easiest solution, not giving any foresight to matters such as tact, emotions, feelings, practicality, or possible future consequences (such as permanently shrinking an alien race to evacuate them off a doomed planet, or turning Skrulls into cows without considering the ramifications of ingesting alien flesh or the morality of it). When this happens, Sue will usually call him out on it.
 * One of the interesting common threads in alternate-universe Marvel stories is that in the event something terrible happens to Sue, Franklin, and/or Valeria, Reed will immediately go straight off the deep end. He's relying so heavily upon his family to keep him in check that if the unthinkable happens, he goes straight through all the stages of grief and straight into insanity. This can be seen most clearly in the What If? where Sue died while giving birth to Franklin; Reed ignores the baby in favor of going on a suicide run against Annihilus. In more modern stories, Reed goes instantly nuts in the Marvel Zombies universe when Franklin and Valeria are killed.

Susan Storm-Richards (The Invisible Girl/Woman)

 * Action Girl: She's generally portrayed as the strongest member of the team these days. Doctor Doom is more afraid of her than he is of The Thing.
 * Action Mom
 * Alliterative Name: Before she got married, anyway.
 * Barrier Warrior
 * Beware the Nice Ones: During the Civil War storyline, she confronted Reed about his pro-registration stance and Reed stated that he did it all to protect Sue. Sue then proceeded to send an invisible column above and below all 35 floors of the Baxter building and asked Reed if she looked like she needed protection.
 * Cleavage Window: Her 90s outfit.
 * Deadpan Snarker
 * Faux Action Girl: She started off as one of these, but Character Development kicked in.
 * Green Lantern Ring: Her force-fields act as this.
 * Heart Is an Awesome Power: Once the writers found out some really creative ways to use her powers...
 * Hair of Gold
 * Hot Mom
 * Leotard of Power: Her 90s outfit.
 * Love At First Sight: When she was 12-13, she met a 19-year-old uni student and got a Precocious Crush on him. Fortunately, they didn't hook up until she was much older.
 * Mama Bear: DO NOT mess with her children. Or her younger brother. Or her husband.
 * Mind Over Matter: Her invisible force field basically boil down to such, with the handy trait of Invisibility at her discretion.
 * Only Sane Woman: She keeps Reed in check.
 * Spontaneous Weapon Creation: One of the many possible uses of her force fields. In one X-Men/Fantastic Four miniseries, she has a Mama Bear moment and uses a force sword to slay a Brood queen in close combat, leaving the males of both teams rather shocked.
 * Team Mom
 * Took a Level in Badass: She's the page picture for a reason.
 * Xenafication

Ben Grimm (The Thing)

 * Ambiguously Jewish: Until it became canon. His full name is Benjamin Jacob Grimm
 * Badass Adorable: The Marvel Universe's best example. No other character has such a perfect balance between being completely lovable and completely awesome.
 * Badass Normal: Ben's regained his humanity on a couple of occasions. Not that it keeps him from contributing to the Four's efforts.
 * Blessed with Suck
 * Book Dumb: Ben Grimm is much smarter than most folks gives him credit. A college graduate and former marine, he was a test pilot and astronaut as well as gifted mechanic before his transformation. He might not be a scientific genius like Reed or Doctor Doom, but he more than makes up for it with the street smarts he earned growing up in a rough lower-class neighbourhood. It's a trait that comes up several times in the comics when he manages to outsmart several villains who think he's an idiot. Sadly this is something that's lost in many adaptations, the live-action movie kept it in though.
 * Not only is he a college graduate (a fairly common thing nowadays) but he's a graduate of the same college that Reed Richards and Victor Von Doom (the two smartest people on the planet) went to. Probably a pretty good school.
 * Captain Color Beard: Thanks to a very weird Stable Time Loop, The Thing was the famed pirate Blackbeard. Yes, that one.
 * Catch Phrase: "It's CLOBBERIN' TIME!"
 * The Big Guy
 * Deadpan Snarker
 * Ensemble Darkhorse
 * Gentle Giant: As long as you don't make him mad.
 * Hair-Trigger Temper
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold
 * Lightning Bruiser: Another thing that's often overlooked is that he's just as fast and agile as he was as a human. He's studied multiple martial arts and has even tutored other members of the team in them, the only thing that's suffered is his manual dexterity due to his fingers being the size of sausages.
 * Made of Iron: Being transformed into the Thing sucks in a number of ways, but it does come in mighty handy when you end up fighting guys like the Incredible Hulk and he punches you with a blow that would reduce any ordinary human to paste.
 * And he can go for a spacewalk without a suit, needing only a air supply to keep him from suffocating.
 * Monster Modesty: Despite his issues with his appearance, he wears the least of the 4 - his standard "costume" is a pair of pants / shorts. At present, he's upgraded to a Sleeves Are for Wimps version of the "Future Foundation" suit.
 * The One Who Made It Out: And oh, do the Yancy Street Gang resent him for it.
 * Power Creep: One of the most severe cases in Marvel, actually. Originally Grimm could lift around 5 tons (which was more or less Spider-Man's maximum limit at the time, though Grimm was always tougher), but he got stronger and stronger until he could press about 90 tons. However he often displays feats of superhuman strength way beyond this theoretical limits (hauling skyscrapers, anchoring spaceships taking off from Earth) even though Marvel still swears up and down he can only do 90 tons.
 * Powered Armor: At one point, Ben was turned back into a human and lost his powers as the Thing. Since he still wanted to help the rest of the team out, Reed constructed an Iron Man-like suit of armor for him that resembles his rocky Thing form. The suit allowed Ben to simulate the strength and durability he had when he was the actual Thing, albeit not quite on the same level.
 * The Rival: To The Incredible Hulk, which is an amusing case given that the Hulk is usually portrayed as vastly stronger then the Thing physically.
 * Running Gag: Ben's never-ending war against the Yancy Street Gang, a group of off-screen Harmless Villain street youths he sometimes obsesses over.
 * Translator Buddy
 * The Woobie: In universe, no less.
 * Ugly Cute: Like Badass Adorable above The Thing is one of the greatest examples of something that is so completely ugly and yet so endearingly cute at the same time.
 * Uncle Wolf: Again, the Richards children, who are his godchildren. Messing with them is a good way to get your face turned into goo by a large, rocky, orange fist.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: With Johnny.
 * What Have I Become?: In the first few issues of the series back in the 1960s, Ben didn't take being transformed into a living pile of orange rocks too well. He's still not all that happy about it, but he's mostly come to terms with it.
 * As Reed says "He has his good days and his bad days."
 * Yiddish as a Second Language: To be fair, he's a). Jewish and b). from Lower East Side. Comes with the territory.

