The Fantastic Four, Chapter 1: Cosmic Grotesqueries
A storm of meteorites slams into the moon's surface, the impact scattering chips of rock like the fragments of an explosion. You walk the silent surface, careful to dodge the debris. You are seeking Uatu the Watcher, chronicler of the Age of Marvels.
"Greetings, mortal!" Uatu exclaims. He is a giant with an oversized bald head. He wears a purple cape with a high pointed collar and a white toga. His irisless eyes gaze out at you.
"Greetings, Uatu," you say. "I guess I'm here to learn more about the Age of Marvels."
"Excellent, mortal! You would do well to heed the lessons in these tales! The heroes of today have as much to teach us as the heroes of yesterday ever did!" Uatu says.
"I believe you," you say. "What is the Age of Marvels, anyway? What's so important about it?"
"The Age of Marvels is the return of the Age of Heroes!" Uatu answers. "It is the return of the Age of Villains! Good and Evil rise against each other, each seeking fell champions! Bright burning life with all its sorrow and joy faces eternal nothingness! Love battles hate, hope clashes against fear! The time for reckoning has come! The Fallen Prince of Light shall lose his throne! Hell shall be breached upon the Earth! In the fast corners of the Galaxy, the embodiment of Tyranny stretches forth his hand to sunder all life! The World-Eater comes ever closer! Life and Death alike stand imperiled!"
"Can… can good win?" you ask.
"That, mortal, not even Destiny of the Endless knows!" Uatu says. "It is a question that must be answered by the living flame! Written in invulnerable shields! Fought by mortals far greater than even they know! It is a question that must be answered by Science!"
"Science?" you ask.
"Science!" Uatu answers. "Science such as that which created the heroes we are about to observe!"
"Who?" you ask.
"The First Family of Superheroes!" Uatu answers. "The First Super Team! The Fantastic Four!"
"I'm tellin' ya Reed, this is a stupid idea!" Benjamin Jacob Grimm said.
Ben was a giant among men at six foot six and over two hundred pounds. He was built like a linebacker, with a broad frame from his head to his feet. He had light brown hair and bright blue eyes. Ben wore a green t-shirt and khaki pants with black runners and socks. Around his neck was a Star of David necklace. He sat in an overstuffed chair in the penthouse suite of the Baxter Building, owned lock stock and barrel by his friend, Reed Richards.
Reed was one of the few people as tall as Ben though he was much lankier. His brown hair was prematurely grey at the temples. He wore a blue t-shirt over a long-sleeved white one and khaki pants. His feet were bare.
"It's a great idea!" Reed said. "You piloting, me and Sue up there taking readings… it'll work, Ben!"
"Reed, you wanna go up, into space, and take readings from cosmic rays," Ben said.
"Right," Reed said.
"Cosmic rays you know nothing about, and have no idea what they'll do to you," Ben continued. "In a commercial spacecraft. What about that sounds like a good idea?"
"The spacecraft is protected against radiation," Reed protested. "What could go wrong?" Ben arched an eyebrow at the ridiculousness of that statement. Reed was spared a further defense of his plan by the arrival of two newcomers.
The first of these new arrivals was Doctor Susan Storm, Reed's fiancé. Sue was a petite blonde with an hourglass figure. She wore a dark blue suit with a skirt that showed off her legs. Sue hurried from the study door over to Reed in her high heels and gave him a big kiss.
"Ew! You gotta do that in public, sis?" Johnny Storm, Sue's younger brother said. He was as blond as his sister and almost as tall as Reed or Ben. He wore an orange t-shirt and board shorts. On his feet were red sneakers and black socks.
"Comments like that are why you don't have a girlfriend, Johnny," Ben said.
"Maybe I don't want a girlfriend," Johnny said. "Maybe I want a boyfriend, huh? Did you ever think of that?"
"Comments like that are you don't have a boyfriend either, meathead," Ben said.
"If you two are finished bickering," Susan said, "maybe we can get on with this?"
"I'll tell you Susie-Q, the same thing I told the pipe-cleaner over there," Ben said, jerking his thumb at Reed. "This is a dumb idea!"
"It is not!" Reed said.
"Real eloquent there, Reed," Ben said. "I'm impressed.
"It's okay if you're too scared to fly Ben," Sue said. "We understand. I'm sure we can get another, less-qualified pilot to take us up there. By tomorrow."
