Fantastic Four ages

[CaptCleghorn]

I take responsibility. In a thread on the welcome and long-awaited Sue Storm Invisible Woman solo mini, I suggested Sue might have hit 40. As tangents go, it was pretty good. But my idea is that we can discuss who's how old due to aging, time dilation, spending years in other dimensions, etc. I'm going to throw out my idea and then the rest of you can follow or agree with my incredibly in depth and intelligent analysis.

I do have no respect foir the blanket "Franklin affects their ages" thing. If there's some sort of canon that suggests he's doing it (and not just an inconstancy with other series, feel free.

We need to first ascertain how long the FF have had their powers. We did have a story recently where Ben had a bar mitzvah indicating it had been 13 years since the flight. Now with the 8 months for Secret Warsing and other stuff, I'd put a 15 year timeframe on that.

I'd also put Johnny at 16 (maybe 15) for the flight. 16 seems pretty dumb enough so 15 really isn't that much worse. Reed and Ben originally look like they were pushing 40. They appear to be the same age, starting college together along with Doom. Originally they had fought in WW2 which would have made them at least mid 30s by the flight in 1960/61. Sue was old enough to have been Johnny's guardian and this is where I have the most questions. How old was she so that she would have been a helpful passenger and so as to make Reed not be a total pervert.

Now Reed and Ben being 35-40 at the flight isn't crazy. The team has had enough experiences with aging/de-aging as well as Hickman's introduced immortality for Ben in Thing form. So how many years have passed for them?

15 years from the flight to present day Marvel. Add five years for Reed, Sue, and the kids (God knows what the rest of the Future Foundation is going to come out as) and we have:

Reed: 55 (35 + 20)
Sue: 43 (23 + 20)
Ben: 50 (35 + 15)
Johnny 31 (16 + 15)

Franklin at 15 (10 + 5)
Valeria at 10 (5 + 5) seem good to me.

Doom's chronologically 50, but with all of his time travel and stuff, I don't think we can put an actual age on his body. Not to mention with the comic book science, we really don't have to.

So, am I brilliant, or full of crap? It's all up to you. Personal, I do tend to lean towards brilliant. Just ask me.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

So, am I brilliant, or full of crap? It's all up to you. Personal, I do tend to lean towards brilliant. Just ask me.

I think you have put way more thought into this then Marvel's writers and editors would ever like to. Except of course for writers who at the start of the run, based on where continuity and chronology is at across the line make those calculations for themselves and then go about it and avoid mentioning it much.

My personal feeling is that the sliding time scale goes up and down, left-right, and all kinds of different angles. So maybe currently Reed and Sue were older when they made the space-flight, the "eight-month time gap" Post-SW will be phased into smaller and smaller gaps and not be referred to later on and so forth.

Since Johnny Storm and Spider-Man are mentally and generationally close, and Peter Parker is currently mandate to be mid-20s, Johnny would be late-20s, or 30 but not older than that. Johnny should be older than Peter a little bit, but not too old.

Susan Storm is Johnny's big sister, but it used to be she would be older than him by a small gap, but now she's much older than him. And I'd say 40 sounds about right. If Valeria and Franklin are older. You don't want the age-gap between her and Reed to be what it once was since that won't fly, and Matt Fraction apparently retconned their ages when they first met since Susan having a crush on Reed as a teenager and Reed meeting her then as a grown man wouldn't fly today. Not in the Disney era.

Ben Grimm is Reed's age. So he's as old as Reed is, as old as Victor von Doom is. Although I do think Victor von Doom shouldn't be too old when he takes over Latveria, and Books of Doom shows the Fantastic Four fully formed when he does that and shows Doom doing that in his early 30s or so.

[Doombot]

None of their ages really make sense anymore. Trying to fit the ages properly somehow into Marvel chronology would be like banging your head against a wall. For me, I can only go by their most ideal ages character-wise and according to my own headcanon. Reed, Doom and Ben are mid to late 40s, Sue is mid to late 30s, and Johnny is late 20s.

