Reed Richards (Earth-1610)

Onerous Childhood[]

Gary and Mary Richards had their first child, a son named Reed and almost immediately, the Richards suspected that there was something special about Reed, who displayed his curiosity from the day he was born. As a child, he demonstrated remarkable intelligence, well ahead of that of his peers. While other children engaged in sports or played games, Reed devoted himself to the sciences. His father often found him cannibalizing household appliances in an effort to create something never before seen by man—an act that often earned him his father's ire and would lead to physical abuse.^[29][30]

Reed's heightened intellect naturally made him the subject of ridicule at his school. Fortunately, he managed to become friends with the school's star linebacker, Ben Grimm. Ben generally associated with Reed in order to get help with his trigonometry homework, but he valued him enough to help him against the school bullies.^[29]

When Reed was only ten years old, he began developing schematics for a device that could transmit matter across the dimensional plane. He displayed his work at the Midtown Middle School Science Fair, where he successfully teleported a toy car into an alternate dimension. This garnered him the attention of the Director of Mainland Technology Development.^[29]

An agent named Lieutenant Lumpkin, who was present for Reed's Science Fair experiment, recommended him for induction into a special government think tank—a program that recruited young geniuses in the hopes of creating the scientific leaders of the future. Lumpkin approached Reed's parents for their permission, and explained that the government would pay them a nominal fee for allowing them to take Reed under their care.^[29]

Think Tank[]

Lumpkin brought Reed to the Baxter Building, the central hub for the Mainland Technology Development consortium. He began working under the auspices of noted scientist Dr. Franklin Storm. Storm introduced Reed to his "greatest achievements," his daughter, Susan, and her younger brother, Johnny.^[29]

Reed's father was relieved to get rid of him, so Reed rarely saw his family thereafter. His only close contacts were his fellow students and his dog Einstein. Missing his family, Reed covertly constructed a "Fantasti-Car," a fuel free vehicle with the capacity to fly at MACH-7, but he never used it.^[31]

For the next several years, Reed continued to work on his teleportation technology. The Baxter Building provided him with all of the resources at their disposal and they even developed an oscillating window that could peer into an otherworldly plane of reality known as the N-Zone.^[31]

During this time, Reed met a fellow student named Victor van Damme. Victor was a brash and arrogant student, known for his enmity toward his fellow students. One day, Reed caught Victor in his room rifling through his notes. Victor had taken it upon himself to read Reed's research, adjusting various calculations along the way. Reed was furious, but soon discovered that Victor was equally brilliant. He invited him to work alongside him on the N-Zone project. Over the next five years Van Damme helped Reed with his N-Zone math, while Reed aided Victor's work in miniaturized robotics.^[31]

The Fantastic Four[]

By the time they reached adulthood, the young geniuses were ready to test their N-Zone transmitter technology on biological matter. The think tank erected a large platform in the Nevada desert for their first major testing phase. Reed's old school chum, Ben Grimm, showed up at the testing site to visit him. He was on college holiday and wanted to see how his childhood pal was getting along.^[31]

Accompanied by a bevy of military officers and scientists, Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm and Victor Van Damme stood at the control panels of the transmit platform. What the other four didn't realize, however, was that Victor had surreptitiously altered the coordinates on the transmitter device. They activated the machine hoping to teleport an apple into the N-Zone. Instead, they tore open a dimensional breach in space and all five disappeared in a blinding flash of light.^[31]

Reed awakened several yards away. As he rose to his feet, he discovered that he now possessed the ability to stretch and remold his body into any variety of shapes. Ben, Sue, and Johnny had also developed powers of their own. They soon encountered the clay-based creations of Dr. Molekevic, subsequently foiling his plot.^[32]

Only one member of the group affected by the N-Zone accident remained unaccounted for: Victor Van Damme, the man responsible for the Fantastic Four's failed assassination.^[33] Victor established a small community in Denmark under his control using neural implants, and when the foursome arrived he took down each of them until only Reed stood in his way. Reed fought Victor, winning until he unleashed his "subjects" upon them. Unable to convince Van Damme to help him reverse the changes, and unable to force him as he had diplomatic immunity, Reed returned his focus to science by perfecting his N-Zone transporter and adapting it to both time travel and accessing parallel dimensions.^[34]

After the team went public battling the extra-dimensional alien Nihil in Las Vegas,^[35] Reed began craving the public approval of being a superhero, perhaps compensating for his father's disapproval. He once made contact with another reality and learned that, at least in that reality, he would marry Sue and have two kids with her, Franklin and Valeria, though it was actually a trick from Earth-2149's zombified Reed.^[3] He balanced his obsessive love of science against his romantic relationship with Sue Storm and his new celebrity hero status. Reed and Sue's love would be tested by the king of Atlantis, Namor, who was infatuated with Sue, but it remained strong.^[36]

