What Does Reed Richards’ Changing Bio Reveal About Fantastic Four?

We all know that The Fantastic Four’s Reed Richards is the stretchy guy. And readers of Marvel’s Fantastic Four comics might not really care or think too hard about how that stretchy power actually works. As with most superhero origin stories, the science is often iffy – but as it’s not really the point, we’re often totally cool with Radioactive substance? Cosmic rays from space? Exposure to toxins? Sure, whatever. GET TO THE HERO-ING!

Yet as we reported previously, this early bio for Reed Richards on the Fantastic Four website seemed to get a little more involved when it comes to explaining Reed’s abilities:

“He can warp the space around him and appear to stretch his body…” Interesting. This version of the character, if this bio remained, can’t actually stretch, but can do something much cooler – warp space, which would have greater implications and uses beyond himself. That’s pretty awesome! However, this bio didn’t remain. Ever since outlets picked up the story of this new character description and started writing about it, Reed’s bio on the site has changed to this:

So, they’ve removed the “He can warp the space around him and appear to…” part, and have emphasized that he can stretch into impossible forms and to incredible lengths. Huh. A part of me is glad for the return to simplicity. But another, I’d say larger, part of me hopes for the more interesting thing. I’d love to see the possibilities of a warping space power – because then he wouldn’t just be able to get across spaces himself, right? I mean, if he sees one of his teammates in danger across the way and can warp space, can he direct that and get them to safety without needing to physically yoink them out of danger himself? I don’t know, and now I’m just getting all rambly and speculative….I’m just saying it’d be cool to see.

So, either they changed it because they didn’t think the explanation of his power was necessary (or they thought it was too complicated for our pea brains), or it was a spoiler that they didn’t intend to reveal on the website, or they decided not to go that route with the character after all, and so changed it back to the stretchy power we’re used to.

What do you think? What would you like to see from Reed Richards in the new Fantastic Four film?

(via Comic Vine)

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