[Iron Maiden]

I take responsibility. In a thread on the welcome and long-awaited Sue Storm Invisible Woman solo mini, I suggested Sue might have hit 40. As tangents go, it was pretty good. But my idea is that we can discuss who's how old due to aging, time dilation, spending years in other dimensions, etc. I'm going to throw out my idea and then the rest of you can follow or agree with my incredibly in depth and intelligent analysis.

I do have no respect foir the blanket "Franklin affects their ages" thing. If there's some sort of canon that suggests he's doing it (and not just an inconstancy with other series, feel free.

We need to first ascertain how long the FF have had their powers. We did have a story recently where Ben had a bar mitzvah indicating it had been 13 years since the flight. Now with the 8 months for Secret Warsing and other stuff, I'd put a 15 year timeframe on that.

I'd also put Johnny at 16 (maybe 15) for the flight. 16 seems pretty dumb enough so 15 really isn't that much worse. Reed and Ben originally look like they were pushing 40. They appear to be the same age, starting college together along with Doom. Originally they had fought in WW2 which would have made them at least mid 30s by the flight in 1960/61. Sue was old enough to have been Johnny's guardian and this is where I have the most questions. How old was she so that she would have been a helpful passenger and so as to make Reed not be a total pervert.

Now Reed and Ben being 35-40 at the flight isn't crazy. The team has had enough experiences with aging/de-aging as well as Hickman's introduced immortality for Ben in Thing form. So how many years have passed for them?

15 years from the flight to present day Marvel. Add five years for Reed, Sue, and the kids (God knows what the rest of the Future Foundation is going to come out as) and we have:

Reed: 55 (35 + 20)
Sue: 43 (23 + 20)
Ben: 50 (35 + 15)
Johnny 31 (16 + 15)

Franklin at 15 (10 + 5)
Valeria at 10 (5 + 5) seem good to me.

Doom's chronologically 50, but with all of his time travel and stuff, I don't think we can put an actual age on his body. Not to mention with the comic book science, we really don't have to.

So, am I brilliant, or full of crap? It's all up to you. Personal, I do tend to lean towards brilliant. Just ask me.

I agree with most of this but I think 55 might be too old for Reed and Ben. I'd drop it down to mid to late 40s. Doom is kind of a wild card. He could have been slightly older since he was going around Latveria as a sort of revolutionary/guerilla fighter with his tribe. But then later on his body is completely destroyed when he's caught in the middle of a battle between Terrax and the Silver Surfer. The Beyonder restores his body in FF#288 so that could have altered his physical makeup. It certainly leaves an opening for a writer to do something with that...maybe the reconstitution of all of his scattered atoms slows down the aging process or something along those lines.

And then there's all the time travel as you mentioned. IIRC in the lead up to Secret Wars he spent 20 years time traveling to kill the many versions of the Molecule Man. But if one spends 20 years in the past, does one come back aged 20 years or the age at which you left your spot in time?

In Grant Morrison's mini series Fantastic Four 1234, Doom tells Ben that he developed a process that freezes time. Now that story is not canon but I can see Doom experimenting along those lines with this time machine.

[Snoop Dogg]

The real question is how old is Lumpkin?

[CaptCleghorn]

The real question is how old is Lumpkin?

Some questions we're not ready to know the answers to.

[whiterabbit]

Sue was 12 years old when she met Reed during his freshmen year of college alongside Ben Grimm. We can assume Sue is 7-9 years younger than Reed. They didnt go into space till Ben Grimm was a certified astronaut pilot, and the average age of a pilot is 26-46 with the average being 34. We know Johnny Storm and Peter Parker are close in age and Peter Parker has canonically been Spider-Man since he was 15 years old. If we take Ben Grimm's age and say he was a prodigy pilot at 26-30 and take into account The Spider-Man Spiderverse movie says Peter Parker is 37 and the main universe version: Ben Grimm & Reed are 48-52, Sue Storm is 41-43, Johnny is 37 or slightly more. I do feel a lot of this is irrelevant because aging isn't the same for people with genetics similar to rocks and rubber.

