The Powers of Reed Richards, Mister Fantastic (Fantastic Four vol.1 #358)
Reed Richards was gifted superhuman powers by cosmic rays bombarding his body.
Hyper-Intelligence: Mister Fantastic’s natural mental abilities were greatly augmented by the Cosmic Rays that gave him his powers.
Plasticity: Mister Fantastic possesses the ability to convert the mass of his entire body into a highly malleable state at will. How his body’s respiration and circulatory systems function at these distorted extremes is as yet unknown. Mister Fantastic can alter his form in a matter of seconds, often much less (depending on the complexity of the shape), and revert to his normal humanoid shape within a similar time. The greater the distance he stretches or the more extended the size of the object he becomes, the weaker his overall strength becomes. Mister Fantastic’s transformation to a malleable state is reflexive and nearly instantaneous: if he was at his normal form and taken unaware by machine gun fire, his body would still absorb the bullets’ impact through radical deformation. Mister Fantastic’s skin is virtually impervious to laceration or punctures unless he willfully relaxes his reflexive control over small areas of his body. In that case, scalpels and ordinary needles can penetrate his skin.
Dense Flesh: Due to the great malleability and elasticity of his molecular structure, Mister Fantastic is able to absorb the impact of any type of man-made ballistic projectile by deforming his body along the path of the projectile’s trajectory at the point of initial impact.
Contain Explosions: Mister Fantastic may use his elastic form to contain explosions by enveloping them and allowing their force to expand him. He can enclose and absorb the energy of a large explosive, on the order of 8 to 12 pounds of TNT (excluding exotic, high density explosives). Such shocks to his system are physically exhausting.
Redirect Projectiles: After his body absorbs the kinetic energy of a ballistic projectile’s impact, Mister Fantastic can expel the object back along its trajectory by flexing his body like a trampoline if he is adequately braced.
Elongation: Mister Fantastic can extend his limbs, torso, or neck to great distances: the maximum length he can distend before his body segments become painful is about 1,500 feet. (Although he can extend discrete body parts, such as a single finger, an ear, or an eye, he seldom if ever isolates such parts in his elongations.)
Grappling: Mister Fantastic may restrain opponents very efficiently by using his elastic form to entangle them.
Movement: Mister Fantastic can move at great speeds by stretching to his destination.
Shape Changing: Mister Fantastic can stretch, deform, expand, or compress his entire body or parts thereof into any contiguous shape he can imagine for a variety of uses:
Imitation: Mister Fantastic may alter his basic physical features, allowing him to take on the appearance of any other man with similar hair and skin tone. One time, Mister Fantastic actually increased his size and mass density, in effect bulking his body to “Thing”-like proportions while increasing his strength to the same levels as well. The force of his strikes was enough to stagger even Onslaught.
Canopy, Parachute or Sheath: Mister Fantastic can extend his body in two directions, creating a canopy, parachute, or sheath, its thickness determined by the extent of its distention.
Gliding: Mister Fantastic can transform himself into aerodynamic shapes such as parachutes or hang-gliders. In this form he can support an additional 1000 pounds (enough to hold the rest of Fantastic Four, even the Thing).
Cushion: Mister Fantastic may form his elastic form into a trampoline and other cushion-like objects, allowing him to safely catch falling people and objects.
Sling Shot: Mister Fantastic may use his elastic form as a slingshot to hurl objects with great force.
Geometric Shapes: Mister Fantastic has compressed his body into the shape of a solid sphere, a cylinder, a cube, a toroid, and a rectangular prism: he can assume the shape of any solid that he can envision clearly, of a volume no greater than 1.7 cubic feet (a sphere about 18 inches in diameter). He can generate thin-walled shapes that enclose great volumes of space.
Fist Weapons: Mister Fantastic may form his fists into large hammers, maces, etc., which improve his physical effectiveness in hand-to-hand combat.
Bouncing Ball: Mister Fantastic can transform himself into any of a number of resilient shapes, such as balls or springs that allow him to leap or bounce great distances.
Two-Dimensionality: Mister Fantastic can flatten himself to the thickness of an average sheet of typing paper (.0035 inch) or narrow himself to a diameter small enough to pass through the eye of a #10 beading needle (about .045 x .06 inches).
Infiltration: Mister Fantastic can lower his body’s cohesion to such an extent that he can actually flow through minute openings.
Open Locks: Mister Fantastic may form his fingers into various types of keys, allowing him to open most forms of mechanical locks.
Wind Generation: Mister Fantastic may form his hands into fans, allowing him to generate wind by twirling them at great speeds.
Semi-Solid Liquid State: Mister Fantastic can willfully reduce his body into an almost liquid state in order to flow out of small cracks or passages, even through needle-sized holes.
By Tom DeFalco and
Paul Ryan
https://cultfaction.com/2016/03/07/p...-away-aged-66/