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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Regarding Reed Richards.
    • Reed is just a humble scientist who couldn't care less about being famous or admired. His quest to turn his best friends into revered superheroes was all just penance for robbing them of the chance to live normal lives, because he knew they would have been exploited and used as lab experiments if they didn't have the public's love on their side Alternatively, Reed is a Villain with Good Publicity and the only reason he has yet to Take Over the World it is because Doctor Doom keeps distracting him.
    • Some see Reed as neglectful towards his wife both emotionally and physically, which is often criticized by other characters and in particular by his rival Namor, but this article suggests that Reed is actually asexual, though it also points out that this doesn't negate his genuine love for Susan and does remind readers that they have been shown to have an active sex life.
  • Aluminum Christmas Trees: The "cosmic rays" sound like a cheap and corny excuse to give away superpowers, but they are a real thing. We are protected by the atmosphere, but it is a hazard for astronauts beyond it (yes, just like in Fantastic Four #1). However, they do not give superpowers, just cancer.
  • Angst? What Angst?: During Hickman's run, Johnny's ex-girlfriend Psionics, from Mark Millar's run, returns as a psychotic maniac who murders a woman in front of Johnny before getting her head smushed in. Johnny's reaction to any of this? Uh... nothing, actually. And her dad doesn't seem to be terribly upset about it either.
  • Ass Pull: Doomwar stated the Doom had seen many possible futures and the only one where humanity survived was under his rule, with the Panther God confirming he wasn't making it up. While it has been shown that Doom could make the world a better place the idea has been demonstrated in the past, these futures only work if you throw out the fact that Doom has in the past shown no interest in ruling the world if his rule is unopposed.
  • Awesome Ego:
    • Galactus frequently boasts about how superior he is to his opposition, and he looks damn awesome doing it. Plus, nine out of ten times he can back up everything he claims and then some. He's still humble enough to invoke A God I Am Not, believing that power alone doesn't automatically make one a god. And yet he still manages to explain it in an Awesome Ego fashion.
    • Doom is no mere boaster, he has shown himself to be worthy of some of the things that he praises himself for. His crowning moment must be how, for a time, Doom was ruler of what remained of several universes.
  • Awesome Music: The Doctor Doom theme Capcom made for the fighting game, Marvel Super Heroes. Marvel vs. Capcom 3 uses a very fitting and ominous remix of said theme for him. They also made a victory theme for him in Marvel Super Heroes.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Invisible Woman. Either she’s one of the greatest female characters in comic book history or she’s a bland, outdated heroine who can’t even be compared to those of her ilk in the present. Her relationship with Namor, and other male characters she has been shown to have UST with, is either seen as her one flaw which makes her relatable the same way that Reed's arrogance is his flaw or it's not only disrespectful towards Reed but to her by making it appear that reminaing faithful to her husband is something she struggles with. Since the Fantastic Four seem based on the stereotypical 1950s Nuclear Family, her interest in a man like Namor makes her seem like a bored housewife wanting more excitement or to feel young again.
    • Doctor Doom is quite certainly one of Marvel's most polarizing characters. For some, he's a cool Magnificent Bastard and one of Marvel's best villains, but for others he's an overrated Invincible Villain and Marvel's most shilled character. Another crowd of fans like Doctor Doom in some storylines but dislike how he's handled when writers like him too much and his Popularity Power and Character Shilling kicks in.
  • Can't Un-Hear It:
  • Cliché Storm: Dan Slott's run has been criticized for repeating several notable cliches and plots without doing anything memorable with them and often pulling plot points from past books and storylines. Many had even compared it to X-Men: Gold because of the cliches.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • Doom is often thought of and presented as someone who has superpowers, originating from the same accident that powered his nemesis team, the Fantastic Four. In actual fact, Doom's origins have little to do with the team — he did attend college with Reed Richards before his rise to dictator of Latveria, and that's where his hatred of Reed began, but much of Doom's story happened separately before menacing the family. Doom was born a peasant of Romani heritage in the fictional Latveria, before toppling a corrupt dictator and becoming a dictator himself, albeit not a personally corrupt one but still quite tyrannical and authoritarian. In regards to his powers, Doom isn't technically considered superhuman. He's primarily a brilliant scientist and genius, who is a political, legal, criminal and military mastermind, and powerful sorcerer who blends magic with science through the use of Magitek, and wearing armor that can stand up to Physical Gods while wielding enough power to take out some of Marvel's biggest heavy-hitters.
