The Fantastic Four Appreciation 2021

[CaptCleghorn]

So I guess Wizard takes them to court over custody of Bentley?

It's a very interesting direction to take with the "family" aspect of the FF and their supporting characters and villains.

[Ravin' Ray]

Roberta is back!!!

Whatever faults Slott may have I'm glad he's bringing back one of the less well-known supporting characters? I wonder which version of that body Roberta has. Maybe O'Hoolihan the doorman can show up next?

So I guess Wizard takes them to court over custody of Bentley?

What will his legal arguments be in this case? What is the legal status of a minor clone of one's self in the MU? Love to see Jen argue this case.

And, Reed adding the "Wingless" appellation to "Wizard" is so Silver Age.

[Iron Maiden]

Whatever faults Slott may have I'm glad he's bringing back one of the less well-known supporting characters? I wonder which version of that body Roberta has. Maybe O'Hoolihan the doorman can show up next?

What will his legal arguments be in this case? What is the legal status of a minor clone of one's self in the MU? Love to see Jen argue this case.

And, Reed adding the "Wingless" appellation to "Wizard" is so Silver Age.

It sure is...he was famous for his anti-gravity discs. He even used them fairly recently to escape being captured by Infamous Iron Man.

[Digifiend]

Yes, there has been tinkering with the aging process of the FF. There was the one story in the days when Byrne did a brief stint just as the "art robot" as he phrases it for Marv Wolfman's story in FF #214. In the previous issue, a Skrull had used an aging ray on Sue, Reed and Ben and they were aged dramatically. Johnny battled a Skrull robot who was going to zap him and he was able to get the device from him before melting the Skrullbot. He revived Reed and together they modified the ray gun so that it reversed the aging process. But it had the bonus effect of making them younger.

If they're younger, then wouldn't it have made sense for Reed to lose the grey temples in his hair?

[marhawkman]

If they're younger, then wouldn't it have made sense for Reed to lose the grey temples in his hair?

No. :P Weirdly, Reed has always had those... even before he even had powers.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_3
Seriously. How old is Reed in this anyways? Already has grey temples. WHY!?!?!?

[CaptCleghorn]

No. :P Weirdly, Reed has always had those... even before he even had powers.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_3
Seriously. How old is Reed in this anyways? Already has grey temples. WHY!?!?!?

Reed and Ben were WW2 vets originally. A rocket flight in the early sixties would have put them close to 40 at that time. But the FF and actual ages have always had a lot of wiggle room and Marvel's sliding timeline hasn't helped matters on exact ages.

[danielsan52]

Whatever faults Slott may have I'm glad he's bringing back one of the less well-known supporting characters? I wonder which version of that body Roberta has.

She needs a full body and to be upgraded from receptionist to security.

[Ravin' Ray]

She needs a full body and to be upgraded from receptionist to security.

She's had a full humanoid body before (resembling Jocasta I think); plus, she dated Elektro in Fin Fang Four if that story is in 616. Yeah she needs to be mobile again.

[Digifiend]

Reed and Ben were WW2 vets originally. A rocket flight in the early sixties would have put them close to 40 at that time. But the FF and actual ages have always had a lot of wiggle room and Marvel's sliding timeline hasn't helped matters on exact ages.

Yeah, Reed should be about 60 now. Around 15 years since they got their powers, plus Reed and Sue aged up five years after Secret Wars (though the time between then and their return was only one year for Johnny and Ben).

My point though, was that de-aging the team should've resulted in all of them being younger than they were when they got their powers (as shown by Ben's comment about being able to lift more than ever before) and a Reed who was physically in his 20s or 30s would be less likely to have the grey hair (The Maker, his Ultimate counterpart, is younger and not grey). There's a reason they wrote it in a way that Johnny didn't require de-aging - he would've de-aged back to childhood.

[Oberon]

IN Story, from back then, when they reversed the Skrull aging rays, they only had one setting, which was Ben and Reed's relative age. It was actually said that perhaps because of that, Sue went a little more into her youth, than they did.