Ben stared at her for a minute. "I ain't scared of nothing," he said. "Fine. If you all want to do the stupid space trip, we can. I'll go get my gear."
Ben lumbered off. Johnny walked with him, claiming that he had an army of girls to say goodbye to. Reed went over to kiss his fiancé.
"Thank you," he said.
"I did nothing, Reed," she said. "It was all Ben's courage." Looking into those guileless blue eyes, Reed decided he never wanted to play poker against Sue Storm.
"Two scientists, a pilot and a slot car racer," Ben Grimm said a little while later. "Yeah, that's an ideal space crew." They were in Ben's car, driving to upstate New York where Reed's launch site was.
"Excuse me," Johnny said from the back seat. "I am a race car driver. I don't even know what slot cars are, old man."
"They're what worthless layabouts race instead of getting a real job," Ben answered as he drove.
"You can still back out, Ben," Sue said from beside Johnny. "There's still time if you're too afraid to fly the ship."
"I'm not afraid of anything," Ben insisted. He hunched further over the wheel, his knuckles white.
"It'll be okay, Ben," Reed assured him. "We'll go up, collect some readings, and come right back done. What can go wrong?"
"One of these days, genius," Ben said, "I'm going to teach you not to say things like that."
The car roared off into the distance.
Reed's shuttle was prepared when the four friends arrived. They swiftly got changed into their space suits and got ready to launch.
"Control, this is Flight 1961," Ben said into the microphone. He was strapped into the pilot's seat, Reed beside him. Behind them were Johnny and Sue.
"Flight 1961, this is Control," the control tower radioed back.
"Control, Flight 1961 is seeking permission for launch," Ben said.
"Flight 1961, this is Control. You are cleared for launch."
"Control, this is Flight 1961. Thank you," Ben said, turning the radio off. "Here goes nothing," he muttered.
"It will be fine, Ben," Reed assured him.
"You keep saying that Reed, and I might believe it," he said. Ben flipped a series of switches and the shuttle's powerful repulsor engines, designed by Tony Stark, propelled the shuttle like a cork out of a bottle.
The spacecraft raced up into the sky. Ben's skillful maneuvering kept them from shaking too much as the shuttle shot out of the atmosphere and into orbit. There they sat, waiting the oncoming cosmic storm.
"Johnny, there's a switch over there that says 'radio spectrometer.' Flick it on, would ya?" Ben called back.
"Sure, one second," Johnny said as he unbelted himself from his seat and floated. Johnny was an experienced race car driver and diver; out of the team, he had the easiest time with the weightlessness training. Johnny maneuvered himself out of the chair and over to the instrument panel. A quick once-over showed him the switch he wanted. Johnny flicked it, and on came the shuttle's sensor suite.
"Okay," Johnny said. "The radio thingie's up. What are we looking for?"
"Cosmic rays," Ben said.
"I know that," Johnny replied. "I was hoping for something more specific."
"Johnny, lets trade places," Reed said, unbuckling himself out of his own seat. "I'm not sure you will understand what the radio spectrometer's telling you, but I'm sure you will want to see it from the front."
"Sure," Johnny said, maneuvering past Reed.
"Wait, we're gonna get a visual?" Ben said.
"Uh-huh," Reed said as he maneuvered past Johnny. "We should see a bright golden light just to the galactic north of us."
"We're gonna be awfully close to those rays if we can see 'em with our own two eyeballs," Ben pointed out.
"Not really," Sue said. "The rays should light up most of the quadrant. That's why we have to be as close as we are; from Earth, the refraction from the atmosphere will screw up the sensors."
"This is a bad idea," Ben muttered.
"It'll be fine, Ben," Reed said as he settled in Johnny's vacant seat. "We just sit here and take readings."
"We don't know what those cosmic rays will do to us if you're wrong," Ben said. "I want everybody suited up. Now."
"Ben…" Sue began, but Ben cut her off.
"No arguments," Ben said. "None. Everybody into their full gear, now. Or I take this bird home."
The others looked at each other and nodded. It was no good arguing with Ben when he was like this. Reed maneuvered over to the storage lockers and handed out the heavy duty gloves and helmets. The team put the items on.
"It'll be hard to use the sensor controls with these on," Sue said, fitting the helmet over her head.