Just as Reed proposed to Sue, the Ultimatum Wave hit New York, leaving Sue in a coma and killing Dr. Franklin Storm. Instead of staying with Sue, Reed went after the culprits.^[16] Reed realized that Victor was the true mastermind and prompted the Thing to go to Latveria and kill him,^[37][18] though it was his replacement Mary that died.^[38] During the funeral of Dr. Storm, Reed's marriage proposal was rejected by Sue, who was hurt by Reed abandoning her, and the Fantastic Four disbanded. Nowhere to go, Reed moved back in with his parents.^[18]

Ultimate Enemy[]

Unable to accept the destruction Magneto caused, that the team split up, and most of all, that Sue rejected his proposal, Reed's worldview began to change drastically. This view was catalyzed by the information given to him by the time-traveller Kang, that the world was going to end eventually.^[39] Six months later, Reed faked his death and had the Richards home blown apart, killing his family. Reed arranged attacks by alien creatures on the Baxter Building, the Triskelion, Roxxon, and Peter Parker's home.^[40][41]

Sue and Nova (Rick Jones) discovered that Project Pegasus had been broken into and all of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents posted there had been killed. There, Reed was caught controlling the alien creatures responsible for the earlier attacks, hauling objects that Project Pegasus was keeping safe into a portal.^[42] Sue, angered about the attacks and his faked death, attempted to kill Reed, but he was able to neutralize her and subjected her to extreme pain. Nova missed Reed with a projectile attack that ended up destabilizing the portal, causing it to suck in objects with a strong vacuum effect. Reed was pulled in and Sue was left nearly dead from this encounter.^[41]

Reed, busy planning his endgame from his new lair in Quadrant 77 of the Negative Zone, was later confronted by the heroes of Earth. They defeated him and his alien minions with little effort, giving him a chance to explain his actions. Johnny unleashed a massive flame attack on Richards out of revenge for hurting his sister, disfiguring the right side of Reed's face. Reed lost functionality of his right arm, causing it to hang lifelessly elongated at his side. While the heroes were busy destroying his lair, Reed was flung from the ground and was left floating aimlessly about the Negative Zone with the wreckage of his base.^[43]

Children of Tomorrow[]

Richards found a way of returning to Earth through the use of the dead brains of his alien soldiers as wetware computers for the wrecked systems of the otherwise still functional teleporter. After he returned he gathered together individuals and founded a group called Children of Tomorrow, whose aim was to perfect the world.^[21] Their base was built in Northern Germany and called the Dome. In the Dome's interior, time passed at an accelerated rate compared to the outside world. Over 900 years passed inside the Dome, so their inhabitants evolved to perfect superhumans. The EDI sent Captain Britain, Captain France, Captain Italy, and Captain Spain, along with Thor, to attack the Dome. The Children proved to be formidable opponents, who defeated the heroes.^[14]

Searching for the source of power of Thor, the Children killed all the Asgardians and drained their power, leaving Thor powerless and in need of saving by Iron Man, while the Captains were captured. Thor, using an upgraded version of his hammer and belt, teleported himself inside the sentient City of the Children, rescued Captain Britain and faced Richards, now under the new alias of the Maker. After being defeated again by the Children, it was revealed to Thor that the Maker was Reed Richards. Reed left Thor alive and allowed him to escape along with Captain Britain to deliver the message about Richards' newest plans.^[44]

After S.H.I.E.L.D. convinced Zorn and the Hulk to attack the Children (but the latter was then convinced to help them), the Maker deployed an anti-matter attack on Washington, D.C., killing the President, his Cabinet and the Congress, with only Secretary of Energy Howard surviving and becoming the next President. After Tony Stark contacted the new President to make a plan against the Children, Stark was provided as a prisoner for the Children to seal a pact of peace.^[45][46]

When Richards was about to vivisect Stark, Tony's self-conscious technology interfacer brain tumor named Anthony convinced the City to rebel against the Maker because of his master's counter-evolutionary acts of war and allowed Anthony to create a giant Iron Man Armor and use it against Richards and become the new leader of the Children. Richards defended himself using a Giant-Man serum on the Hulk, but he was finally defeated by Sue Storm and presumably handed over to S.H.I.E.L.D.^[47]

Ultimates Disassembled[]