    • Also, Doom is often thought of a strictly an enemy of the Fantastic Four, as all adaptations of the team will portray Doom in such a manner. While he did debut off the pages of the team and is still essentially their most well-known enemy, with Reed Richards remaining his Arch-Enemy, it'd be more accurate to refer to Doom as the Big Bad to the Marvel Universe as a whole. His versatile skillset in magic/politics/science/military means that he's menaced the Avengers, Iron Man, the X-Men, Doctor Strange, Thor, Hulk, Spider-Man and Black Panthernote , among many others.
    • A common belief amongst those who don't read the comics and have only heard of them is that Reed is an emotionally distant and an at times abusive husband obsessed with his work, while Sue is a neglected wife who constantly cheats on him with Namor. In truth while the couple have had their issues, they've been happily married for decades with Reed being shown to care about her and their family far more than his work while Sue has never actually cheated on Reed, though her relationship with Namor has been inappropriate at times.
  • Complete Monster: See Marvel Comics
  • Creator's Pet: Depending on the Writer. Some writers who really love Doom to the point where they will go out of their way to make him look good while making the universe bend over backwards for him. Jonathan Hickman is particularly infamous for this.
  • Damsel Scrappy:
    • In the early "Invisible Girl" years of the first run, Sue was much more of a liability with her limited power set, and constantly exhibited poor judgment or absent-mindedness (as Seanbaby points out, not only did she constantly forget whether or not she was invisible, but actually walked into traffic on more than one occasion); in an effort by multiple writers to make amends for this, her power levels and competency have increased exponentially over the years, to the point where she's become by far the strongest member of the team.
    • This is the same problem with Franklin Richards. Despite his tremendous power, he is always used as a puller of retcons or this trope. From being kidnapped for experimentation, trapped in Hell to demonstrate Doom's evil, or manipulated into handing over power to Onslaught. This is why so many fans latch onto Hickman's characterization during his run or his Power Pack characterization.
  • Draco in Leather Pants: Doctor Doom is an incredibly popular villain, which can lead to dissonance between exactly how evil and villainous he is and exactly how evil and villainous his fans think he is. Also helped by several contradictory depictions of Doom over the years, with some writers giving him plenty of Pet the Dog moments and others depicting him as willing to both hurt and kill his own Morality Pets.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Evil Is Cool:
    • Doctor Doom is a perfect example in the Marvel Universe. Through a lethal combination of magic, technological prowess, and manipulative brilliance he's been their definitive supervillain (and THE definitive supervillain), and the Big Bad of more crisis crossovers than can conveniently be counted. When a Norse God and the Devil both consider you a Worthy Opponent you qualify in a major way. He has gotten so popular that he is often outsourced to other heroes like Iron Man and Spider-Man. After Secret Wars (1984) Doom more or less became the Earth-based Big Bad for the Marvel Universe itself.
    • Galactus, while not exactly evil, but is still an antagonist, and is undeniably a badass one. Like Doom, he is so popular that he has been outsourced as an enemy to many other heroes.
  • Fashion-Victim Villain:
    • Some people think Wizard looks somewhat silly with his oddly shaped helmet and pink spandex costume.
    • Trapster when he was called Paste Pot Pete seemed to fit the bill, back then he looked like a rather sloppy Mad Artist (with a beret, giant bow tie and goofy mustache) rather then a fearsome super villain. Some of his later costumes were an improvement.
    • Kang's iconic costume has always been fairly goofy, but in his earliest appearances his thigh-high boots were skin-tight and striped purple-and-black, resembling nothing so much as harlequin motley tights. Yowza.
