Reed Richards Is Useless: Difference between revisions

* The [[Trope Namer]] is Reed Richards, better known as Mr. Fantastic, leader of the [[Fantastic Four]]. While Marvel has attempted to justify his lack of [[Buffy-Speak|world-changiness]] in various ways, including that his inventions are too expensive and that nobody else can understand them, the real reason is that allowing him to make a real difference would make the world far too different to reality.

** The current justification, being used in Jonathan Hickman's run on [[Fantastic Four]] and F.F. and by Bendis in the [[Ultimate Marvel]] universe, is that it's his family which prevents Reed from putting all his efforts into changing the world. He has to choose between being a loving father and husband and devoting himself to advancing humanity. It's implied that the world is ''lucky'' when Reed takes the first option since, if he doesn't or if things don't work out between him and Sue, he becomes a [[Knight Templar]] (Hickman's books) or full on villain (the Ultimate 'verse).

* [[Doctor Doom]] has a healing ray machine that can regenerate full-body third-degree-burn patients to full health in a day. Being the bad guy, he hasn't released it. But Reed hasn't even tried to duplicate or reverse-engineer that project...and Reed's had possession of Doom's castle at least twice since that story arc.

* [[Iron Man|Tony Stark]] is, depending on the invention, one of the more justified versions of the trope.