Fantastic Four (Comic Book)/Headscratchers

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


How old was Sue originally supposed to be?

  • In FF V1 #81, Crystal says "I'm no younger than Sue herself was - when your team was first formed!" and in issue #82, Reed calls Crystal a minor. Does that mean Sue was jailbait when Reed first dated her?
    • She was 17 when they met, and they didn't start dating until she was in college. Johnny's her younger brother, and he's at least 16 when the series starts.
      • No she was 12 and he was 19 when they first met.
        • Yes, but their first meeting was back when Reed Richards was just starting college and renting a room from her mother. They didn't start dating until she was in college and he was already an established scientist.

Why has nobody revoked Dr. Doom's diplomatic immunity?

  • Or made an attempt to invade Latveria and remove him from power? I know there's the excuse, Depending on the Writer, that Doom is a great leader and takes care of his own people, but the man is constantly attempting to kill certain private American citizens and openly conspires to conquer the world. There's no arguing it- the man makes long, hammy speeches about these things. The UN isn't the least bit bothered about granting this man diplomatic immunity even after he's used it to commit crimes while avoiding arrest on foreign soil multiple times? SHIELD never sits down and decides to invade Latveria to arrest Doom? Reed Richards can't just go to both groups and ask them to just do this as a favor for all those times he and his family fought off Galactus?
    • Not at the same scale, but... war criminal, drug trafficker, twice dictator Desi Bouterse was elected president of Surinam. The Netherlands, which previously convicted him of these crimes in absentia, is obligated to give him a visa if he goes to an international organization for a state matter.
    • The same reason other nations with nuclear weapons aren't invaded: deterrence. Only in Doom's case, the potential threat level includes things next to which the contemporary nuclear arsenal of the United States looks like popguns. Reed Richards & SHIELD both ran simulations/projections once of the maximum amount of firepower Doom could unleash if he stopped fighting like a supervillain and instead devoted his resources to an actual full-on war: it began with light-speed anti-matter city-killers fired from orbit and only got worse from there. It's entirely comprehensible why the US government takes no official objection to Doom's ongoing vendetta vs. the Fantastic Four; that is, quite literally, one of the least dangerous things Doom could be doing with his time.
    • The above post sums it up quite nicely, but there are additional reasons as well: many countries in the world are highly reliant on Latveria economically and technologically. It's like the USSR, only functional.
      • At least one Marvel tie-in novel, and possibly the comics, also posited that Latveria keeps the Balkans political situation from turning into the real-life Yugoslavian conflict -- which makes sense as Latveria is smack dab in the middle of the Balkans and thus has a vested interest in keeping such tensions away from its borders, and of course has enough power to easily cow the rest of the regional powers into keeping things from becoming loud enough to disturb Doom's nap time.
    • When Doom was recently sent to Hell the FF swooped in to take over the country. IIRC, it didn't end well for them.
    • The FF did aid the Latverian resistance once, and they overthrew Doom (I think that was FF #200.) Unfortunately, his replacement was a nutcase and the FF eventually let Doom take over again during John Byrne's run on the series. The message was rather clear: Latveria is better off under Doom. Byrne's interpretation seemed to be "Doom is megalomaniacal supervillain to the outside world, but he really does love Latveria.

Crime Fighting

  • Sure, if Terrax is smashing buildings, the Fantastic Four would step in and stop things. But how many crimes could Johnny Storm stop just by flying high and keeping his eyes open? Sue needs to tell him to get off his ass and start melting mugger's knives.
    • Who says he hasn't?
    • It should be noted in fairness that, in the Comics!Verse, at least, New York City isn't exactly lacking in super-powered do-gooders in costumes fighting crimes.


The page image over on Took a Level In Badass ...Great, yea, we know Sue Storm isn't useless and is indeed the most dangerous member of the FF. But when did that happen?

  • I don't recall the last time she fought Magneto, and the only time I know of her fighting Red Hulk was as part of a team that still nearly got squashed(back in his Villain Sue days). Her taking Loki is laughable at best(same goes for anyone else in the FF), and I don't remember hearing about that, either. Can't recognize anyone else in the pile up at first glance. Was that just a promotional image, fan art, or did that actually happen?
    • Tin Eye says this image is the cover of Marvel Adventures - Super-Heroes #19.
      • I have that issue. She never actually does that in comic. In fact, it basically had no fights in Marvel Adventures- Super-Heroes whatsoever after the reboot from the Avengers. Thankfully it started reprinting old stories from the first run.
    • It's on the page for the same reason it's on the cover: it is awesome.

Has the Fantastic four ever met the Punisher?

Does Dr. Doom have the technology around to repair his face, or does he just choose not to?

  • I mean he's done plenty of other stuff that make it seem like he could do that easily.
    • IIRC, there's a few handwaves doing the rounds. A general one is that it's part of his whole insane "I hate Reed Richards SO VERY MUCH" complex; the scars act as a constant reminder of what Reed 'did' to him, and he keeps them around to fuel his hatred and thus inspire his vendetta. Presumably according to this explanation, once he finally bests Reed once and for all, he'll cure them; insane, perhaps, but then this is a guy who's built a career as a supervillain dictator out of what pretty much amounts to little more than spite -- he's a fucking insane guy. Alternatively, some later explanations suggest that Doom's scars are magical or supernatural in nature and that these various techniques won't work to cure them, in a sort of 'science can't fix what magic has wrought' kind of thing.
      • Given that Doom is capable of both cloning his original body and transferring his mind in-between bodies permanently, its pretty clear that the only reason he hangs onto his scarred face is because he chooses not to get rid of it.

If Dr. Doom still has his time machine laying around, why doesn't he just use to kill Reed Richards before he got his powers?

  • He probably sees that as too 'lowly' for someone like himself. Odds are he wants to kill him in a grand fight, or execute him in Latveria.
  • Also, time travel in the Marvel Universe operates on the "many worlds" principle, where changing an event in the past merely splits off an alternate timeline. Doom could kill Reed in the past fifty times over -- all he'd do is create fifty timelines where Reed didn't live, but Reed would still be alive in his timeline when he went back to the present. IOW, there's really no point.
    • You might ask 'but can't Doom invent a new type of time machine that gets around this problem?' And you'd be right: at one point, Doom discovered a method of time travel that would sidestep the "many worlds" problem. And then Reed Richards immediately countered by building a "a time traveler is trying to kill me at some point in the past" alarm device, sending them both right back to their original stalemate.
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