Richards was freed by Kang, who wanted him to gather the Infinity Gems from the Ultimates. The heroes barely escaped, but Captain America decided to be left behind in order to stop the villains, although he was defeated.^[48] Using numerous H.E.R.B.I.E. Trons, Reed forced global powers to negotiate peace; undid global patents and copyright standards (making any scientific progress to the public domain); liberated all Stark, Roxxon, Hammer and Osborn technology; removed financial blockage by attacking the World Bank headquarters; distributed Utopia's sentient seed; and deployed hybrid zero emission energy technology.^[49]

The seventh gem was revealed to be located in the brain of Tony Stark, who was kidnapped by Quicksilver.^[49] The Maker performed a surgery on Stark's brain while his H.E.R.B.I.E. Trons were trying to reach the Earth's core in order to acquire the final gem. Richards finally got the last gem, and left Tony Stark to die.^[50] Stark's consciousness survived electronically, and he rescued the Ultimates from the Negative Zone after infiltrating Reed's network.^[51] Reed used a brainwashed Human Torch to retrieve the final gem, which was used by Kang to come to the aid of Richards when he was being outnumbered by the Ultimates.^[52] During a furious battle, Iron Man managed to get the Gems, but before any of the Dark Ultimates could retrieve them, an immense flux of energy echoed through time and space. Kang alerted that it was too late to prevent what she came to stop and vanished, stating she had to go back further in time, abandoning Reed, who was imprisoned in The Cube.^[39]

Cataclysm[]

When an entity known as Galactus came from another universe to this one, Reed Richards decided to escape custody and try to put differences aside with the Ultimates in order to stop Galactus, who arrived at Earth, from consuming the planet. As the Ultimates tried to use a interdimensional portal to seek help on how to stop Galactus from the Reed Richards from Galactus' universe, Richards convinced them to let him go to that Earth, as he would still be able to access the other Richards' files even if his counterpart wasn't available at the moment to help them.^[53]

Richards convinced the Ultimates to let him go, but he had to be accompanied by Miles Morales. Both him and Miles used the portal and arrived to Earth-616. At the Baxter Building, Reed discovered that his counterpart had a happy life along with Sue, and even had children. Upon gathering the information necessary about Galactus, Reed and Miles were approached by Valeria Richards, the daughter of Earth-616's Reed and Sue, who activated an override protocol of an army of H.E.R.B.I.E.s to attack the intruders. Reed and Miles managed to escape and return to Earth-1610, with the information needed. Reed then apologized to Susan for all of his wrongdoings, as Valeria proved there was still hope for them, even if it was Earth-616.^[54]

For Richards' plan to be carried out, the presence of Kitty Pryde was needed. She would be injected with the Giant-Man serum in order to use her phasing powers to short circuit Galactus' machine, which would turn all the matter of Earth into compatible energy, and her super density powers would cause sufficient damage to Galactus.^[55] When the plan was carried out, Reed used Kitty Pryde merely as a distraction to open a portal to the Negative Zone and send Galactus to it. The plan was a success and Earth was saved.^[56]

FF[]

Reed later started using the remains of the Baxter Building to continue his work, and claimed that discovering the future he could have had with Sue made him feel remorse for his past actions. When a Spider-Ham from an alternate universe arrived to Earth-1610 to warn its heroes about the impending doom, only able to be fixed by the offspring of Sue and Reed, the Invisible Woman visited the Baxter Building, willing to get back with Reed, even if she didn't want to.^[38] However, he managed to convince her to seek another path. Sue and Reed raided a S.H.I.E.L.D. lab from where they gathered genetic material from Ben Grimm, and artificially impregnated Sue with a female child.^[57]

Time Runs Out[]

While S.H.I.E.L.D. was being reconstructed after it was disbanded following Galactus' attack, Nick Fury offered Reed a position in the new S.H.I.E.L.D., needing someone to imagine every possible threat and prepare a countermeasure. Reed accepted; however, his supposed redemption had been a façade. He secretly continued his operations as The Maker in underground Manhattan, also reconstructing the City to help him. He chose not to unleash the Children of Tomorrow, however, believing that the world was not ready. At some point, he became aware of the incursions and began destroying alternate Earths to protect his own. He also built a Bridge to see alternative realities to observe other universes undergoing incursions. In the following months, he destroyed sixty-seven Earths. While preparing to destroy a Mapmaker dead world, he saw that Earth detonate prematurely, and witnessed the arrival of Earth-616's Cabal, who had destroyed it.^[2]

The Maker allied with the Cabal, and together they began working on a way of surviving the final incursion. After having recreated the Dome, the Maker summoned Nick Fury to inform him of the incursions, and convinced him to attempt to destroy the colliding Earth during the final incursion, which would pit the last remaining universes against each other; Earth-1610 and Earth-616. When the final incursion happened, S.H.I.E.L.D. launched a full attack on Earth-616 while the Maker moved the Dome to New York City, which had become the incursion point of this event.^[58]

Secret Wars[]

With designs stolen from the heroes of Earth-616, the Maker created the life raft that would secure him and his allies when the Multiverse perished.^[59] After the last two universes were destroyed, the raft found its way onto Battleworld, a patchwork planet composed of the remnants of different realities held together by the now-omnipotent Doctor Doom of Earth-616.

