Today in Comics History, July 26, 1976: Reed Richards can read newspapers and tell the date

from Fantastic Four (1961 series) #176 (Marvel, November 1976), script by Roy Thomas, pencils by George Pérez, inks by Joe Sinnott, colors by Michele Wolfman, letters by Joe Rosen

Reed Richards Has Got a Great Big Brain

For a technology nut, it's always a great time to hang around the Fantastic Four. Why, Reed Richards invents more before breakfast than can be contained in your average issue of Wired magazine! (Holiday gift issue not included.) Give that man a problem and he won't just solve it, he'll invent a machine that will make it more complicated and then solve it! Why? Why, you ask? Because that's the way Doc Rick rolls.

So, let's drop in on superherodom's kookiest kouple to see what just rolled off the drawing board:



So. Reed Richards has invented...the telephone. And he's made it bigger and bulkier. Granted, it's a visiphone...but with no visible screen.

And he's using it to contact a furniture store. "You know, Reed, we have a regular telephone.." "Quiet, you!"

Ah well. Let the man invent his little rubbery heart out, won't you? After all, it's not rocket science.



Whoops. Never mind.

Reed Richards, Super Genius

Reed Richards: he's probably the smartest man in the world. (Well, on Earth-616, at least.) Reed himself has described Hercules-buddy Amadeus Cho as the seventh smartest person in the world, so who does that leave for numbers two through six? Hmmm, let's see...I'd put Doctor Doom at a perpetual number two, and then maybe Bruce Banner, Hank McCoy...then Hank Pym...and then probably Hank Williams. But there's no doubt in my mind that Reed's gumby-brain is top of the pops in his world, because what other man could create quantum portals, thought projectors, super-computers, human-rights-violating mega-prisons, a cure for acne, H.E.R.B.I.E., not to mention a giant robot that could knock Galactus's block off. He also invented the McDLT.

As we've seen in the past, however, some of Reed Richards's inventions are a little half-baked or possibly hastily rushed into production by drunken gnomes. Witness, for example, the phone without a 'zero' key. Well, Ben Grimm had himself a good long rocky bellylaugh about that one, but Reed didn't take it personally. He just went back to his lab and created a super high-tech visi-phone the likes of which was not seen on Earth until Reed leased the patent to Steve Jobs for the iPhone.


Panel from Fantastic Four #56 (November 1966), script by Stan Lee, pencils by Jack Kirby, inks by Joe Sinnott, letters by Artie Simek

So what is the Space-Time Research Visi-Phone? Is it a quantum-powered communicator to other dimensions? Is it a futuristic recording device so Ben can watch and re-watch his favorite episodes of Monty Python's Flying Circus? Does it allow Reed-616 to gossip with Reed-617? Actually, no. It's an electronic viewscreen to the Space Time Room, another one of Reed's labs in the Baxter Building. In other words, this impressive piece of KirbyTech is just for peering into the next room. Reed has invented...the window.

But it's not really the Space-Time Research Visi-Phone that's the impressive thing here...it's this:

Reed Richards has invented the pad of paper and pencil you keep by the telephone.

He's even invented the personalized note-pad.

But that's Reed Richards for you! Always inventing things that are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike useful things. You may scoff, go ahead! But why shouldn't he invent? After all, it's not exactly rocket science!




Um. Never mind.

There'll be a hot time in the old town tonight

Hey, kids, it's time for another exciting

Please pick up your pencils, protractors, and lead bibs and prepare for the quiz. You have a total time period of a half-life lasting 4.5 billion years to complete the questions.

QUESTION: Willowy, worried Tony Stark is testing a nuclear bomb in the parking lot of the Long Island branch of Stark Industries, but...a superfluous and stray superhero soars southerly, flying overhead mere moments before the detonation.

Assuming a rocketing velocity of 210 mph from ground to the level of the stray superhero, and taking into account an easterly wind of 15 knots, and also that Tony Stark has had two shots of bourbon with his Wheaties this morning, how long will it take Iron Man to reach and warn away The Angel (appearing by kind permission of "X-Men Magazine")?


