The Fantastic Four is the first family of superheroes and the unquestioned leader of the group is Reed Richards AKA Mr. Fantastic. Reed is the guy with one of the lamest powers in comicdom; the ability to stretch and squeeze his body into impossible shapes. However, he makes up for it by being among the smartest characters in all of fiction, who has single-handedly destroyed and created multiple realities.
Reed is also husband to Susan Storm, aka Invisible Woman. While the two are always shown to be devoted to each other, Reed has frequently exhibited behavior that is anything but ideal when it comes to a married man. Here are some of the worst showings of Reed the husband.
10 When It All Began
Most heroes get their powers by accident, getting bitten by radioactive insects or being born on an alien planet. Others, like Iron Man and Batman, take it upon themselves to create weapons to fight crime. Reed picked neither option. The last thing on his mind was a life of crimefighting when he detected an asteroid passing by Earth and was seized by a desire to investigate it, despite the people in charge of the spaceship flatly refusing to let him go into space.
Reed chose to go into space anyway by stealing the spaceship. He also convinced his then-girlfriend Sue, her younger brother Johnny, and his best friend Ben to come along, despite none of them having any experience or qualifications to survive a space adventure. Predictably, the trip ended in disaster, very nearly costing the group their lives and leaving them with powers that have proved both a blessing and a curse ever since.
9 Stop Being A Wife!
It needs to be clarified that when the concept of the Fantastic Four was first broached at Marvel, the aim was to take a typical family from the fifties and give them superpowers. The interpersonal dynamics were very much based on actual families from that era when, unfortunately, the husband being lord and master of the household was still a popular concept.
That is how you get the above panel, where Reed immediately puts Sue in her place for daring to tell him to keep safe. As if he needed a woman to tell him that! Reed has always been pretty arrogant, but the early years saw him take a lot of that arrogance out on his wife.
8 Stop Talking So Much!
This is the kind of advice Reed loved to impart to Sue in the early years, so she could get a little closer to being a model wife. In the beginning, Sue only had the ability to turn invisible, something Reed must have relished.
We can imagine him frequently asking Sue to turn invisible and sit in the corner quietly whenever he did not want to deal with her wifely prattling. Fortunately, Sue soon got a power boost in the form of invisible force fields that made her one of the most formidable heroes in Marvel.
7 Seriously, Stop Talking!
It cannot be stressed how much the early Mr. Fanstastic hated having to listen to his wife talk. But can you blame him?
First, she was warning him to be careful while jumping into a deadly situation. Then she was expressing her gratitude to him for buying her a new wardrobe. And here she is at it again, spouting nonsensical things like a desire to clean the house where they live. Even if Mr. Fantastic wanted to rest at the time, his dismissive attitude speaks volumes.
No wonder Mr. Fantastic has to tell Susan to pipe down and leave him alone instead of constantly trying to communicate her silly, womanly thoughts to her husband.
6 It's All Your Fault Susan!
Susan's younger brother, Johnny, has the ability to fly and set fire to things, in addition to a reckless disposition. Naturally, this heady mix is sufficient to brew a batch of trouble caused by Johnny.
As seen from the above panel, Reed squarely blames Sue for her brother's wrongdoings. In spite of it being entirely Reed's fault that Johnny got those powers in the first place.
5 The Infamous Slap
Yes, that is actually Mr. Fantastic slapping the daylights out of the Invisible Woman. Now, it should be said that Sue had been brainwashed at the time and become evil, and Reed was deliberately antagonizing her to snap her out of her delusions.
Nevertheless, one would think a loving husband could think of a better way to make his wife see sense than slapping her so hard his hand becomes a blur. Hank Pym tried that once and the entire Marvel universe still won't let him hear the end of it.
4 Zapping Their Son
Over time, the writers started showing Sue as a stronger and more assertive character, while toning down the blatant misogyny on the part of Reed. However, in modern times, Reed simply refocused his domineering ways on everyone else. Like that time he zapped his son, Franklin, with a ray gun to control his burgeoning powers.
Did Reed stop to consult Sue before zapping her child while he was still in her arms, causing her anguished scream? He's Reed Richards, dammit, and he's going to do what he wants, when he wants, and to whoever he wants!
3 Ordering Sue Away
Don't let the previous panel make you think Reed doesn't love his son. All of Reed's contempt is saved almost exclusively for his wife. In this panel, he is ordering Sue, arguably the most powerful hero of the Fantastic Four, to move away from the fight to keep Franklin safe.
Could Reed have looked after Fraklin at home while Sue fought villains instead? Reed doing the mother's job while a woman tries to do his? That would be the day.
2 Not Telling Sue About Her Illness
This isn't a case of Reed being horrible to Sue in particular, so much as him just being a terrible person in general. Reed finds out that the accident that gave his group their powers is also killing them slowly.
What does he do with the information? Reed does what any genius saddled with a bunch of simpletons would do; keep the information to himself while he worked on a cure and let the others find out about the illness during its final stages when it began to affect them physically.
1 Keeping Things From Sue
The majority of Reed's problems stem from the fact that he is unshaken in his belief that he alone knows what is best for everyone and doesn't need to consult with others, even his wife, before making world-altering decisions.
Like when he became a member of a secret society of masterminds called the Illuminati without telling Sue. Or the number of times he was working on immensely destructive technologies without consulting his wife. In his mind, Reed always defends those choices as his desire to spare his wife his personal headaches, but all it does is create an imbalanced relationship and put further strain on their marriage.