Eight years after the creation of Battleworld, the Maker's raft was discovered in a section known as Utopolis. When it was investigated by the Thor Corps, the police force of Battleworld, the vessel was accidentally opened, and its occupants were freed from their suspended animation, quickly drawing the attention of Battleworld's authorities.^[60] The Maker and the Cabal went on the move, but the Thor Corps soon caught up with them,^[61] leading to a confrontation. The survivors of Earth-616 soon joined the brawl after being freed from their own life raft by Doctor Strange, the sheriff of Battleworld and Doom's right hand. When Doom stepped in after noticing the presence of Mister Fantastic, Reed's Earth-616 counterpart and one of the survivors of Earth-616, Doctor Strange used his magic to teleport them all away to prevent them from suffering Doom's wrath.^[62]

Both Reeds, the Maker and Mister Fantastic, joined forces in order to find a way to defeat Doom.^[63] When numerous conspirators attacked Doomstadt, the Reeds used the event as a distraction to sneak into Castle Doom^[64] and find Doom's source of power: the Molecule Man,^[65] which had previously been identified with the help of Reed's allies.^[63] As soon as the two Reeds confronted the Molecule Man, the Maker betrayed his counterpart, considering him weak and soft, and captured him in a time bubble. However, the Molecule Man defended Reed, and cut the Maker into slices, seemingly killing him. When Mister Fantastic was subsequently given the power of Doom by the Molecule Man, he began recreating all of reality.^[65] As the Molecule Man powered up Reed's new Multiverse, he placed a sliver of the Maker in every reality, leading to the presence of the Maker's mind spread throughout every universe as a single mind inhabiting a different body for each reality.^[4]

W.H.I.S.P.E.R.[]

The Maker set his sights on the reborn Earth-616, which had become the focal point of the new Multiverse. With new resources at his hand, Reed desired to re-merge the Multiverse and empower its sentience, Eternity, to prepare it for a looming war.^[4] To this end, the Maker allied himself and became the leader of W.H.I.S.P.E.R, a scientific/terrorist organization.^[66]

One his first experiments was "Life-Minus," which consisted of capturing the souls of the dead in crystals, creating a new form of life.^[67] The Maker unleashed the Neohedron in Paris, where it proceeded to use a higher-dimensional frequency to turn people's heads into crystals for the dead to control their bodies.^[66] This plan was, however, thwarted by the New Avengers of A.I.M. (Avengers Idea Mechanics).^[67]

The Maker decided that A.I.M.'s resources would be useful for his mission, and implanted self-replicating nano-cameras in their headquarters, Avenger Base Two,^[68] after a W.H.I.S.P.E.R. agent made contact with the New Avengers during a mission in Tokyo.^[69] When S.H.I.E.L.D. became in conflict with A.I.M., the Maker took the chance to strike their base with his New Revengers with the intent of a performing a takeover.^[70]

However, the Maker's plan soon fell apart when he discovered A.I.M. and their leader Roberto da Costa had known about the nano-cameras, and used them to their advantage, feeding the Maker what they wanted him to see and hear.^[71] After Songbird manipulated S.H.I.E.L.D. into bombing W.H.I.S.P.E.R.'s headquarters,^[72] the Maker decided to retreat and leave the remaining New Revengers to continue fighting the New Avengers while he moved to Plan B, which consisted of kidnapping the President from the Air Force One and selling him to the highest bidder.^[73]

In a turn of events, da Costa overturned Reed's plan yet again, and led him to unwittingly teleporting himself to a fake Air Force One made up by Warlock. Da Costa revealed A.I.M. themselves had used the moment in Tokyo when W.H.I.S.P.E.R. infected them with nano-cameras to implant their own on W.H.I.S.P.E.R.'s agent, and the surveillance had granted him the knowledge of every aspect of the Maker's plan. The leaders of the two scientific organizations fought, and the Maker was defeated at last. Reed was subsequently delivered by da Costa directly to the government and imprisoned in a special cell, while professing his subordinates would come for him.^[4]

Eternity War[]