[Iron Maiden]

No. :P Weirdly, Reed has always had those... even before he even had powers.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_3
Seriously. How old is Reed in this anyways? Already has grey temples. WHY!?!?!?

Yes, I think the canon goes is that Reed was prematurely greying to begin with, but definitely this occurs after college, etc. For example, of the three that are about the same age, Ben and Victor don't have grey hair.

[Iron Maiden]

Yeah, Reed should be about 60 now. Around 15 years since they got their powers, plus Reed and Sue aged up five years after Secret Wars (though the time between then and their return was only one year for Johnny and Ben).

My point though, was that de-aging the team should've resulted in all of them being younger than they were when they got their powers (as shown by Ben's comment about being able to lift more than ever before) and a Reed who was physically in his 20s or 30s would be less likely to have the grey hair (The Maker, his Ultimate counterpart, is younger and not grey). There's a reason they wrote it in a way that Johnny didn't require de-aging - he would've de-aged back to childhood.

I disagree. I don't think Marvel's sliding timeline has been bumped up to 15 years. Unofficially, it tends to stay at around 10-12 years. I've seen nothing official that states the time spent on Battleworld has been rolled into it. My take is that in the last issue of Secret Wars 2015, everything got rebooted to the time before the incursions occurred. If you recall, At the end of Secret Wars #9, we see Black Panther in Wakanda around the time Black Swan shows up in Hickman's New Avengers #1 only this time she doesn't. So IMO that shows that everything rebooted from that point forward.

In any case I think it is plausible to use the fact that their initial exposure to cosmic rays may have slowed down the aging process anyway. Now, it's probably not as powerful as the Power Cosmic that enabled Norrin Radd to live through perhaps a billion years. Now think about the fact that Doom directly transferred some of the Power Cosmic to himself back in Fantastic Four #57 and a writer could easily posit that although he may not have a life span of a billion years but could have an increased life span...perhaps a couple hundred years.

[Alpha to Omega]

No. :P Weirdly, Reed has always had those... even before he even had powers.
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Fantastic_Four_Vol_1_3
Seriously. How old is Reed in this anyways? Already has grey temples. WHY!?!?!?

Originally the grey temples weren’t due to age, it was due to what Reed saw while helping Allied prisoners escape the Nazis. This was revealed in Fantastic Four Annual #1.

[marhawkman]

Originally the grey temples weren’t due to age, it was due to what Reed saw while helping Allied prisoners escape the Nazis. This was revealed in Fantastic Four Annual #1.

Ah, that makes sense then.

[CaptCleghorn]

I disagree. I don't think Marvel's sliding timeline has been bumped up to 15 years. Unofficially, it tends to stay at around 10-12 years. I've seen nothing official that states the time spent on Battleworld has been rolled into it. My take is that in the last issue of Secret Wars 2015, everything got rebooted to the time before the incursions occurred. If you recall, At the end of Secret Wars #9, we see Black Panther in Wakanda around the time Black Swan shows up Hickman's New Avengers #1 only this time she doesn't. So IMO that shows that everything rebooted from that point forward.

In any case I think it is plausible to use the fact that their initial exposure to cosmic rays may have slowed down the aging process anyway. Now, it's probably not as powerful as the Power Cosmic that enabled Norrin Radd to live through perhaps a billion years. Now think about the fact that Doom directly transferred some of the Power Cosmic to himself back in Fantastic Four #57 and a writer could easily posit that although he may not have a life span of a billion years but could have an increased life span...perhaps a couple hundred years.

Ben's had a Bar Mitzvah like ceremony celebrating 13 years since his turning into the Thing. As to actual character time passing, I think Reed and Doom are the only ones who should keep their aging from Secret wars as pretty much everybody else was rebooted. The FF also had an extra year from Fraction's Fantastic Four run which is rarely referenced. But the FF's timeframe is so ill-defined that arguments can be made for any number of possibilities.