Fantastic Four

The Fantastic Four is an internationally-renowned group of superhuman champions (often dubbed the world's premiere super hero team or the first family of super heroes) based in New York City and dedicated to the betterment of the world through scientific discovery and defense against evil.

It all started with a rushed test flight of an experimental spacecraft. Years before, while a student at Empire State University, Reed Richards began working on plans for one of the first vehicles capable interstellar travel. His roommate and best friend, Benjamin Grimm, jokingly promised to pilot the craft. But Reed, after studying to be an aeronautical engineer, finally realized his lifelong dream. Exhausting the majority of his vast inheritance, he funded the construction and launch of such a starship. Other financers, particularly the U.S. government, however, were losing interest and they threatened to cut him off from their funding of the project. Reed embarked on an immediate test flight, taking Ben Grimm with him who had become a successful Air Force pilot. Reed's longtime sweetheart and fiancée, Susan Storm, and her brother, Johnny, also joined them. Ben opposed the idea, warning that the ship's shielding might prove inadequate against intense forms of cosmic radiation. Nevertheless, Reed persuaded them all to accompany him, stealing into the launch facility, boarding the starship, and blasting off in pursuit of scientific glory. They intended to travel to another star system and back, but a solar flare temporarily boosted the intensity of the ionizing radiation in Earth's Van Allen belt.

The spaceship encountered a bombardment of cosmic radiation, causing both the mission to be aborted and the craft to crash. Emerging from the ruins of the spaceship, they discovered the radiation had mutated their bodies. Reed gained the ability to stretch his body and limbs, Johnny was able to fly and become engulfed in flame, and Sue was able to bend light around her body and become invisible. Ben, on the other hand, gained incredible strength and durability at the cost of being severely disfigured. All four decided to use their powers to better humanity and founded the Fantastic Four.

Calling themselves Mister Fantastic, the Thing, the Human Torch and the Invisible Girl, the four established their headquarters atop the Baxter Building in midtown Manhattan - a building originally erected in 1949 by the Baxter Paper Company and since owned by a number of other corporations. Noah Baxter, a friend and fellow inventor, helped Reed Richards purchase the Baxter building. Then, financed by profits from the patents on Reed's inventions, the Fantastic Four set out to safeguard the world from any and all threats beyond the purview of conventional peacekeeping forces.

The team first put its abilities on public display when the subterranean Mole Man attempted to take revenge on the surface world by destroying Earth's power plants and unleashing an army of gigantic monsters to annihilate the human race. But the Fantastic Four turned back the Mole Man's threat. After this and many more public adventures, the Four soon became worldwide celebrities, and their exploits were recounted in newspapers, on television, and in comic books. The heroes also have been on the forefront of scientific discovery, such as the discovery of the parallel dimension known as the Negative Zone, the first public contact with alien races such as the Skrulls and Kree, the discovery of the hidden civilization of the Inhumans and the secret African nation of Wakanda, as well as being the first humans to step foot on the moon - alongside the Red Ghost.

Months after their public appearance, Reed and Sue were married, which became a celebrity event. The two enjoyed a healthy marriage despite the Four's constant public scrutiny for many years. However, the two fell into an estrangement at one point, with Sue dissatisfied with the public life as a superhero celebrity. She briefly left the team and the Inhuman known as Medusa filled her spot on the team before Sue's return. In another membership shake-up, when Ben Grimm temporarily lost his powers, Reed Richards hired the mercenary Power Man to take over his place on the team, but this lasted only until Reed could finish an armored exoskeleton for Ben. Later, Reed and Sue had a son, Franklin. During Sue's maternity leave, the Four's long-standing ally (and girlfriend of the Torch), Crystal, joined the team, until an allergic reaction to Earth's pollutants pushed her to quit and forced the rest of the Inhumans to leave Earth. Sue soon returned to active duty.

At one point, the Fantastic Four were among the various heroes transported to a planet created by the alien Beyonder for the first of the so-called "Secret Wars". After defeating the Beyonder, the Thing refused to return to Earth with the heroes, happy to have found the ability to transform into his human form at will. His position on the team was filled by the She-Hulk, who had been similarly transported to the planet. When the Thing returned months later, he was distraught to find that his former girlfriend, Alicia Masters, had begun an affair with his teammate, Johnny Storm. The Thing quit the Fantastic Four to wander the country for a time, and She-Hulk remained in his stead.