Question!

[eleanorjane]

In MCU fanon, it seems quite common that Reed Richards is considered to be a dick.

Apart from having seen the two movies a while back, I know almost nothing about Fantastic Four. So, can anyone give me a potted summary as to why everyone hates Reed? :)

Comments

[lilacsigil]

It's totally true! He is one of my most hated characters ever. The main reasons are:

1. He's super-smart but extremely careless and thoughtless about it, e.g. shrinking an alien race to microscopic size so they can escape their dying planet, then not bothering to invent a way to grow them again.
2. He's constantly a cold-hearted asshole (and sometimes violent) to his wife and kids, and not just in 1960s comics
3. He called himself Mister Fantastic and seems to think this is reasonable (also their entire origin story involves him being a dick and deliberately exposing not just himself and his pilot friend, but his girlfriend and her kid brother to radiation)
4. He always knows best

You will find lots more specific examples, such as here, here and ongoing scenes like this (the guy Reed is talking to has just lost his daughter, for context).

Also, the trope of Reed Richards Is Useless is a common one but it's named after him because he's both useless and such a dick about it.

[eleanorjane]

I am entirely 100% sold on the Reed Richards Is A Dick school of thought. What an ass.

[ilyena_sylph]

Yep!

I was just coming to agree with lilacsigil, and then you'd commented already, so I will just say 'yes. that. what she said. a lot.'

[settiai]

+1

[melannen]

In Reed's defense, there are entire arcs of the comic where he's not an asshole, he's just a guy who's really, really bad at people and has made some mistakes and sometimes tends to get lost in SCIENCE!!! instead of thinking things all the way through.

...however those arcs never last more than a couple years. And there haven't been many in the last decade or so.