It has been known, since the Ulimate Invasion storyline, that a variant Reed Richards is the Doctor Doom of the new Ultimate Universe. However, the fate of this world’s Fantastic Four has remained an open question. That question is finally answered in Ultimates #4.
Written by Deniz Camp, with art by Phil Noto, Ultimates #4 is presented in a tetraptych or quadriptych format. Every page is split into four panels. However, the panels can be read from top to bottom, or from page to page along the horizontal rows.
Read from left to right, the top row shows how the Fantastic Four of this world came together. The second shows how Reed Richards became Doctor Doom. The third shows Doom working on an experiment, while watching video footage from the past. The final row shows Doom consulting with Tony Stark in the present. While the story plays out the same either way, the panel order causes certain moments to hit harder and ties together earlier events.
Ultimate Fantastic Four died because of new Doctor Doom
Ultimates #4 reveals that this version of Reed Richards holds himself responsible for the deaths of his Susan Storm, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm. Moreover, he was legally held responsible for Johnny and Sue’s deaths after their illegal attempt to salvage Reed’s proposed space mission. Johnny burned to death and Sue contracted untreatable cancer from the cosmic radiation to which she was exposed. While Ben Grimm survived, he ended his own life after having his reputation ruined by the disastrous space trip.
Reed was further tormented by the Maker, the evil Reed Richards of the original Ultimate Universe. He was tortured into embracing the name “Doom,” because “everything you touch, everything you are, everything you love – all doomed.” In this, the Maker hoped to trap the one person he thought capable of stopping him.
However, the Maker may have erred in his estimations. Ironically, in trying to torment his variant into complacency, he has fueled the fire that drives Doom. With the knowledge of what should have happened to him and his family, Reed Richards is now as obsessed with saving his family as Victor Von Doom was with revenge.
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It remains to be seen, however, if the new Doctor Doom will go to equally dark lengths to defeat his doppelganger.
Ultimates #4 is now available at comic shops everywhere.