    • Galactus. His first appearance in the final page of Fantastic Four #48 is a ridiculously stylized red and black armour that must be seen to be believed.◊
  • Fountain of Memes: Doctor Doom's counterpart in the 2005 duology is the most quotable.
  • Friendly Fandoms: FF fans tend to have a good relationship with Spider-Man fans on account of the character's long history with the team dating back to the first issue of his series, and as a result he is often treated as the unofficial fifth member of the team especially back when he joined the Future Foundation. In universe Johnny and Peter are close friends despite their antagonistic relationship in the early comics, and they are a popular pairing for fans.
  • Hard-to-Adapt Work: In concept, you wouldn't think the FF would be one of these, and they've worked well in the past when it comes to animation and a few video games. However, in terms of live-action movies, all four adaptations (The Fantastic Four, the Fantastic Four Duology and Fantastic Four (2015)) have been critically panned (although the 2000s film series got a cult following). Clearly, there's something about these characters that Hollywood hasn't yet figured out how to get right.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In one old comic book, the Fantastic Four stars in a film about themselves◊, which goes on to garner critical acclaim and secure the heroes the wealth they needed to carry on their work. Modern readers tend to find this particular story unintentionally comical, due to all live-action adaptations of the Fantastic Four being met with mostly negative reception, with the 2015 picture even becoming a box-office bomb and being considered one of the worst superhero films ever made.
  • Ho Yay: Some fans enjoy interpreting Doom's obsession with Reed (there are LOTS of disturbing fanfics about the two) and Ben's sometimes heartwarmingly (and awkwardly) close relationships with both Reed and Johnny as signs of romantic affection.
  • Hype Backlash: Much like fellow uber-Memetic Badass Squirrel Girl, the rabidity of Doom's fanbase and the way that authors seem to bend over backwards to retcon any defeat of Doom, not to mention the amount of Character Shilling he gets, has led to a devout group of Marvel fans who can't stand him.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • The Thing started out as one, constantly lamenting about his appearance and picking fights with Johnny at every given opportunity, going so far as to threaten throwing a car at him. This tension reached the ultimate breaking point when, Johnny, after a massive argument with Ben, temporarily quit the FF, of which Ben couldn't have been more happy. Even when his relationship with Alicia began, it was constantly riddled with Wangst over the fact that Alicia preferred The Thing over Ben.
    • Doctor Doom at times manages to be this. He is a horrible person whose entire motive for trying to defeat the Fantastic Four stems from his Never My Fault attitude, and for every humanizing moment he's committed so other horrible atrocity. But he also lost his mother at young age and Mephisto tormented him with nightmares of her fate in hell.
    • Galactus doesn't want to be a Planet Eater, he just has no choice but to do so in order to survive. He's even considered committing suicide multiple times, but doesn't because he can sense he will be important at the end of the universe.
  • Macekre: Can you withstand the omnipotence (and Narm) of a devourer of worlds known in Latin America as Alberto El Hambriento note ?
  • Magnificent Bastard: Doctor Doom has been Marvel's go-to Big Bad since the 1960s, and with good cause. An Evil Sorcerer, Mad Scientist, and tyrannical despot, Doom is respected and feared throughout Marvel's supervillain community, with both a Norse God and the Devil seeing him as someone to step lightly around. While many villains want to Take Over the World, Doom is one of the few who can actually pull it off, and at times he's reached well beyond even that goal, grasping for godhood with both hands. Capable of punching well out of his weight class, Victor Von Doom is the most dangerous man in the Marvel Universe and always bears watching.
  • Mainstream Obscurity: Despite being considered Marvel's number one Big Bad, being hailed by comic book fans/critics as being one of the best comic villains alive, and getting plenty of Character Shilling from various writers, Doom hasn't quite made an impact on a mainstream audience's mind the same way other villains like The Joker, Lex Luthor, Magneto, or Thanos have, despite having starred in several cinematic adaptations of the Fantastic Four. A big reason for this is that the various cinematic versions of Doom are seen as being seriously lacking in some way and the general consensus is that with only a few exceptions, many incarnations of Dr. Doom in both the television and movie medium have failed to fully capture the character's complexity and tragic persona. As such, Doom can be seen as occupying that awkward niche of being highly praised by comic book fans but at the same time, a mainstream audience might not see the big deal with Dr. Doom based on cinematic and television adaptations of the character that they've seen.