"It'll be all right," Reed said, doing likewise. "I've programmed the sensors with voice control and linked them to our helmets. I just wish Ben wasn't so paranoid.
"To be honest with you Reed," Johnny said as he settled back into the co-pilot's chair, "I'm with Ben on this one. There's a lot that could go wrong up here, studying these cosmic doo-dads. Better to be protected."
"Okay, if Johnny here is advisin' caution, I know we're in trouble," Ben said. His hands rested lightly on the controls, ready to take the ship back to the surface at a moment's notice. He stared out at space through the bulky helmet's visor, nervous and jumpy.
The four waited together for hours. Johnny fell asleep. Sue and Reed adjusted their instruments. Ben kept an uneasy eye on the space surrounding them.
"That's odd," Reed said, frowning.
"What's odd?" Ben asked, arms folded across his chest.
"We should have detected some form of cosmic activity by this point," Reed answered. "But there's nothing on the sensors."
"You get the date wrong?" Ben asked.
"Maybe," Reed said. Suddenly, Sue screamed.
"Reed!" she said. "They're right on top of us! The cosmic rays, they're not where there supposed to be at all!"
"Ben!" Reed shouted.
"I got it, I got it," Ben said, starting up the ship. "I told you this was a bad idea. Wake-up sleepyhead," he said to Johnny. "We got work to do."
"I'm up, I'm up," Johnny said, having been awoken by his sister's scream. Johnny had been trained as a co-pilot for this mission, and he was more glad of that fact now than ever. Johnny's hands raced over the control board, buying Ben precious seconds to get them out of the ray's path.
It didn't matter, any more than the anti-radiation armor on the ship or in their suits did. The cosmic rays pelted the ship, penetrating the armour like sunlight through a window.
Sue screamed. Her body kept winking in and out of existence.
Reed would have liked to scream with his fiancé, but the pain of his body coming unglued was too much.
Johnny was in equally dire straits. His body was burning up from the inside, setting every nerve on fire. He screamed like his sister.
Ben did his best to keep his friends screams out of his mind as he tried to keep control of the ship, but he had his own problems. His arms were growing heavier, too heavy to move. Even as he battled the ships controls, he felts his arms move slower and slower. Finally, in one last great twist of the control stick, Ben managed to set the ship on course for Earth. At the cost of ripping the control stick out of the dashboard.
"Oh crap," Ben said.
Clark Kent, dressed in a long-sleeved blue unitard with a red S on a yellow background in a triangular red shield, red trunks, a yellow belt and a red cape with matching S shield, hovered above the Metropolis sky. He was the alien being known as Superman, and he was enjoying a quiet day in his city.
Until he heard the frantic calls from NASA.
Clark frowned in concentration. His hearing was sharper than ordinary humans, but it wasn't perfect. Background noise was hard to filter out. Finally he picked up on the distress calls.
Clark's eyes widened in shock. He whirled around and flew off to incoming spaceship.
Richard's space ship was coming down fast, burning up in the atmosphere. Clark could see the bright red-and-orange streak burning across the sky. Clark raced towards the shuttle, desperately calculating how fast he would have to be to catch it.
Too fast, and Superman would blow right through the ship. Too slow, and he would never catch it.
Clark caught up with the shuttle. The burning winds from the shuttle's re-entry tore at and melted his suit. Still Superman pushed on, forcing his way to the shuttle's ventral side. Once there, he spread himself out to take the full weight of the shuttle on his back. Reversing his hands, Superman gripped the underside of the shuttle so he could control it.
This has got to be the weirdest plane this planet's ever seen, Clark thought. Weird though it may be, Clark brought the shuttle safely down, landing it in an isolated part of New York State. Unfortunately, the way Clark landed the shuttle left him buried in the ground underneath it.
Well that was silly, he thought. He would have to get out of here if he wanted to save the occupants of the shuttle. First, though, he would have determine where in the shuttle the occupants were. If he wasn't careful, he could end up killing them, anyway.
First, he listened in with his super-senses. He could hear three separate heart beats in the shuttle which Clark took as a good sign. Two of them were near the wings and the third up in the nose. Assuming Clark's hearing hadn't failed him, if Clark poked his head up through the shuttle from where he was, he would come up between the two people between the wings. Gingerly, Clark pushed his head through the shuttle's bottom, always listening to hear if he hurt someone.
