That Time the Fantastic Four Broke the 4th Wall to Defend Invisible Girl's Place on the Team

[CBR News]

In a story best forgotten, CSBG spotlights when Mr. Fantastic and the Thing's patronizing defense of the Invisible Girl's membership on the team.


Full article here.

[Myetche]

A year later, she gets her force-field power.

About 20 or so years later, she's essentially a Green Lantern who can make any construct she can imagine, except you don't really see them.

[Holt]

I loved Seanbaby's analysis.

When the Fantastic Four went into space, the three men gained amazing superpowers and the girl gained the ability to disappear. That's kind of a tough ability to use for anything heroic, but this was 50 years ago. In a 1961 man's imagination, the most amazing thing a girl could do was shut up and go away.

[Captain Zolalnadia]

If any member of the fantastic four went rogue, Sue would probably be the most terrifying one, can be invisible making her impossible to know where she is excepting , Wolverine and his clones, Psychics, Spider-People with advanced Spidey-Sense, and Daredevil. and she can easily kill by expanding force fields with a victim's head

[Ravin' Ray]

If any member of the fantastic four went rogue, Sue would probably be the most terrifying one, can be invisible making her impossible to know where she is excepting , Wolverine and his clones, Psychics, Spider-People with advanced Spidey-Sense, and Daredevil. and she can easily kill by expanding force fields with a victim's head

She was practically Dark Sue when Psycho Man corrupted her into Malice, and during the Infinity War she didn't hold back during the fight of the two Thanoses as well as the battle against the dopplegangers. And two alt Sues have gone deadly as well: one as Malice killing the rest of the FF, and the other as Madame Hydra in Exiles.

[The_Greatest_Username]

Sue is probably the best reflection to how poorly the early Silver Age Marvel women were written. Her initial power was only the ability to hide and stay out of the way so the guys could do their work. The fact that all she can do is weep while the guys stick up for her in the most patronizing way is a good indicator. Fortunately, later writers gave her a spine and gave her stronger her characteristics to justify her existence on the team.

[DDD]

If any member of the fantastic four went rogue, Sue would probably be the most terrifying one, can be invisible making her impossible to know where she is excepting , Wolverine and his clones, Psychics, Spider-People with advanced Spidey-Sense, and Daredevil. and she can easily kill by expanding force fields with a victim's head

She still makes noise and she isn't intangible. You can still play videogames with invisible enemies for example. It's not unfeasible to defeat and it's not the biggest power, but it's still a great advantage.


Having said that. Fantastic Four wasn't sexist. Sue saved their asses several times. None of the women were useless. Medusa overpowered the Frightful Four once or twice. It's a lot less sexist than most of today's comics. Heck, I don't find it sexist.

Even Wyatt Wingfoot pulled his own weight amongst the FF several times and he didn't even have any weapons or powers.

[ed2962]

I think even Stan realized how poorly developed early Sue even by token female standards was and tried to do better by her later in his and Jack's run. I mean, if she wasn't fainting, she was fretting over something. And if it wasn't that, the guys were scolding her for being a woman.

By the way, a lot of people point to Stan's version of Sue as an example of casual chauvanism, but I'd put Roy Thomas's Wasp right behind it.

[jphamlore]

Marvel over the past decade or so has succeeded in crafting yet another Sue Storm story so questionable that I would not be surprised if Marvel tries to bury it as much as possible from here on out. Instead of doing this in the 616 universe, Marvel okayed this travesty in the Ultimates universe.

Ultimate Sue Storm is apparently the most scientifically intelligent of all the Sue Storms across the Multiverse, someone who initially has the respect even of Ultimate Reed. So what should this woman of so many talents do with her life? Well, she is told multiple times including by a future version of herself that she has to reconcile to a man she detests. Forget her intelligence, forget her leadership qualities, the story Marvel approved stated all that was important was for her to please her man and use her womb to make babies with him, and if she did not, she was knowingly dooming her universe to destruction.

What's even more incredible in retrospect is this was all based on a lie, unless the Franklin that Ultimate Sue and Reed could have produced would have been the equivalent of the mythological Thor sons Modi and Magni, who two days old were strong enough to lift a giant off of Thor that Thor himself could not move. Was this hypothetical Franklin a few days old supposed to have somehow stopped or even reversed the incursions against all the Beyonders and Doom?

[Mighty Roman]

Marvel over the past decade or so has succeeded in crafting yet another Sue Storm story so questionable that I would not be surprised if Marvel tries to bury it as much as possible from here on out. Instead of doing this in the 616 universe, Marvel okayed this travesty in the Ultimates universe.

Ultimate Sue Storm is apparently the most scientifically intelligent of all the Sue Storms across the Multiverse, someone who initially has the respect even of Ultimate Reed. So what should this woman of so many talents do with her life? Well, she is told multiple times including by a future version of herself that she has to reconcile to a man she detests. Forget her intelligence, forget her leadership qualities, the story Marvel approved stated all that was important was for her to please her man and use her womb to make babies with him, and if she did not, she was knowingly dooming her universe to destruction.

What's even more incredible in retrospect is this was all based on a lie, unless the Franklin that Ultimate Sue and Reed could have produced would have been the equivalent of the mythological Thor sons Modi and Magni, who two days old were strong enough to lift a giant off of Thor that Thor himself could not move. Was this hypothetical Franklin a few days old supposed to have somehow stopped or even reversed the incursions against all the Beyonders and Doom?

Well, Ultimate Sue then refused to follow the future that the talking Pig-Man told her would have to happen, and took what she called a 'third path':
spoilers:

Instead having a baby via Ben's DNA, creating a daughter who shut of all of the Incursions threatening the UU at that time. Because the baby was somehow able to do that.It wasn't ideal, but she at least was able to have a baby with the man she actually loved.

end of spoilers


But to get back on topic, whenever someone talks about Sue being useless, I point to the last issue of 'The New Fantastic Four', where she threatens to expand a forcefield around The Wizard's heart, cutting off the blood supply and killing him.
You don't mess with the Fantastic 4. You don't mess with any of the Fantastic 4.