Mister Fantastic Has Finally Mastered the One Thing He Never Understood

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This leads to a confrontation between Mister Fantastic and Doctor Doom, one that takes a whole new dimension. Mister Fantastic is the greatest Marvel scientist and is one of the smartest characters in comics. However, he’s always looked down on magic. Magic wasn’t science, and Mister Fantastic always looked down upon it as something of a pseudoscience. Doctor Doom’s actions have been monstrous and Mister Fantastic tried to beat Doom in the court of public opinion in One World Under Doom #6. When that failed, he revealed what he had been working on, using magic against Doctor Doom. Mister Fantastic approached magic like science, and that allowed him a power he never had before.

Mister Fantastic Worked With Magic Users but Didn’t Respect It

Courtesy of Marvel

Mister Fantastic is a man of science and always has been. Young Reed Richards was a genius and wanted to explore everything about the universe. This led to him creating the Marvel in his adult years, which was meant to allow him to travel to the stars. However, magic wasn’t something that Mister Fantastic held much truck with. Mister Fantastic used the scientific method, which is all about experiments that can be replicated and get the same outcome. Magic couldn’t be codified into numbers and elements, so Mister Fantastic didn’t trust it. However, many years ago, he did have experience with a machine that made magic into technology — Doctor Doom’s machine that was meant to free his mother from Hell. Mister Fantastic checked Doom’s math and found mistakes in it, which led to its destruction, but even back then, he was working with magic as science (this issue doesn’t bring up that moment, which I feel is a mistake). Once Mister Fantastic became a superhero, he started to be around people who used magic more; not just Doom, but people that he respected like Doctor Stephen Strange. He even allowed Agatha Harkness (who in the comics has always been somewhat heroic or at the very least altruistic) to be Franklin’s nanny when he was young. Mister Fantastic knew that magic worked, but he never trusted it. Even during the Incursions, he depended more on science than magic, with Strange usually taking a backseat to the more scientific members of the group.

Mister Fantastic has seen magic used many times, and began to try to codify magic after seeing how well it worked for everyone else. Mister Fantastic had secretly been investigating magic, and had taken readings on it. In One World Under Doom #7, Mister Fantastic reveals that he had been working to break the code of magic, as it were, and was able to figure out a way to tap into the energies of the arcane. While this makes sense for Mister Fantastic — if there’s anyone who could make magic into science, it’s him — this is still a huge step for Mister Fantastic. Mister Fantastic has always been somewhat dismissive towards magic. He still had respect for it, because he had seen it work, but he wouldn’t put his trust in it because he couldn’t look at it from scientific standpoint. To him, it was a wild power, one that could do as much damage as good. Mister Fantastic has seen magic do terrible things, at Doom’s hands and others. Doom has beat the heroes at every turn, often using magic, so Mister Fantastic decides to turn it against the villain, dubbing himself the Scientist Supreme.

Mister Fantastic Is Able to Bring Science to Magic

Courtesy of Marvel

Mister Fantastic is able to use his new magic powers to save the heroes in the short term, but he’s running uphill. While he did figure out a way to use magic like a scientist would, he doesn’t have the experience or power source that Doom does. Doom was frankly shocked that Mister Fantastic was able to use magic at all, but Doom was able to get the advantage back. However, this new weapon in Mister Fantastic’s arsenal gave Doom pause, which the heroes needed.

Doom was able to defeat Mister Fantastic, with the hero begging for mercy from Doom. Doom blasted Mister Fantastic, telling him that he wasn’t going to kill him, but that was all he would promise. One World Under Doom has been quite a ride, and Mister Fantastic harnessing magic is one of the more surprising parts of it, leading to a big ending in the coming months.

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