Reed Richards:
Occupation: Scientist, adventurer, emcee
Former Aliases: The Mastermind
Place of Birth: Indianapolis, Indiana
Base of Operations: The Baxter Building; Indianapolis, IN
Reed is the only son of Nathaniel Richards and his wife Evelyn, was a child prodigy. Evelyn died when Reed was seven. Nathaniel encouraged and guided young Reed in his studies, and Reed was taking college-level courses by the time he was fourteen. Reed attended several universities, among them California Institute of Technology, Columbia University, Harvard University, and State University in Hegeman, New York State.
It was at State that Reed met two of the most important people in his life. Victor Von Doom and Benjamin J Grimm. Von Doom took an immediate dislike to Richards, and decided to take other quarters. As Doctor Doom, Von Doom would later become Richards' greatest rival and enemy. Reed gained instead as his roommate Ben Grimm, who became his closest friend. Reed was alreadyplanning to build a starship for interstellar travel. When he told this to Grimm, he jokingly said that he would pilot the ship for Reed.
While attending Columbia, Reed rented a room at the Manhattan boarding house owned by the aunt of Susan Storm. Though she was still young, Susan fell in love with the older Richards, much to his embarrassment.
Three years before Reed tested his ship, his father mysteriously disappeared. Nathaniel devised a time machine which he used to attempt a journey into the future. However, the machine transported him to an alternate Earth with a different history. But before Nathaniel left his timeline, he left two billion dollars to his son. Reed spent most of this money on his starship. This project, based in Indianapolis,IN, received funding from the federal government.
Reed Richards recruited his old friend Ben Grimm, who had become a successful test pilot and astronaut, to pilot the starship. Susan Storm, who was now an adult, joined Richards in California. Richards and Storm were engaged to be married.
However, the federal government then threatened to withdraw its funding from the project. Richards decided to take the starship out himself before this happened. Grimm was opposed, warning that the starship's shielding might be inadequate protection from intense radiation storms. Still, he was persuaded to pilot and Susan and her brother Johnny insisted on coming as well. The four stole onto the facility, entered the ship, and blasted off. They intended to travel through hyperspace in the ship to another solar system and back. However, unknown to Reed, a solar flare caused the Van Allen radiation belts to be filled temporarily with ultra-high levels of cosmic radiation. Since the ship was designed to shield against ordinary levels of radiation, the cabin was subjected to intense bombardment, which irradiated the four passengers. Grimm was forced to return to Earth.
On Earth, they found that the radiation had triggered changes in them. Reed discovered that he could stretch his body as well as crush emcees...