Using his ability to exist in every universe at once, the Maker bypassed his imprisonment by simply bringing a different body from an adjacent reality,^[26] and carried on with his task to help evolve the Multiverse. To this end, he sought the help of High Evolutionary in order to establish a common goal.^[74] After harvesting the essence from the Aspirants created by the First Firmament, the Maker used the High Evolutionary's technology to destroy the Superflow, the space that separated each universe, successfully bringing every universe together into a single reality to give Eternity the strength to defeat the First Firmament.^[26] However, this allowed the First Firmament to overwhelm Eternity. The Ultimates confronted the Maker about the consequences of his actions, but instead of admitting he made a mistake, he ordered the newly resurrected original Ultimates from his defunct home universe to attack the Ultimates. After a brief fight, the two teams called a truce, which prompted the Maker to kill Captain America for his disobedience. When the Maker tried to kill the others, Spectrum and the High Evolutionary destroyed his then-current body. The resurrected Earth-1610 Ultimates—angered that the Maker had used them as pawns in his scheme to turn the Multiverse into a singularity—began hunting his incarnations across the Multiverse.^[75]

Future Foundation[]

In one universe the Maker began working with the local Toni Ho on symbiotes, but eventually murdered her for an unknown reason. When her girlfriend, a reborn version of Rikki Barnes, showed up later he also killed her, causing Rikki to be reborn back to the main universe.^[76]

Another body of the Maker was somehow imprisoned in L'ar Gath Five space prison. There he made some of his fellow prisoners, Phyllis, Kl'rath, and Warbird his associates. When the Future Foundation led by Alex Power began breaking Rikki out of the prison as part of their quest to find the scattered pieces of Molecule Man, they also broke out the Maker, since they mistook him for Mister Fantastic.^[77] After Maker and his allies entered the Foundation's ship he decided to collect Molecule Man's pieces for himself and so they tried to hijack their ship and kill them, before the Foundation counteracted.^[78] However, seeing that the prison security was catching up to them, while their ship was having difficulties elevating, they decided to fight together until they were safe to properly take off.^[76] In space, he and his allies attacked the Foundation, but unbeknownst to him Kl'rath had been killed and replaced by Lyja who had been impersonating Yondu. During the fight Tong lured the Maker to her using a piece of the Molecule Man. He ordered his two other allies to go after her, since the other children created two holograms of Tong confusing the Maker. Maker ended up following the right one and fought her and her siblings, finally getting the piece before being confronted by Rikki. Rikki was able to mortally wound Maker thanks to Leech negating his powers, but he just laughed as his other body arrived in another spaceship and destroyed the Foundation's after getting the piece.^[79]

Project Oversight[]

At some point, the Maker submitted an application to join the Interdimensional Council of Reeds, which under the moniker of "Project Oversight" tasked him with finding a means of returning to — and if need be restoring and conquering — Earth-1610. Constructing an interdimensional portal to his home dimension, the Maker discovered that it would not allow him to pass through unscathed, but he was able to retrieve a damaged sample of his original universe's Venom symbiote. Hypothesizing that bonding to it would protect him from the dangers of interdimensional travel, the Maker set out to find a way of restoring it.^[80]

Following Venom's battle with a symbiote-dragon in the middle of Manhattan, the Maker—somehow aware of the symbiote-dragon's connection to a primordial god of darkness—dispatched an extraction team to obtain a sample, intending to merge it with the Ultimate Venom symbiote. While the team was successful, they came across a badly-injured Eddie Brock, and the Venom symbiote took over him and lashed out—feral and acting on instinct. Venom evaded capture for three weeks, during which time the sample of the Grendel symbiote was stolen from the Maker's lab. Believing Eddie to either be responsible for the theft or know the thief's identity, the Maker captured Venom and spent two weeks attempting to interrogate Eddie, but was unsuccessful due to the Venom symbiote erasing parts of Eddie's memory it sensed would traumatize him. When Eddie asked if the braindead Venom symbiote could be fixed, Maker stated that the only way to do that was to connect it with the Symbiote Hive Mind, and that the last person to have done so was the late Flash Thompson.^[81] To test this hypothesis, as well as search for an alternate means of restoring the Ultimate Venom symbiote, the Maker extracted trace remnants of symbiote matter—which he called a codex—from a sample of blood from Thompson taken during his time as Agent Venom; intending to exhume Thompson's corpse to acquire additional samples. However, the Venom symbiote went berserk, assimilating Thompson's codex and helping Venom escape.^[82] Undaunted, the Maker began building a machine to extract codices, intending to use it to acquire the material needed to achieve his goals.