  • Memetic Badass: Doom is one of the few people who can give Batman a run for his money in this camp. Why? He's a master of both science and magic, turned a small country into an advanced global superpower through his own ingenuity, commands the fear and respect of both superheroes and supervillains, and has toppled celestial entities.
  • Memetic Mutation: Mutantface Explanation (spoilers!)
  • Moral Event Horizon:
  • More Popular Replacement: The Human Torch is far more well-known than the 1940s version to the point that people know him far more than they do with the Golden Age Human Torch who faded into obscurity for years and only come back recently over the last couple of years.
  • My Real Daddy:
    • The comic will always be defined by the immortal hundred-issue starting run of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Second place goes to John Byrne, who wrote and drew the definitive modern FF.
    • Out of all the people who worked on Marvel's First Family after Byrne, the two most fondly remembered runs, which had the most lasting impact and helped redefine the characters for new audiences, are respectively Mark Waid's and Jonathan Hickman's.
    • While Valeria Richards had existed for a while, it was Mark Millar who gave her the superintelligence she's known for, and Jonathan Hickman who established her pragmatism and Token Evil Teammate tendencies.
    • Brian Michael Bendis was the writer of Ultimate Reed Richards first outing as a villain in the Ultimate Doomsday Trilogy. However, most fans agree that Jonathan Hickman is the one who made what they know as the character by building off of Bendis' work and establishing his identity of "The Maker", powers, and his most memorable plan: the Dome and the Children of Tomorrow.
    • There are Silver Surfer fans who dislike the Stan Lee "speech-giving Messiah" take of the character. These fans instead go for Steve Englehart (who brought political intrigue and romance into the character's life, as well as got him freed from Earth), Jim Starlin (Space Opera storylines with Thanos as Surfer's rival), Ron Marz (action-based stories with Marz fleshing out Surfer's rogue gallery of enemies as well as bringing back all of the former heralds of Galactus to interact with each other), Dan Slott (who offered a more light-hearted take on the character) or George Perez (who did a massive arc where Surfer had to travel through an unexplored galaxy after being teleported into the region).
    • The circumstances of the Surfer's creation (Jack Kirby created him without Stan's input, making Kirby the sole creator of the Surfer by Stan's logic) means that Stan Lee, the writer of the fantastic 18 issue original series that gave the Surfer huge amounts of depth and poignancy, could be seen as the real Daddy for the character despite the fact that he was the first writer to work on the character.
    • Art-wise, Mœbius is sometimes nominated as the greatest artistic talent behind the Surfer.
  • Never Live It Down:
    • The one thing most Fantastic Four fans remember about Namor is the fact he has a crush on Sue.
    • A lot Reed's early characterization was quite sexist◊. Add that with the panel of Richard slapping Sue◊. It Makes Sense in Context note , but it, along with the aforementioned Namor having a crush on Sue, is often jokingly used as proof that Namor would make a better husband.
    • Trapster was originally named Paste Pot Pete before he changed his name to Trapster, a fact that many heroes and villains have mocked him for.
    • Reed's siding with Iron Man's pro-reg faction during Civil War. Especially since unlike Iron Man, he's faced zero repercussions for it thus far.
    • The time that Doctor Doom was defeated by Squirrel Girl; the ultimate scheming badass of the Marvel Universe got owned by someone who was essentially a joke. And the losses was never retconned as being Actually a Doombot due to the obscurity and ridiculousness of the story, allowed Squirrel Girl to become a popular Memetic Badass.
