Ultimate Fantastic Four

Eleven years before, a young Reed Richards discovered an alternate universe and created a device that would transport objects into it. A half a year later, Reed brought his invention to a science fair, which brought him to the attention of Mr. Lumpkin and the think tank at New York’s Baxter Building. Lumpkin encouraged Reed’s parents that the boy was too advanced for normal school, and they very eagerly agreed to allow their child to join the think tank and be taken away from home. On a tour of the think tank, Reed was shown a massive viewer of his alternate universe, which they called the N-Zone, where the Baxter Building’s technicians showed him his toys that he sent over the years, floating in space.

Reed continued to work at the Baxter Building, alongside its head, Dr. Franklin Storm, and became very close friends to his daughter, Susan Storm, and her brother, Johnny. Reed’s project was to use the N-Zone to transport objects from one part of his own universe, to another. Years later, he cracked the necessary calculations, along with the help of an egotistical Victor Van Damme, and they soon prepared to test the transporter in the deserts of Nevada. Reed’s childhood friend, Benjamin Grimm, showed up to watch the trial and find out how his friend continued to avoid having to attend high school and college. But at the last moment, Reed dismissed an argument that Victor put to him regarding their calculations, and the Baxter Building’s scientists were unaware that Victor had changed the proper calculations behind their backs.

When the test commenced, a strange accident occurred, and instead of transporting the apple that they had meant to, the machine transported Reed, Susan, Johnny, Ben, and Victor into the N-Zone, and back out again-where they landed at random points across the globe. Reed appeared next to the transporter, but changed, and the military automatically fired on him, thinking him an alien from the N-Zone. They soon realized that he had transformed into something fantastic, a barely human being with the ability to stretch any part of his body to amazing lengths. They soon found most of the rest of the group; including Ben; who landed in Mexico and was changed into a super-strong, rocky monster; as well as Johnny; who appeared in France, with the ability to light himself on fire, fly, and emit these flames in powerful blasts. Reed, Johnny, and Ben later found Sue after a towering, underground monster rose from the New York streets and they were forced to reveal themselves in public and stop it; then they followed it under the streets where an old teacher of theirs, nicknamed the Mole man by his students-due to his nasty appearance-held Sue to investigate her own abilities, which allowed her to turn invisible to the naked eye and use the same invisible force to create shields and solidify it for offensive means. The burgeoning group saved Sue from their ex-teacher, and then fought off his genetically engineered, plant-creatures. They returned to the surface where the military restrained them to the Baxter Building.

The government continued to keep Reed’s team under wraps. They even went as far as to dedicate the entire resources of the Baxter Building to studying their condition, and relocated the rest of the students elsewhere. The four were soon attacked by robot insects, sent by Victor, who had been changed himself into a metal-covered creature with his own enhanced strength and strange powers. After stopping the bugs, the group snuck out of the Baxter Building and flew in a toy car Reed had designed when he was thirteen, called the Fantasticar. They traveled to Copenhagen and confronted Victor, who used his puppet transients to attack them in droves. Reed soon found a way to reverse Victor’s mind control, and turned them back on their master. The military showed up moments afterwards and recalled the team back to America, where they left Victor, but not before Reed used a projectile fired from Victor’s own armor to scratch his armored face.