When Eddie started suffering from what he thought was cancer, Dylan Brock brought him to the hospital, where Maker caught up to Eddie and started studying him. As the symbiote cocooned Eddie, Maker was unsure what was causing his illness. When Eddie woke up, he informed Maker to look after Dylan, who was actually Eddie's son. Maker tried to help Eddie in removing the symbiote, despite his concerns about Eddie's life. The detachment was successful, but both men were knocked out.^[83]

Absolute Carnage[]

When Carnage started harvesting the codex of every symbiote host, Maker relocated his machine to Rex's warehouse in order to use it as a base of operations; where he was approached by Venom, Dylan, and Spider-Man. Spider-Man then brought his godson, Normie Osborn to get his Carnage codex extracted from of his body, but they argued about the boy's safety when the Maker expressed the desire to test his machine on Normie. Annoyed by Spider-Man's vehement refusal, the Maker suggested they test the machine on Norman Osborn, and Venom went with Spider-Man to get him.^[84] After the Maker finished his machine, he decided to test it on Normie anyway, but Dylan tried to stop him. However, they were then attacked by Agony, Riot, Lasher, and Phage, which had bonded to a family.^[85]

Having installed anti-symbiote weaponry into the warehouse, the Maker was successful in detaching the symbiotes from the family, along with Sleeper from Tel-Kar's corpse. Putting the captured symbiotes in canisters to be disposed of, the Maker placed the former hosts in his machine and activated it, amusedly remarking that the calibration was off when the father of the family began screaming in pain. Calling Eddie, the Maker told him that Dylan was actually Anne Weying's codex incarnated as a human.^[86][10] Not wanting to let the Maker harm Normie, Dylan freed the Life Foundation symbiotes, which fused back into Hybrid and bonded to the Maker. He started to chase down Dylan, but was attacked by Captain America, Wolverine, Thing, and Spider-Man. Hybrid attempted to claim Captain America's codex, but was doused in napalm by Sleeper and set ablaze by Hawkeye, killing the gestalt symbiote and allowing the Maker to escape into the sewers.^[87][88]

Restoring Earth-1610[]

Returning to his lair, the Maker communicated with his superiors and informed them of his failure to secure the codices he'd intended to use to repair the Earth-1610 Venom symbiote. Annoyed but undeterred, the Maker vowed to use whatever means necessary to return to his home dimension and restore it, expressing an interest in studying Dylan Brock.^[80] When the Gwen Stacy of Earth-65 began attending Earth-616's Empire State University, the Maker began keeping tabs on her—viewing her as a potential complication to his plans.^[89]

After fixing and enhancing his universe's Venom symbiote, Maker was then visited by Eddie and his son Dylan. Eddie wanted Maker to check on Dylan, but Maker refused stating that he already got what he needed and his work with Eddie was now over, revealing that he was now bonded to his own symbiote. Suddenly they were attacked by Virus who wanted to get his revenge on Venom, causing Maker's portal to malfunction and send them through the multiverse. Maker returned to his universe, but found New York in a state of disarray and chaos, much to his own satisfaction.^[27]

Edward Brock, having defeated Knull to become the new King in Black, detected the threat that the Maker posed through the collective memory of the symbiotes. Seeing how the Maker used a symbiote to return to his universe, Brock warned the Avengers, the Guardians of the Galaxy, the Quiet Council of Krakoa, and the Silver Surfer of the threat of the Maker as he believed that the mad scientist was being backed by the Council of Reeds and would eventually return to replace the current universe with his own.^[90]

A Perfect World[]

As time passed, the Maker used the body that was in the government's custody since his defeat at the hands of Roberto Da Costa to brainwash the rotating team of therapists sent to treat him. In turn, they enlisted a team of mercenaries to break into his cell within Damage Control Remote Prison 42 and bring him his gear. After escaping, the Maker infiltrated the Baxter Building to rob a databank on super heroes from his Earth-616 counterpart before hopping throughout the world to steal technology from the Illuminati, using the thefts as a calling card to lure their attention. Reed used the material stolen to build a teleporter to make a jump to another universe that he could call his home, and taunted the Illuminati as they attempted and failed to stop him.^[91]

The Maker arrived on Earth-6160, a reality which had the markings to follow the history of Earth-616 in broad strokes. Employing a time machine called the Immortus Engine, the Maker proceeded to reshape the history of the world to his image, most notably using the databank stolen from the Baxter Building to prevent the emergence of super heroes, establishing himself as the world's imperator, headquartered in a new City within Latveria. Inside the City, the Maker also trapped his Earth-6160 counterpart, and made this world's Reed Richards his prisoner. The Earth came to be divided into seven major territories, whose leaders formed a secret council under the leadership of the Maker. Studying several iterations of experimental societies within a new City that he built in this world's Latveria, Richards came to the conclusion that genuine long-term peace was unattainable. Because of this, the cabal of world leaders orchestrated conflicts and alliances between their nations, so as to rally their own citizens together.^[92]