Whoops. Well, that'll happen.

Let's try another question. Upon being exposed to point blank high-atomic radiation and severe intense fallout, a human being will:

A: Gain the ability to climb up walls and shoot silken strands out of his posterior?

B: Achieve fantastic dexterity and gymnastic abilities, heightened senses beyond those of normal men, and oh yeah, go blind?



C: gain thousands of pounds of muscle mass in minutes, turning yourself grey, green, grey again, green yet again, then maybe red for some weird reason?



No, no, I'm afraid the answer is D: Become evil.

Wha...wait just a doggone minute! Become evil?!?




So, remember: That's D: Become evil:


Never fear, mutant-maniacs, by the end of the story Warren Worthington's all cured and his lovable, feathery self, going right back to hitting on the girlfriend of his best pal and flaunting his inherited money in front of his classmates.

Well, there you go, science fans. Radiation: it does a body good. Well, more to the point, it doesn't really do a body any harm. So, be like famous science guy Reed Richards: immerse yourself in radiation every day!



And above all, always remember:
RADIOACTIVITY: IT'S NOT LIKE IT'S ROCKET SCIENCE OR ANYTHING.

Still a few bugs in the iComics system

I've got an iPhone. And you know, I like the idea of reading comics on it. The serialization of Jeff Smith's Bone (six issues so far) ported over to the iPhone has me buying this story for the fourth time just to have it in the cool portable format.

But there's clearly a lot of progress that needs to be made before this medium makes any challenges at all to print. Witness the Star Trek Archives: Best of Peter David comic by iVerse Media, being sold on the iTunes Store. It presents, in iPhone format, one of those clever and pretty fun PAD DC Trek issues set between the movies.



Why, the whole thing's only 99¢. That's a lot of fun for less'n a buck. Sign me up for that...it oughta be the perfect way to view the adventures of Middle-Aged Kirk, Freshly-Resurrected Spock, Still-Crusty McCoy, and "the rest."



Except it isn't. Because the program crashes on screen 102.



Not that has stopped iVerse Media from selling the program. No, it's still available with a caveat emptor: "But it, but it doesn't work. We sent the fix into Apple, it's not our fault they haven't posted it yet!"

To be fair, iPhone apps receive free upgrades when a new version comes out. But heck guys, how hard is it to test-drive your own product—and how un-stringent (astringent?) must the iStore testing procedures for vetting a program be? Why, I bet Reed Richards could make an iPhone comic work first time out! He's one of the most brilliant scientific minds in the multiverse, and after all, this ain't rocket science.


Um. Nevermind.

Reed Richards, Genius Inventor

Mister Fantastic, Reed Richards! One of the most brilliant minds of his universe. Creator of the Negative Zone portal, the Flying Bathtub Fantasticar, and one bajillion ways to turn the Thing back into Ben Grimm. (Uh, forget that last one.) Can turn a paperclip and a rubber band into a time machine faster than you can say "MacGyver." Able to calculate pi to a googol digits in his head. Inventor of the phone without a zero key:


"Reed, oh no! Franklin's choking on his Hulk-i-Os cereal! Quickly, dial the operator to get an ambulance!"

"Uhhhhhhhh..."

Oh well, it's just a phone. It's not rocket science, is it?


Reed Richards: Loving husband. Faithful friend. Doting father. Heckuva nice guy. Sometimes can't invent his way out of a paper bag.

Reed Richards: Math Genius!

Panels from Fantastic Four #133 (April 1973), written by Roy Thomas and Gerry Conway, art by Ramona Fradon, Joe Sinnott, and Stan Goldberg, lettering by John Costanza
1900+75=1973. To Reed, at least. Well, it's a good thing that his job doesn't depend on being precise with numbers...I mean, it's not rocket science, is it?


(Flashback) panels from Fantastic Four #261 (December 1983), written and drawn by John Byrne, colors by Glynis Wein, lettering by Jim Novak
Oh. Well, that explains that.