  • Once Original, Now Common:
    • It's hard to believe how much this comic actually played with Superhero tropes at the time it originally debuted. For starters, we had a superhero with a somewhat monstrous appearance (The Thing), the fact that the team actually spent a lot of their time fighting with each other, and that they didn't even use secret identities. Now after seeing way more Team angst and more deformed superheroes, the Fantastic Four looks almost safe in comparison.
    • There is also the fact that this team was Marvel's answer to DC's Justice League. At the 60s and 70s, they were indeed very popular and they did influence the greater Marvel Universe with their Cosmic background, science heroes, and being one of the few teams at the time where their supporting characters interacted with other heroes. However, with the rise in popularity with the X-Men in the 80s and the Avengers in the turn of the millennium, they have taken a backseat to both teams. They are still well regarded, especially since there's a noticeable backlash when Marvel started to downplay them for awhile and they are usually lumped together with X-Men and Avengers as their big three super hero teams, but newer fans find it harder to see how they helped create the Marvel Universe.
  • Older Than They Think:
    • Willie Lumpkin, the Fantastic Four's mailman, actually predates the heroes, a younger version of him having been the protagonist of a short-lived newspaper strip co-created and written by Stan Lee.
    • Although the most successful one, the Maker is not the only case of an alternate evil Reed Richards. Among others, we had the Brute (from Adam Warlock's Counter-Earth) and the Dark Raider (from Tom DeFalco's run).
  • One True Threesome: It's not uncommon for fans to ship Ben, Reed and Sue all together. Likewise, seemingly starting in the new 10s, adding Johnny onto the Spidey/MJ ship as a third partner has started to become common, in part due to his rampant Ho Yay with the former and the fact that he canonically gets along with the latter.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Sue became a lot more popular once writers started depicting her as more assertive and combat effective.
  • Rooting for the Empire: Dr. Doom's charisma, cool, and compelling story makes it easy for fans to root for him or at least not feel too bad when their favorite hero gets outdone by him. This also applies in stories where he fights Reed, between a poor Romani peasant kid immigrant who is a literal Self-Made Man and a middle-class academic who's living The American Dream, it's hard not to find Doom the more sympathetic and relatable character.
  • So Bad, It Was Better: Some fans prefer Trapster's original alias, Paste Pot Pete, purely because of how ridiculous it is.
  • Squick:
    • Reed and Sue's first meeting being Love at First Sight... when she was twelve. Matt Fraction has since retconned this version of their first meeting out of existence. It was actually one-sided on Sue's part making it more of a Precocious Crush to the college-age Reed. It's only when Sue matured by the time they met again for the fateful rocketship journey that Reed took an interest.
    • In Millar's run, Johnny reacts to seeing a future Sue die by... hiring a pair of strippers. Okay, not exactly the healthiest reaction to the situation to begin with, but they're also dressed up as Scarlet Witch and Storm, the latter of whom Johnny has worked with.
  • Super Couple: Reed and Sue are one of the longest lasting and most iconic couples in all of comics, having been married since 1965.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • Reed not being responsible for the cosmic ray accident that gave the Fantastic Four their powers is derided as being an unnecessary retcon that affects little except to very little emotional stakes to the skirmish with the Overseer.
    • The reveal that Franklin only pretended to be a mutant rallied up many fans on social media who believed that the retcon kills story potential and makes little sense in way of previous storylines.
    • The Spanish-community is quite divisive when it comes to translations. Doom's name was translated to "Muerte" (Death), and while that name was accepted in Spain for many decades, the Latin American community despises the translation, even bashing the Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes Mexican dub for using said translation, adding it to another pile of off-putting translations coming from Spain.
    • Marvel barely avoided this in an epic way in 2003. Mark Waid had revitalized the book with his great writing. Fans were shocked when it came out Waid was fired because he refused to go along with publisher Bill Jemas' plans to have the FF lose their money, move to the suburbs and turn the comic into a "wacky suburban dramedy." The reaction online was almost entirely on Waid's side, making Marvel realize that the book's sales would plummet if this went through. Waid was hired back within weeks while Jemas would leave Marvel not long afterward (that "suburban FF" story would become the Marvel Knights 4 series)
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Hyperstorm, the time-traveling son of Rachel Summers and Franklin Richards, was only used for one arc and never used again because they killed him off. He was only given a backstory for shock value and had no interaction with his parents while in the past. He was just some random Multiversal Conqueror.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Infamous Iron Man had Dr. Doom trying to be a superhero, with the Maker plotting against him in the background. This was lead to an interesting clash between Dr. Doom and Reed Richards, but with the first being good and the second evil... but then it turns out that it was Mephisto all along, posing as the Maker.