[BitParallel]

I think you’re right, although Val looks a bit older than 10 but maybe she’s just fast.

Btw since Franklin is 15 does that mean all of Marvels events happened in a course of 15-16 years?

[jackolover]

Hank Pym was 7 in 1988 in Age of Ultron 10A.

[Michael Watkins]

Hank Pym was 7 in 1988 in Age of Ultron 10A.

yes. and it still doesn't add up. because, by Jan's account, he was nearly 2 decades older than herself. and Scott Lang (34 or 35 by his own account) stated himself to be younger than both Tony Stark and Hank Pym. Hank could physically be younger due to being remade by Franklin with the rest of the Avengers. it was just Waid being Waid. personally, i think Sue is in her early 30s. Reed and Ben are probably in the 38-40 range. and Johnny's around the same age as Peter Parker.

[Anthony Shaw]

IIRC, Johnny Storm, Peter Parker, Jean Grey, Scott Summers, & Warren Worthington were supposed to be the same age, and same scholastic level during the Silver Age. Bobby Drake was younger, and Hank McCoy was older. I always assumed that Sue may have been a 2-3 years older than Hank McCoy.

A part of me thinks that Sue is in the same age bracket as T'Challa, McCoy, Sam Wilson, Simon Williams, & Clint Barton. Tony Stark being older than them, but not by much.

Reed, Ben, and Hank Pym are the elder statesmen who should be about the same age (forever 40-ish), with Tony Stark being slightly younger (forever 35-ish).

Franklin should be about 8 years younger than Kitty Pryde. If Kitty is around 20, then Franklin should be around 12.

I gave up on trying to figure out Val's age after the Mark Millar FF run.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

IIRC, Johnny Storm, Peter Parker, Jean Grey, Scott Summers, & Warren Worthington were supposed to be the same age, and same scholastic level during the Silver Age. Bobby Drake was younger, and Hank McCoy was older.

In Amazing Spider-Man #3, Johnny Storm comes and gives a speech at Peter's high school. So he was shown a little older than Peter, but not by much. Johnny was the freshman or sophomore college to Peter's high school senior or at least one-year from last.

The X-Men used to be Peter's age but as time passed, Jean and Scott and others were allowed to age and grow up, and they are now far older than Peter and Johnny. By some ten years at least. Emma Frost is a bizarre case, in that she was once way older than Scott and Jean but has been de-aged to be the same age, maybe a year or two older.

Kurt Busiek told me online once here that Iron Man was originally 40 year old but has been de-aged into his mid-to-late 30s. In the MCU, Tony is definitely in his 40s in the first movie and is now in his early 50s by the time of Endgame.

The Marvel Shared Universe is essentially a giant card trick since its obvious that when you break down the individual corners, time passes at a different pace and different rate across titles. The X-Men is a corner where characters do age and grow. But it's not the case with the others.

Wolverine and Thor being immortals are less affected by all this.

[Anthony Shaw]

In Amazing Spider-Man #3, Johnny Storm comes and gives a speech at Peter's high school. So he was shown a little older than Peter, but not by much. Johnny was the freshman or sophomore college to Peter's high school senior or at least one-year from last.

The X-Men used to be Peter's age but as time passed, Jean and Scott and others were allowed to age and grow up, and they are now far older than Peter and Johnny. By some ten years at least. Emma Frost is a bizarre case, in that she was once way older than Scott and Jean but has been de-aged to be the same age, maybe a year or two older.

Kurt Busiek told me online once here that Iron Man was originally 40 year old but has been de-aged into his mid-to-late 30s. In the MCU, Tony is definitely in his 40s in the first movie and is now in his early 50s by the time of Endgame.

The Marvel Shared Universe is essentially a giant card trick since its obvious that when you break down the individual corners, time passes at a different pace and different rate across titles. The X-Men is a corner where characters do age and grow. But it's not the case with the others.

Wolverine and Thor being immortals are less affected by all this.