Jonathan "Johnny" Storm (The Human Torch)

 * Catch Phrase: "Flame On!"
 * In Mexico and Latin America, his catchphrase is translated as ¡LLAMAS A MI! (Roughly translated from Spanish as "(I invoke the) Flames to me!") and it has become a Memetic Mutation there.
 * The Dandy: Sometimes dialed up into Camp Straight, such as in World's Greatest Heroes.
 * The Ditz
 * Estrogen Brigade Bait: As played by Chris Evans in the live-action films.
 * In the comics as well, Johnny has been portrayed as the Marvel universes most eligible bachelor.
 * Flight
 * Flying Firepower
 * Fun Personified
 * Hidden Depths: Not quite the superficial himbo slacker he seems, this one.
 * Depending on the Writer, that is.
 * Johnny McCoolname
 * Kid Appeal Character: When the series started, he was the teenager in a cast of adults. Early on in the series, he was extremely popular and was the Breakout Character with his own Spin-Off within a year after the series started. His popularity was one of the reasons why Marvel created other teen superheroes like Spider-Man and the X-Men.
 * Leeroy Jenkins: He's matured a bit, though.
 * Playing with Fire: And Wreathed in Flames.
 * Uncle Wolf: Just to round it off; although he doesn't take that much seriously, messing with his nephew and niece is a good way to increase your chances of being reduced to charcoal in the near future.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: With Ben and Peter Parker
 * Wreathed in Flames
 * Uncle Wolf: Just to round it off; although he doesn't take that much seriously, messing with his nephew and niece is a good way to increase your chances of being reduced to charcoal in the near future.
 * Vitriolic Best Buds: With Ben and Peter Parker
 * Wreathed in Flames

Franklin Richards

 * Astral Projection
 * Deus Ex Machina: Why Franklin is rarely ever shown fully powered.
 * Goo-Goo Godlike
 * Lamarck Was Right
 * Mind Over Matter
 * Then again, Franklin has the power of being superhumanly well-adjusted, far more than any kid who's been repeatedly kidnapped, has seen every one of his relatives die at least once, sometimes possesses godlike powers, and was once trapped in hell has any right to be.
 * Reality Warper
 * Seers
 * Shout-Out: His own short series was a pretty clear homage to Calvin and Hobbes.
 * Story-Breaker Power
 * Superpower Lottery: His Reality Warping powers and insane amount of Psychic Powers.
 * Telepathy
 * Superpower Lottery: His Reality Warping powers and insane amount of Psychic Powers.
 * Telepathy