  • Toy Ship: Val and Bentley are a popular pairing, particular because they both act as Token Evil Teammates. Hell, it's not as if it's not essentially encouraged (Val actually says she'll kiss Bently when she's old enough, and Bentley actually says "I think I love you").
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
    • Franklin's Character Development in the Dan Slott run is controversial because of how he is simply a Jerkass. The comic tries to justify his attitude from his diminishing powers, but fans often don't buy it. It gives him no right to use Alicia's, his own aunt's, blindness against her and then demand his family thank him for doing so because he is giving up a piece of himself in lieu of apologizing. He proceeds to whine about being punished.
    • In an inverse of the above mentioned Rooting for the Empire, Doom's critics have reacted to attempts to pass Doom's desire for world domination this way. No matter how much writers try to say Doom's intentions are selfless, none of it changes that he's spent years of life pursuing a petty grudge against Reed Richards, showing he cares more about that than actually helping people. That is without the long list of other acts committed for equally petty reasons.
  • Values Dissonance: The early issues suffer from this even more than most other big comics of the '60s, with Reed especially coming off as a sexist asshole.
    Brad Jones: When Reed Richards was Don Draper.
  • Vanilla Protagonist:
    • The "first family" of the Marvel Universe are often considered to be far less interesting than the greater Worldbuilding they are tied to (the Negative Zone, the Skrulls, the Inhumans, Wakanda, and their Rogues Gallery: Doom, Mole Man, Namor, Galactus and others). It's certainly true that Reed Richards and Doctor Doom have the greatest rivalry in all of comics but between the two it can be hard to deny that Doom has the cooler visual design, one-liners, and charm.
    • Reed and Sue especially get hit with this. Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm were the Breakout Characters of the four having both unique personalities and awesome designs (the Human Torch is all fire while the Thing is all Rock) whereas Reed's original personality was a Standard '50s Father complete with dated sexism, with Sue treated as the Wet Blanket Wife and pre-women's lib stay-at-home Team Mom rather than a career woman, and despite being a rare woman with superpowers in her time never quite became as popular as Jean Grey. Their visual designs — Reed being a stretchy-guy and Susan turning Invisible — is not exactly eye-catching. Later writers have tried to balance the pair and made Susan more powerful and important but rarely a consistent set of personal features and the Grandfather Clause nature of the Four means that the dynamic never strays too far from how the characters were originally conceived. This also accounts in part for the Adaptation Decay since usually Johnny and Ben translate as they are (helps that their personalities are considered timeless even today), but Reed and Sue are often altered or given Adaptational Angst Upgrade.
  • WTH, Costuming Department?: In the 90's, Sue had a stint where she wore a Stripperiffic outfit. Needless to say, this was unnecessary, clashed with nearly all of her characterization, and even those who *typically* have no issue with such outfits decried it here. Eventually she reverted to the more standard uniform.
  • The Woobie:
    • Ben Grimm, mutated into the monstrous-looking Thing, but also one of the most respected and beloved superheroes in the Marvel universe. Word of God has stated that The Thing is the most beloved superhero in the entire Marvel Universe. This makes him analogous to Nightwing of DC Comics.
    • Sue Storm lost her mother at a young age and her father went to prison for killing a loan shark. She has also gone through two very difficult pregnancies and her relationship with Reed can be emotionally taxing.
    • Midnight Sun, especially when you consider what his life was like BEFORE the Kree got ahold of him.
    • Frankie Raye counts too, once she realizes that Galactus doesn't care at all about her.

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