365 Days of KirbyTech, Day 37: Reed Richards' Iconometric-Frammistat

It occurs to me I need to have a sub-section of KirbyTech designated Things for Ben Grimm to Lug Around, just so we can cover the class of mechanical and electronic objects that are really big, really heavy, and serve no true story purpose except that they are Things for Ben Grimm to Lug Around. For example: Reed Richards' Iconometric-Frammistat!


Panel from Fantastic Four (1961 series) #45 (December 1965), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Joe Sinnott, letters by Artie Simek
The Iconometric-Frammistat! We don't know what it does, do we? We get no clue from context: it's not being used in the story, simply cleared out to make room for Dragon Man (not to be confused with the television show Make Room for Daddy, although upon seeing each, Danny Thomas is known to have done a spit-take).Well, an iconometer can measure the distance at which something is if you know its size (or the size of it if you know its distance) through use of a measured lens or lenses. Iconometry is the art of doing this measuring-type stuff, and an iconometric object is one that does such measuring. A framistat (note the difference in spelling) is a nonsense word meaning "doohickey," "thingamajig," or "whatchamacallit." The variation "frammistat" seems rather lax of Reed, who generally gives his devices a double-barreled name that pins down its purpose squarely, but let's allow him this one, okay? So, a device for measuring distances or sizes: quite possible either galactic or microscopic, considering the scale of the machine. And Reed's warning not to shake it? Quite possibly a confirmation that there are lenses within it that need to be handled gently.

So there you go: the Iconometric-Frammistat! And it's a thing for Ben Grimm to lug around, too!