Clark's head poked through the shuttle floor. So far so good; his calculations had been right on the money. Clark was in-between two seats in the wings, with the nose containing the pilot in front of him. Clark pulled himself all the way through and looked around.
Something was very wrong here. Clark could hear, clear as a bell, three heartbeats. One was to his right and matched the occupant in the seat. Although the heartbeat wasn't human and the occupant sure looked human. A second heartbeat was located in the co-pilot's chair and again matched the occupant but wasn't quite human.
From there it got weirder. In the pilot's chair was a third occupant who didn't have a heartbeat. The person's spacesuit had ripped at the seams, exposing rocky orange skin. Clark hoped that the person was an alien species he hadn't met or heard of before.
The fourth occupant was where things got truly strange. Clark could hear their heartbeat, but couldn't see them! He could see the seat's safety harness strapped over the occupant's chest, but otherwise they were invisible.
That's just what I need, Clark thought. Invisible people. Hope Lex doesn't get any ideas. Clark decided to risk using his X-Ray vision. Though Professor Hamilton assured him they weren't really X-rays, both Superman and Hamilton agreed that it should be used sparingly. Neither knew what allowed Clark to see through opaque objects and were reluctant to use it one people without good cause.
Clark figured trying to find an invisible person in a shuttle crash was a good enough reason, so he flipped his X-ray vision. It didn't allow him to see the other occupant, exactly. But it gave him a better idea of where she sat in the chair.
A hissing noise, too low for anyone but Clark to hear, warned him off imminent trouble. Deciding to risk moving the shuttle crew, Clark used his super-speed to lift the crew out of the shuttle. The big rock monster was the hardest, but Clark managed it.
After getting the crew to a safe distance, the shuttle burst into flame. Clark sighed and pulled a communicator out of his belt.
"Hamilton?" he said.
"Hamilton's tied up at the moment," Lex Luthor, the proverbial pain in Clark's backside, answered back. "Some sort of shuttle crash in upstate New York."
"I know, that's where I am right now," Clark said. He looked back at the shuttle. "Tell Hamilton I managed to set the shuttle down, but it burst into flame after and I need a crew here to contain it. One he can trust, too. There's something weird going on here, Lex."
"There always is with you," Lex said. "One second." Lex put the communicator down on a table and yelled at Hamilton. Superman heard it all through the communicator. Lex picked up the communicator again and said:
"Hamilton's got a crew prepped and ready. They'll be there in ten minutes or less."
"Thanks Lex," Superman said. "I owe you one."
"Not at all," Lex said. "Richards and I go way back. That's why I was here with Hamilton; we were watching his shuttle's progress together. I'm sure you'll take good care of Richards and his family; I'd be disappointed to hear otherwise."
"I'll do the best I can, Lex," Clark assured him, amused by the implied threat. "I'll talk to you later." Clark hung up his communicator without bothering to wait for Lex. He mused for a second on his long-time nemesis. Lex was proud, vindictive, loyal to those loyal to him, and an unquestionable genius. These traits made him Clark's ally as often as he was Clark's enemy, and Clark was sure that ninety percent of his migraines were Lex's fault. Lex probably thought the same thing about him, so Clark figured it all evened out.
He turned back to the Richards family. Clark wasn't surprised Lex knew who the crew was before he did; what surprised Clark was Richards and his team crashing at all. Richards was a brilliant astrophysicist; his fiancé was a top-tier brain in her own right. Ben Grimm, who Richards had to have picked as his pilot, was one of the top three pilots in the world, along with Hal Jordan and Steve Trevor. Clark knew nothing about Johnny Storm, Sue's younger brother, other than he was something of a playboy and hotshot. Clark supposed Johnny's goofing around could have caused the shuttle to crash, but he doubted it. Something else must have gone wrong.
Something to do with why Ben Grimm was a rock monster, maybe? As Clark pondered this question, the four crew members came too.
"Oh my aching head," Johnny said, sitting up right. He took off his helmet, revealing the blond haired youth underneath. "What happened?"
"I don't know," Doctor Richards said, as he, too, sat up and removed his helmet. "The last thing I remember was getting hit by those cosmic rays."
As she came back to consciousness, Sue winked back into existence. "Ugh, I feel sick," she said.
