While attending Columbia, Reed met the much younger Sue Storm, his landlady's niece, who was instantly smitten with him. Reed received her interest awkwardly at first, but they later dated steadily during Sue's own college years; Reed also befriended Sue's kid brother, Johnny.
When the huge energy-absorbing alien Gormuu sought to conquer Earth, Reed outwitted and destroyed the entity. Partly in response to this incident, government funding for Reed's starship project was cut.After the Gormuu incident, Reed was more determined than ever to further the advance of space technology, and he convinced a reluctant Ben to help him make a test flight before their project could be shut down. Sue and Johnny Storm insisted on sharing the risk with them and came along for the ride. The quartet successfully launched into space, but intense cosmic rays penetrated the ship's shielding and irradiated the crew, forcing them back to Earth. Once there, the quartet discovered that the cosmic rays had mutated them into superhumans, with Reed gaining stretching powers.
After a conflict during which he mercifully spared the life of the planet-eater Galactus, Reed found himself placed on trial in an interstellar court by survivors of the many worlds Galactus had consumed; but Reed was exonerated once the last-minute testimony of Eternity proved to the court that Galactus was a necessary aspect of the cosmos. On the family front, Sue's second child was stillborn despite Reed's frantic efforts to save their unborn baby; Reed discovered that his own long-lost father Nathaniel was living a new life with a new family on Other Earth; and an embittered Thing quit the Fantastic Four.Seeking a more normal family life again, Reed and Sue retired from the FF altogether to concentrate on raising Franklin.
When the New Warriors' actions during a taping of their reality TV show caused the deaths of hundreds of innocent people and children, Tony Stark took the lead in a Superhero Registration initiative and Reed joined him, eager to put his scientific abilities to use in the capture and imprisonment of unregistered heroes. This created a rift between Reed and Sue.Sue soon left and joined the anti-Registration side, led by their mutual friend, Captain America. In the meantime, Reed designed a prison within the Negative Zone to hold the super-powered captives, but the anti-Registration forces quickly broke into the prison and released their allies, eventually bringing the fight into downtown New York. During the fight, Sue retailed against the Taskmaster when he attacked Reed. But Captain America soon withdrew when he saw the damage done by his fight and turned himself in to the authorities. Despite finding himself on the winning side, Reed has been left to put back together the pieces of a family and a team that each joined against him before surrendering to the law.
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