Throughout their storied history in the Marvel Universe, theFantastic Fourhave celebrated extraordinary wins and suffered tragic losses. Yet, all of their lowest and highest moments are merely a blink in time for their most powerful member. Franklin Richards possesses unthinkable abilities, and with them comes a long life filled with magic, death, beginnings, and ends.
WithFantastic Four: First Stepsintroducing Reed and Sue’s superpowered son to movie audiences, there is buzz about Franklin Richards' role in the wider Marvel Universe. That’s not a simple thing to examine. Franklin’s destiny and his unsurpassed reality-altering abilities essentially weave him into multiple multiverses and their eventual ends.
To call him god-like undersells what he’s capable of, which goes beyond the beings often seen as ‘gods’ in the Marvel Universe. He has absorbed and wielded thepower of Galactusand the Phoenix Force, and his natural abilities still surpass both. Franklin Richards has a convoluted, lonely life ahead.
Franklin Richards' Power is His Biggest Curse
He’s Destined to Live Many Lives Alone
As far as superpowers are concerned, more doesn’t necessarily mean better. Possessing the ability to change reality to such an extent that entirely new timelines and worlds are created may help preserve moments in time and loved ones, to a certain degree, but it sets the creator apart from creation. That’s certainly true for Franklin Richards.
[Franklin Richards] will no longer be able to connect to the worlds he still tries to protect, running the risk of causing more harm than the good he intends to do.
In looking at his life, there’s a price to pay for every good deed. In Ryan North’sFantastic Four #32for instance,Franklin becomes Galactusto protect a version of Earth that doesn’t have the Fantastic Four. Doing so means giving up his childhood and all the things that anchor him and allow him to grow naturally into his powers.
Time and time again, the versions of Franklin that embrace full power become less human than ever. He will no longer be able to connect to the worlds he still tries to protect, running the risk of causing more harm than the good he intends to do. It’s a difficult balance to achieve, and a heavy, yet inescapable responsibility he carries.
The Fantastic Four’s Greatest Feats Pale Compared to Franklin
His Powers Isolate Him Even as They’re Used for Good
For all theincredible victories the Fantastic Fourhave pulled off and all the amazing discoveries they’ve made, their greatest accomplishments can’t amount to what Franklin Richards is capable of on his own, even with minimal effort. To truly grasp the scope of what Reed and Sue’s progeny can do, look at the Heroes Reborn universe.
The Heroes Reborn world, or Counter-Earth, exists as the result of Franklin Richards tapping into his cosmic power to bring back those who fell in the battle against Onslaught. Untrained and relying largely on grief, he created an entire pocket universe to return them to life, cementing the idea that he wields extraordinary control over life and death.
At a glance, that may seem like a good thing. However, if life is so easily given and taken away by a mere child, it means Franklin’s relationship to it will never be normal. The moment his abilities manifested,he was beyond the fundamental concepts of life and death.Time and reality have similarly little bearing, leaving Franklin unmoored.
Franklin Richards is Destined for Tragedy
Even His Reality-Warping Can’t Change That
Left unchallenged and unchanged, Franklin is destined to see the end of the multiverse come and go. Whether he becomes the next Galactus, which is a piece of that destiny in multiple incarnations, or evolves into something else entirely, no one can join him in that role. Bending reality to protect his family and his peace won’t ultimately change that.
In recent comics, Franklin has taken steps to suppress his powers enough that he’s only able to access them once a year. The hope is that, in doing so, he can live something of a normal life while still protecting the multiverse. Although that approach might yield a few years of stability, it’s a comparatively tiny sliver of time.
Whatever happy moments he has with his family, whether naturally occurring or because he’s preserved them in some desperate warped creation or dimension, no one can truly accompany him through the long and twisted life his powers mean he’ll lead.TheFantastic Four’sbouncing baby boy is one of Marvel’s most powerful beings, and that will always end in tragedy.