Valeria "Val" Richards

 * Brainy Baby -> Child Prodigy: She's not even four and she's already equaling / excelling her father.
 * Jerk with a Heart of Gold
 * Kid From the Future: She was introduced this way as Valeria Von Doom (A.K.A. Marvel Girl), with Doctor Doom as her father (Sue was still her mother). Her current incarnation is named Valeria Richards, yet she still has connections to Doctor Doom, given that he had a hand in her delivery and named her after a girl he loved (and ).
 * Mini-Dress of Power: As Marvel Girl (her costume had elements of the FF uniform and Doctor Doom's).
 * Strange Girl: Valeria's current incarnation as a morally ambiguous 4 year old genius
 * Strange Girl: Valeria's current incarnation as a morally ambiguous 4 year old genius

Victor Von Doom (Doctor Doom)

 * Affably Evil: May try to destroy you, but still knows how to treat a guest.
 * Big Bad: One of Marvel's most iconic.
 * Disproportionate Retribution: Reed didn't even do what Doom blames him for. This has not stopped Doom from repeatedly trying to kill / destroy / crush / annihilate / insert grandiose adjective here Reed and his entire family in various over-the-top ways on numerous occasions in vengeance.
 * Draco in Leather Pants: Doom is an incredibly popular villain, which can lead to dissonance between exactly how evil and villainous he is and exactly how evil and villainous his fans think he is.
 * Enemy Mine: Is currently a member of the Freedom Foundation.
 * Evil Overlord
 * Large Ham: TREMBLE WITH FEAR BEFORE DOOM'S TITANIC MONOLOGUES!
 * Magnificent Bastard: One of the best.
 * Memetic Mutation: RICHAAAAAARDS!!!!!!
 * Minor Injury Overreaction: The accident he blames Richards for was actually caused by the demon Mephisto, who merely gave him a long, thin scar by scratching his face. He's not exagerrating now, though, since when he first put on his armour it was molten hot, because he didn't wait for it to cool, so underneath he's genuinelly covered head to toe in third degree burns.
 * No Mister Bond I Expect You to Dine: The page image, natch.
 * The Rival: Reed Richards #1
 * Third Person Person: They know to call him Doom, because that is what he constantly calls himself.

Bentley Wittman (The Wizard)

 * Driven by Envy: His overwhelming ambition in life has become to outdo Reed Richard and prove himself a better scientist.
 * Originally though it was to upstage the Human Torch.
 * Fashion Victim Villain: Why dose he wear pink spandex and phallic shaped helmet?
 * Gadgeteer Genius
 * Gravity Master
 * Pick on Someone Your Own Size: He first picked a fight with Johnny for no better reason than intellectual boredom.
 * Rogues Gallery Transplant: Although the Torch was his first enemy, he had no problem extending his grudge to the rest of the Four.
 * Smug Snake
 * Techno Wizard

Peter Petruski (Trapster)

 * Abnormal Ammo
 * Berserk Button: Calling him by his former name- Paste Pot Pete.
 * Butt Monkey
 * Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Why didn't he just market his glue and become a millionaire?
 * Epic Fail: Most of his super villain career
 * Fail O'Suckyname: Paste Pot Pete
 * Fashion Victim Villain
 * Never Live It Down: Naming himself Paste-Pot-Pete
 * Rogues Gallery Transplant:At first, he was exclusively a foe of the Torch and the Thing. It didn't take him long to include Reed and Sue in his grudge, though. He later became a recurring foe of Spider-Man, but fared no better against the wall-crawler, either.
 * Sticky Situation: A super glue gun.
 * Trap Master

The Mad Thinker

 * Clock King
 * Gadgeteer Genius
 * Mad Mathematician
 * Might as Well Not Be in Prison At All
 * Robot Master
 * Spanner in the Works: Most of his plans are short-circuited by these.
 * Warrior Therapist: At times. Depending on the Writer.

Philip Masters (The Puppet Master)

 * Mad Scientist'sBeautifulDaughter-Alica Masters
 * People Puppets

Annihilus

 * Big Bad: He's usually this when the story is set in the Negative Zone.
 * And, as Annihilation shows, even stories that aren't.
 * Big Creepy-Crawlies: He often leads an army of these-- and is an insectoid himself.
 * Galactic Conqueror
 * Omnicidal Maniac
 * Names to Run Away From Really Fast
 * Spikes of Villainy

Kl'rt (Super-Skrull)

 * All Your Powers Combined: He has all of the F4's powers plus his natural Skull biology.
 * Pride
 * Scary Dogmatic Aliens
 * Shape Shifter

Galactus

 * Above Good and Evil
 * Blue and Orange Morality
 * Humanoid Abomination
 * Inherent in the System
 * Large Ham: "I am Galactus-- and I hunger!"
 * Planet Eater
 * True Neutral