"I'm not surprised," Clark said. Before Sue could even register what Clark said, Ben Grimm woke up.
"I told you that was a stupid idea!" he shouted, rising to his feet and yanking off his helmet. Sue screamed in terror. Both Johnny and Reed fell back in surprise. Even Clark, who had seen weirder things, had to stifle a gasp. Ben's face was now a lumpen, orange pile of rock. The only reminder of his human self was a pair of blue eyes.
"What?" Ben demanded.
"I don't know to say this Ben…" Reed began. Johnny interrupted him.
"You're an orange rock monster," the young man said.
"Ha ha, hilarious," Ben said. He folded his arms and started to say something else when he got a good look at his arms.
"Holy shit!" Ben said. "I am an orange rock monster! And Sue, you're turning invisible!"
"I am not!" Sue said, flickering in the sunlight.
"You kind of are, sis," Johnny said. Sue looked down to see herself flickering. Sue screamed again and turned completely invisible.
"Fascinating," Richards said. "It appears your invisibility is tied to your emotional state, Sue."
"You are not helping Reed!" Sue shouted.
"That explains why she was invisible in the shuttle," Clark said. The four turned to look at him.
"Ah, my apologies. We should have thanked you earlier," Richards said. "I'm Doctor Reed Richards and I'm… apparently made of rubber," he added as he extended his hand to meet Superman's like a piece of silly putty. Richards' space suit ripped apart at the seams as the arm grew, revealing pink flesh underneath.
"Pleased to meet you, Doctor," Superman said, shaking the proffered hand. "I'm Superman."
"So you know our names, but we can't know yours?" Ben said.
"Sorry," Clark said, shrugging.
"It's all right Ben," Reed said. "I understand why Superman would be unwilling to share his secrets with us. Besides, we have more important things to worry about."
"Yeah, like what the incredibly dangerous cosmic rays I warned you all about did to us?" Ben demanded. "Is that what you mean, stretcho?"
Reed sighed. "I'm sorry Ben," he said. "You were right. I…"
"Johnny, are you all right?" Sue asked. She'd stopped flickering.
"Yeah," Johnny said. Sweat poured down his face. "I'm just feeling a little warm." He then burst into flame.
Sue said: "Oh great. Now he's on fire all the time, instead of just when he crashes. That's fantastic."
"How about a little sympathy for your brother, huh?" Johnny demanded.
"Johnny, you've been on fire so many times, seeing you like this is actually kind of comforting," Sue told him.
"Gee, thanks," Johnny said. Clark took a deep breath and then blew it out, putting out Johnny's flames. Johnny sat there, buck naked, his blond hair sticking straight up.
"That's new," he remarked.
"Okay, so the flames aren't permanent," Sue said. "That's good. It'd be hard to explain 'burning Johnny' to the folks."
"Shame the same can't be said for me," Ben said. "Unless you know something I don't, boy scout?"
Superman shook his head. "I scanned you all with my X-ray vision," he said. "You've all changed on some fundamental level I can't describe."
"Great," Ben said.
"I'm not keen on getting scanned with X-rays without my permission," Johnny said. "I may be the dumbest guy here, but even I know how dangerous X-rays are."
"It's not really 'X-ray vision'," Clark assured him. "That just sounds cooler than 'selective see-through-stuff vision'. Besides, I needed to use it to rescue you four."
"That's fair," Johnny said.
"What do we do now?" Sue asked.
"I called STAR Labs," Superman said. "They should send a team to pick you up shortly."
"Thank you Superman," Reed said.
"Yes, thank you," Sue agreed. "But I meant more about our powers. What are we going to do with them?"
"I don't know, Sue," Reed said. "I just don't know."
END CHAPTER
Author's Note:
Here it is guys, The Fantastic Four! With a little guest appearance by Superman, of course. Hope you enjoyed the cameo! For those wondering, the chronology of The Age of Marvels is thus:
Superman Book 1.
Batman Book 1.
Wonder Woman Book 1.
The Amazing Spider-Man Book 1.
The Fantastic Four Book 1.
The Uncanny X-Men Book 1.
***The Fantastic Four created by Stan "The Man" Lee and Jack "The King" Kirby. Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. If you enjoyed this chapter, please support me on ( joshstoodley) or by my original fiction on Amazon. Or buy me a coffee ( /falconlord)
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