With his kingdom built, the Maker used the Immortus Engine to travel to the furthest point accessible to him in the future to see whether it endured. He stumbled into another future soldier going by the alias of Kang, who nearly killed Reed for his actions. The Maker returned to the present with the Immortus Engine broken and his memory impaired due to a major injury sustained from Kang's attack.^[93] After Kang sent an army of time-travelling super-soldiers to attack the Maker during a convergence of world leaders, Reed enlisted the help of one of them, genius inventor Howard Stark of the North American Union, to repair it. With the true origins of the Immortus Engine lost with the Maker's memories, Reed assumed that Stark was going to be responsible for building it in the future.^[92]

Since Howard was previously unaware of the inner workings of the world, he rejected the ideals of the cabal when he was made privy to them, and set out to betray the Maker. He was assisted by Earth-6160's Reed, who the Maker paired with Howard for the Immortus Engine project. Building a second Immortus Engine, when Stark delivered it to the Maker, Reed snuck into the City's mainframe and shut down its temporal shield, giving Kang and his army an opening to strike. As Reed escaped the City with the original broken Immortus Engine, Howard used the second one to defeat both the Maker and Kang. The City sealed itself off from the world, leaving the fates of Howard, Kang and the Maker impossible to know until it opened up again.^[93]

Elasticity: Reed's cells have been replaced with "pliable bacterial stacks," single cells which duplicate most of the larger functions of the human body. This allows Reed to stretch his body in myriad ways without disrupting the necessary functions of internal organs such as the heart, kidneys, muscles, or even brain. Reed can stretch any or all of his body parts long distances; assuming non-human shapes such as a sphere or parachute; or creating extra appendages and even linked bodies capable of holding conversations with himself.^[51] According to Sue's mother, Reed's abilities allow him to stretch his brain in order to accommodate and solve almost any problem, thus making him effectively a human computer.^{[citation needed]}

Immortality: According to Reed himself, his biology is not based on the principle of entropy causing him to have unnatural longevity.^[94] Furthermore, he states he neither has to take in nourishment or excrete waste, lacks any need for a vascular system or oxygen, has survived in vacuums like the N-Zone, and possibly fails the definition of being alive. All this allowed him to spend close to one thousand years inside the Dome without outward signs of physical aging.^[94][49]

Multiversal Omnipresence: Due to the Molecule Man's tampering when the Multiverse was reborn as the Eighth Cosmos, the Maker exists in every universe at once, with each body in every universe sharing the same single consciousness.^[4][26] He has used this condition to pass objects from one universe to another, such as when he teleported immediately to his body in the Marvel Universe a weapon taken from Earth-7918.^[73] However, to what extent is unknown as several of his bodies have been destroyed.^[75][76]

Artificial Enhanced Symbiote: After bonding to the improved artificial Venom symbiote from his universe, Maker possessed:

• Constituent Matter Generation
• Superhuman Strength
• Superhuman Durability
• Superhuman Agility
• Superhuman Reflexes
• Weapon Generation

Super-Genius Intelligence: Reed Richards is a child prodigy and possesses a keen scientific intellect, decades ahead of his time. This intelligence has recently been augmented by his new powers.^[95] Reed holds multiple doctoral level degrees in theoretical and applied physics fields.^[96] At age 16, Richards' IQ was 267,^[97] and he was stated to be a "Level Twelve Intellect" by Tony Stark.^[98] However, when Reed centered his operations in the Prime Marvel Universe, he discovered the subtle differences in composition between this reality and his home universe impaired his intellect, on account of differing laws of science that he identified as more "flamboyant" and more "fantastic."^[69][71] He is later described as having universal-level intellect.^[91]

Enhanced Memory: Richards was able to vividly remember events in his childhood a thousand years after they had happened.^[99]

Impact Suit: Reed, like the rest of the Fantastic Four, wears an impact suit that can adjust itself to his abilities. To this end, whenever Reed stretches or compresses himself, the suit takes on the same malleability his body possesses.^[100]

Gravity Belt^{[citation needed]}

As he was once a lead scientist at the Baxter Building, Reed had access to enormous governmental resources. While there he developed technology such as:

• The N-Zone Transporter.^[31]
• Fantasti-Cars: Flying vehicles powered by zero-point generators.^[101]
• A decommissioned NASA Space Shuttle (Named Awesome by Johnny Storm) uniquely modified for travel through the N-Zone.^[5]
• Chrono-tunnel enabling time travel.^[96]

