The Fantastic Four's Best Time-Travel Adventures

As explorers of the unknown, the Fantastic Four have embarked on countless adventures through space and time. Marvel’s First Family are among the most experienced time-travelers in the Marvel Universe, having explored various points in the past, the distant future, and alternate timelines in their efforts to preserve the space-time continuum. 

Even though the Fantastic Four are no strangers to time travel, every trip into the timestream is a special occasion, filled with high stakes and awe-inspiring spectacle. Here are some of the best Fantastic Four time-travel stories, involving either the entire family or select members.

PRISONERS OF DOCTOR DOOM

In FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) #5, the Fantastic Four confronted Doctor Doom for the very first time and used time-travel to outsmart their greatest nemesis. After Doom kidnapped the Invisible Woman, he demanded that the rest of the team use his time machine to bring him Blackbeard’s legendary pirate treasure in exchange for her life. 

Forced to agree to Doom’s demands, the group used his Time Platform to travel back in time, where the Thing posed as Blackbeard to acquire the pirate’s loot. In a time-bending twist, the trio realized that Ben Grimm—in his disguise—was the Blackbeard that history remembers. 

Ultimately, Reed tricked Doom in relinquishing the treasure, giving the Thing an opportunity to clobber the villain. The adventure set the stage for the long-standing feud between the Fantastic Four and Doctor Doom, but not without some swashbuckling fun along the way.

THE MAN WHO DREAMED THE WORLD

For a short period of time, Ben Grimm left the Fantastic Four to embark on solo cosmic adventures that allowed him to revert back into his human form. In his absence, She-Hulk joined the team and—in one of her most memorable adventures as part of the Fantastic Four—traveled back in time with them. 

In the wake of a harrowing battle against Blastaar and Annihilus, the team believed Reed Richards to be dead and returned home with Nick Fury to grieve, only to discover they’d been transported to 1936 New York in FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) #290. As the group came to terms with the strange time warp, Fury decided to take advantage of the situation and assassinate Adolf Hitler before he could cause the death and destruction of World War II. 

While the others understood Fury’s motivations, they moved to stop him anyway because such an action would alter history as everyone knew it. The group suddenly reunited with Reed, who survived his earlier battle. He revealed in FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) #292 that their trip to 1936 was actually the dream of a comatose mutant, whose powers transported them into a pocket timeline of the past. 

INTO THE TIME STREAM!

Much of Walt Simonson’s run on FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) involved the First Family’s time-bending adventures, which took them to alternate futures and divergent timelines. Starting in FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) #337, Reed began working on a device that would allow its users to pierce through time and space to reach their intended destinations.

After returning home from a cosmic team-up in AVENGERS (1963) #303, Reed aimed to pierce a Time Bubble protecting a Celestial to prevent it from developing a powerful weapon 20 years into the future. Joined by Iron Man and Thor, this routine mission quickly escalated when the heroes stumbled across a different reality and other enemy time-travelers. 

Just as the team believed their recent time-traveling escapades had ended, Doctor Doom resurfaced, culminating in a very different kind of showdown across time in FANTASTIC FOUR (1961) #352.

END OF THE LINE

In FANTASTIC FOUR (1998) #605, the family got an assist from Reed’s time-traveling father Nathaniel Richards, who helped his son construct a new time machine. Reed’s curiosity and long-standing concern for Ben led him to use this machine to peer millennia into the universe’s future, checking in on his friend every thousand years to follow the progression of his life.

Because of his rocky form, Ben only ages whenever he’s temporarily reverted into his original human appearance, something that only occurs on one day each year. Due to that prolonged lifespan, the Thing lived well into four millennia from the present-day Marvel Universe, surrounded by his family and friends. The story serves as a reminder that not every time-travel tale needs to concern the fate of reality, with Reed using a time machine just to ensure his best friend lives a long and prosperous life.

AGE OF ULTRON

AGE OF ULTRON (2013) presented an alternate timeline where Ultron emerged victorious. With the world conquered by Ultron and only a small ragtag group of heroes left alive to stop him, Wolverine decided to take matters into his own hands by traveling back in time and assassinating Ultron’s creator Hank Pym before he could unleash the killer robot. Wolverine was joined by the Invisible Woman in AGE OF ULTRON (2013) #5, where both heroes traveled back in time using Doctor Doom’s Time Platform.

Initially, Susan could not convince Wolverine to avoid killing Hank, resulting in fractured timelines that left the Marvel Universe in a worse state, as it never benefited from Hank’s heroic presence. This led Wolverine and Susan to rectify their past mistake of assassinating Hank, but they also ensured that Ultron’s eventual victory could be avoided. One of the bleaker time-travel stories featuring a member of the Fantastic Four, AGE OF ULTRON (2013) saw the Invisible Woman and Wolverine save the day, but at cosmically cataclysmic cost.

SALVAGED FROM THE WRECK OF AGES

In FANTASTIC FOUR (2023) #17, the Invisible Woman found herself in the middle of an archaeological mystery when her ancient remains were found at a dig site in Arizona. Joined by Mister Fantastic, Susan headed 16,000 years into the past to discover how this came to be. As a result, they ran right into Rama-Tut—one of the many personas of Kang the Conqueror, the most villainous time-traveler of them all.

Given how formidable Kang can be, Susan and Reed had to think fast how to outsmart the master time-traveler. Fortunately, the Fantastic Four includes some of the foremost scientific minds in the Marvel Universe, and the time-travel element gave them the ability to put more time on the clock. Rama-Tut might be one of the most experienced time-travelers in the Multiverse, but he doesn’t have the smarts to top the Fantastic Four at their most driven.

DIE BY THE SWORD

In FANTASTIC FOUR (2023) #28, Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman embarked on a time-travel adventure to World War I—with a magical twist, thanks to the Black Knight. Using his own skills as a sorcerer, Dane Whitman transported the fantastic couple to 1915 Europe. The Black Knight joined the time-displaced Reed and Sue as a non-corporeal guide, helping them search for an enchanted sword, known as the Fated Blade, that was last seen during the war.

Reed had been searching for a way to pierce through the magical barrier Doctor Doom erected around Latveria following the villain’s ascension to the role of Sorcerer Supreme. The Fantastic Four believed this sword was the key to confronting Doom on his home turf, which would allow them to hold him accountable once again. 

However, Doom planned for this vulnerability. He unleashed a time-traveling twist of his own on Reed and Sue and brought them forward to a time where he had successfully taken over the world, setting the stage for ONE WORLD UNDER DOOM (2025).

Join Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman's latest time-travel adventure in FANTASTIC FOUR #28, on sale now!

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