I seem to recall Johnny needing to secretly get his high school diploma when the FF lost their powers after a battle with the Frightful Four. I believe Johnny started college around the first time Galactus showed up. It would make sense that Johnny may have gotten behind in high school being part of the FF.

The O5 aging compared to Peter & Johnny has always bugged the hell out of me. I always blamed Wolverine & Kitty for that, lol. I still consider Emma being at least 5 years older than Scott during their relationship.

Tony Stark was always a grown-ass man to me, but this is the first I've heard of him being 40. In Busiek I trust! The RDJ casting makes even more sense!

The problem with the X-Men is that they keep introducing younger generations of mutants every 5 years or so (instead of more contemporaries to mainstays who trained themselves without the need of Xavier), who ultimately become cannon fodder/wallflowers, but also ages up the previous generations. Kitty & the New Mutants/X-Force should never exceed past 20. The surviving members of Generation X are grown now.

Yet somehow, Franklin had to go on hiatus in order to show a little age.

[Tulku]

IIRC, Johnny Storm, Peter Parker, Jean Grey, Scott Summers, & Warren Worthington were supposed to be the same age, and same scholastic level during the Silver Age. Bobby Drake was younger, and Hank McCoy was older. I always assumed that Sue may have been a 2-3 years older than Hank McCoy.

A part of me thinks that Sue is in the same age bracket as T'Challa, McCoy, Sam Wilson, Simon Williams, & Clint Barton. Tony Stark being older than them, but not by much.

Reed, Ben, and Hank Pym are the elder statesmen who should be about the same age (forever 40-ish), with Tony Stark being slightly younger (forever 35-ish).

Franklin should be about 8 years younger than Kitty Pryde. If Kitty is around 20, then Franklin should be around 12.

I gave up on trying to figure out Val's age after the Mark Millar FF run.

If you really want to go crazy, factor in Dr. Strange's age. He went to med school, then became a surgeon, then became a famous surgeon. Then he had his accident. Then he spent years searching for cures (spending his fortune along the way). Then he became a bum on skid row, then he made his way to Kamar Taj. So, even assuming he is a genius, he had to have been in his mid to late 30s by the time he got to Kamar Taj.

Now some writers like to write that magic powers were just bestowed on him, like he was bitten by a radioactive amulet, but the original story is that he studied and studied and studied at the feet of teh Ancient One. There is some text that just being in Kamar Taj slows one's aging, so he didn't appear to physically age as much, but figure ten years of study to master the mystic arts and be sent back to NY. And then he stopped aging at all (during Englehart's run). I figure that he, arguably, could be in his late 50s or early 60s--and just not look it.

Roger Stern used to occasionally have a character make a comment to the effect that they remember the great surgeon Stephen Strange, but then decide that Doc could not be him because he looked much too young. This was Stern acknowledging the age-retarding bits of Strange's life. As always, Stern understood the character better than most.

[CaptCleghorn]

If you really want to go crazy, factor in Dr. Strange's age. He went to med school, then became a surgeon, then became a famous surgeon. Then he had his accident. Then he spent years searching for cures (spending his fortune along the way). Then he became a bum on skid row, then he made his way to Kamar Taj. So, even assuming he is a genius, he had to have been in his mid to late 30s by the time he got to Kamar Taj.

Now some writers like to write that magic powers were just bestowed on him, like he was bitten by a radioactive amulet, but the original story is that he studied and studied and studied at the feet of teh Ancient One. There is some text that just being in Kamar Taj slows one's aging, so he didn't appear to physically age as much, but figure ten years of study to master the mystic arts and be sent back to NY. And then he stopped aging at all (during Englehart's run). I figure that he, arguably, could be in his late 50s or early 60s--and just not look it.

Roger Stern used to occasionally have a character make a comment to the effect that they remember the great surgeon Stephen Strange, but then decide that Doc could not be him because he looked much too young. This was Stern acknowledging the age-retarding bits of Strange's life. As always, Stern understood the character better than most.

I liked that about Stern's Strange. After all, if your mentor is the Ancient One, surely a couple of secrets of healthy longer living would have come your way.