• Numerous references to a famous adult scientist version of Reed Richards occurred in the Ultimate Universe before Marvel finalized their plans for Ultimate Fantastic Four, making them incompatible with later continuity. Ultimate Marvel Team Up #9 even had a full appearance of a Lee/Kirby style Fantastic Four. These references continued until Ultimate Spider-Man #38, a mere nine months before Ultimate Fantastic Four debuted an entirely different take on Reed Richards.
• Reed's age has fluctuated up and down when it is directly mentioned. In Ultimate Power #1, Reed states that he is eighteen-years-old, however, Ultimate Fantastic Four #1 establishes that he is at least twenty-one years old and Ultimate Vision #0 states that he was nineteen. He has also been referred to as a teenager on multiple occasions by others and himself. His age is even harder to pinpoint when taking into account the fact that he spent hundreds of years inside The Dome.
• When operating in the Marvel Universe, the Maker noticed its natural laws make it so "Everything's less... practical [there]. More flamboyant. (...) More fantastic."^[69]
• Seed Nineteen identified Reed's powers as being that of someone who is 'trans-fleshed'^[103]
• As of Venom (Vol. 4) #20, the Maker and the Interdimensional Council of Reeds seem to be unaware that Earth-1610 has already been restored and that Mysterio built a fully functioning two-way portal machine connecting it to Earth-616.^[104][105]

• In mainstream continuity, Reed Richards entered Victor von Doom's room, looked over his work, noticed a mistake, and Victor told Reed to get out. Soon after, Victor got into an accident that scarred his face and he blamed Reed.^[106][107] In the Ultimate continuity, Victor was the one who entered Reed's room without permission and started correcting Reed's work, and Reed was the one who told Victor to get out. Although they later collaborated, Victor changed some numbers, which led to their accident.^[108]
• The term "Level Twelve Intellect" is a reference to DC Comics, where a 12th Level intellect is considered the highest possible IQ and the apex of genius intellect.
• The reason why the Maker was featured in Venom (Vol. 4) was because Donny Cates liked the relationship between Peter Parker and Reed Richards and wanted an evil Reed for the evil Spider-Man, Venom.^[109]
• Ultimate Reed becomes the Maker in Ultimate Fallout #4, the same issue that introduces Miles Morales. The Maker and Miles are the two life raft survivors from Earth-1610 during Secret Wars (2015), which ended the Ultimate imprint, and after the event, they both continued to be used in stories set in Earth-616. As they are both remnants of the original Ultimate Universe, the Maker views Miles as his "brother."^[91]

• Ultimate Fantastic Four #1–6 - the origin of the Ultimate Universe's Reed Richards, Fantastic Four, and Doctor Doom.
• Ultimate Fantastic Four #7–12 - the Fantastic Four's first mission and first battle against Doctor Doom.
• Ultimate Fantastic Four #13–18 - the Fantastic Four's first expedition. They explore the N-Zone.
• Ultimate Fantastic Four #21 - the Fantastic Four becoming public celebrities (they were private before). Reed's first encounter with an alternate reality. Reed learns that he and Sue will get married and have two kids, Franklin and Valeria. (This is also the first appearance of Marvel Zombies.)
• Ultimatum: Fantastic Four Requiem #1 - Sue Storm rejects Reed's marriage proposal and the Fantastic Four breaks up following the events of Ultimatum (see Ultimatum #1–5 & Ultimate Fantastic Four #58–60).
• Ultimate Enemy #1–4 → Ultimate Mystery #1–4 → Ultimate Doom #1–4 - Reed's descent into villainy. Reed and Sue fight. Johnny burns Reed's face.
• Ultimate Fallout #4 (Hickman's section) - Reed becomes the Maker. Introduces the Children of Tomorrow.
• Ultimate Comics Ultimates #1–12 - the Maker and the Children of Tomorrow's campaign and defeat.
• Ultimate Comics Ultimates #25–30 - recontexualizes Reed's actions with a future Sue (Kang).
• Avengers (Vol. 5) #41–44 → Secret Wars #1–9 - the death of the Multiverse, ending with the final incursion with Earth-616. The Maker and the Cabal survive on a life raft. The Maker meets Reed-616 on Battleworld. The Molecule Man splits the Maker apart. The Multiverse is restored at the end. (After this, the Maker shows up on Earth-616.)
• New Avengers (Vol. 4) #17 - explains that the Molecule Man had spread the Maker across the Multiverse after its rebirth.
• Ultimate Invasion #1–4 - the Maker alters Earth-6160, kickstarting the Ultimate imprint relaunch set in this new reality.