Legend has it that in 1961, longtime magazine and comic book publisher Martin Goodman was playing golf with either Jack Liebowitz or Irwin Donenfeld of rival DC Comics, also known as National Periodical Publications, who bragged about DC's success with the superhero team the Justice League of America. While film producer and comics historian Michael Uslan has partly debunked the story, Goodman, a publishing trend-follower aware of the JLA's strong sales, confirmably directed his comics editor, Stan Lee, to create a comic-book series about a team of superheroes. According to Lee in 1974:


Lee, who'd served as editor-in-chief and art director of Marvel and its predecessor companies, Timely Comics and Atlas Comics, for two decades, had by now found the medium restrictive. Determined "to carve a real career for myself in the nowhere world of comic books, Lee teamed with artist Jack Kirby to produce a groundbreaking series featuring a family of superheroes who were fallible and more naturalistically human than virtually anything seen in superhero comics to that time. Lee wrote that:


To forestall possibly upsetting DC (which, in addition to being a competing publisher, was also the distributor of Marvel's limited line of comics), Lee and Kirby deliberately avoided making the new book look like a competing superhero comic; the new characters appeared on the cover without costumes and had no secret identities. Lee's intended swan song became unexpectedly and phenomenally successful; Lee and Kirby stayed together on the book and began launching other titles from which the vaunted "Marvel Universe" of additional interrelated titles and characters grew.

Through its creators' lengthy run, the series produced many acclaimed stories and characters that have become central to Marvel, including Doctor Doom; the Silver Surfer; Galactus; the Watcher; the The Inhumans; the Black Panther; the rival alien Kree and Skrull races; and Him, who would become Adam Warlock. As well, the daring duo of Lee & Kirby, who eventually shared credit as co-plotting collaborators, introduced such concepts as the Negative Zone and unstable molecules, two core elements of the Marvel mythos. In the book's most groundbreaking yet utterly natural development, Fantastic Four presented superhero comics' first pregnancy, culminating with the birth of a Marvel superhero family's first child, Franklin Benjamin Richards. The pregnancy was announced in Fantastic Four Annual

5, and the baby was born one year later in Fantastic Four Annual
6 (1968). (DC comics character Aquaman had previously fathered a child in his own series, issue
23.)

The Fantastic Four acquired superhuman abilities after an experimental rocket ship designed by scientist Reed Richards passed through a storm of cosmic rays on its test flight to outer space. Upon crash landing back on Earth, the four impromptu astronauts found themselves transformed and possessed of bizarre new abilities.

Richards, who took the name Mr. Fantastic, was now able to stretch, twist and re-shape his body to inhuman proportions (similar to Quality Comics' celebrated Plastic Man, Timely Comics' Thin Man, and DC Comics' Elongated Man, who had been introduced the year before). His fiancée, Susan Storm, gained the ability to become invisible at will and named herself the Invisible Girl (later the Invisible Woman). She later developed the ability to project force fields, create invisible objects, and turn other objects visible or invisible. Her younger brother, Johnny Storm, possessed the incendiary powers of a Human Torch, after Marvel's Golden Age character, enabling him to control fire, project burning bolts of flame from his body, and fly. Finally, pilot Ben Grimm was transformed into a monstrous, craggy humanoid with orange, rock-covered skin and incredible strength/durability. Filled with anger, self-loathing and self-pity over his new existence, he dubbed himself the Thing, the term Susan used in her initial, startled reaction to his transformation.

The four characters were modeled after the four classical Greek elements: earth (The Thing), fire (The Human Torch), wind (The Invisible Girl) and water (the pliable and ductile Mr. Fantastic). The powers of Mr. Fantastic were modelled on those of Plastic Man, the Invisible Girl's powers were originally the same as those of the comic strip character "The Invisible Scarlett O'Neill"; the Human Torch had the powers of the Golden Age character of the same name; and the Thing was similar to many of the monster characters that Lee and Kirby had created in the past. The characters may also have been inspired by co-creator Kirby's similarly unmasked though non-superpowered DC Comics quartet the Challengers of the Unknown.

The team of adventurers has used its members' fantastic abilities to protect humanity, the Earth and the universe from a number of threats. Propelled mainly by Richards' innate scientific curiosity, the team has explored space, the Negative Zone, the Microverse, other dimensions, and nearly every hidden valley, nation, and lost civilization on the planet.

They have had a number of headquarters, most notably the Baxter Building in New York City. The Baxter Building was replaced by Four Freedoms Plaza, built at the same location, after the Baxter Building's destruction at the hands of Kristoff Vernard, adopted son of the Fantastic Four's seminal villain (and rumored half-brother of Mr. Fantastic) Doctor Doom. Pier 4, a warehouse on the New York waterfront, served as a temporary headquarters for the group after Four Freedoms Plaza was condemned, due to the actions of another superhero team, the Thunderbolts. In the mid-2000s, an orbiting satellite version of the Baxter Building has been used.

The comic books have typically emphasized that the Fantastic Four, unlike most superhero teams, are truly a family. Three of the four members are directly related, with The Thing being a long-time friend and Reed Richard's college room-mate; Reed and Sue's son, Franklin Benjamin Richards, was given his middle name after him. Although not strictly related, The Thing's role is that of the beloved Dutch uncle, and his relationship with Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch is nonetheless quite sibling-like. The children of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, Franklin Richards and Valeria Richards, are also regulars in the series.

Unlike most superheroes, the Fantastic Four's identities are not secret and they maintain a high public profile, enjoying celebrity status for their scientific and heroic contributions to society. Recent issues have controversially revealed that this is a deliberate move by Reed Richards, who works to keep the team highly visible and well-regarded out of guilt for causing their mutations.

List of Fantastic Four members

A movie adaptation of The Fantastic Four was completed in 1994 by famed B-movie director/producer Roger Corman. While this movie was never released to theaters or video, it has been made available from various bootleg video distributors. The film was made on a shoestring budget and is largely mocked by fans of the comic book foursome for what they see as poor acting and disappointing special effects (at one point, The Human Torch — played by a human actor — turns into an obvious cartoon upon "flaming-on").

It was ultimately revealed by Stan Lee that unbeknownst to the cast and crew, this movie was never intended to be released in the first place. It was only made because the studio who owned the movie rights to the Fantastic Four would have lost them if it had not begun production by a certain deadline date (a tactic known as creating an ashcan copy).

Another feature film adaptation of Fantastic Four was released July 8 2005 by Fox, and directed by Tim Story. Fantastic Four opened in approximately 3,600 theaters and despite predominantly poor reviews grossed US$156M in North America and US$329M worldwide, weighed against a production budget of $100M and an officially undisclosed marketing budget. It stars Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Jessica Alba as Susan Storm/Invisible Woman, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm/Human Torch, Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm/The Thing and Julian McMahon as Victor Von Doom/Dr. Doom, with Stan Lee making a cameo appearance as Willie Lumpkin, the mailman.

On 22 October 2005, Fox announced plans for a sequel, , to be directed by Story and written by Don Payne, with production scheduled to begin August 2006.