As the name implies, this miniseries follows the adventures of Reed Richards before the founding of the Fantastic Four.
And it’s written by one of my favorite writers, Peter David!
Before the Fantastic Four: Reed Richards #1 (2000)
by Peter David & Duncan Fegredo
We begin with Franking Richards finding something weird in his father’s room.
Did I mention Peter David is one of my favorite writers?
The entire miniseries is framed as a story told by Reed to his son.
A story that involves him being an Indiana Jones ripoff.
With a super-science twist.
We also discover that Reed had an appreciation for the arts.
With a super-science twist.
But the plot really starts when Reed visits his aging and very ill professor.
When he tries to check the professor’s apartment, someone attacks him and gets punched in response. Pre-FF Reed is quite something, isn’t he?
The goon was trying to steal a very old papyrus, so Reed consults Egyptologist Francesca “Frankie” Fisher about it. Turns out it leads to something important.
Franklin is very genre-savvy.
If you were wondering “this is well and good, but why is this in the Doom retrospective?”, this is the last panel.
Before the Fantastic Four: Reed Richards #2 (2000)
by Peter David & Duncan Fegredo
Things begin to escalate.
When written correctly, Reed Richards doesn’t need fancy gadgets to show off his intelligence.
Franklin wonders if Reed died during the plane crash, because honestly it would be one of the least weird thing that happened to his family!
Fellow super-scientist (and former Reed love interest) Alyssa Moy joins the party, revealing that to find the missing part of the puzzle they have to go to Romania.
Why Romania? Because this is set before Doom took over Latveria, so he’s living in another castle. And Reed knows all of this thanks to Doom’s habit of recording everything for posterity!
This is also very early in Doom’s learning of magic, so he’s hanging around his teacher.
Hilariously, Franklin doesn’t believe Reed is telling the whole story! The Indiana Jones parallelism are also made fun of.
(to be fair, that stuff came from the Claremont run on Fantastic Four, so Peter David might be poking fun at his colleague)
During the flashback, Reed learns about Doom’s involvement because his minions can’t shut up.
In the meantime, Dr. Fisher has been kidnapped by Almost Doctor Doom.
“Doom has some problem with Reed Richards” is the understatement of the century: the dude has a whole portrait of him being burned alive!
Reed attempting a rescue doesn’t end well.
Only Doom can compliment you and threaten you in the same sentence.
Doom’s gotta Doom.
Before the Fantastic Four: Reed Richards #3 (2000)
by Peter David & Duncan Fegredo
Probably the most summarized version of Doom’s origin ever.
Doom has re-created the machine that disfigured him, and has connected it to Alyssa Moy and Dr. Fisher. And it’s a double trap, because either:
A) Doom is right and this doesn’t kill them, proving that Reed really did sabotage the original experiment
B) Reed is right and this kills them; Doom is proven wrong, but he still has the satisfaction of making Reed suffer
This is interesting: Doom claims that the machine DID work, initially. This will become important when we get to Books of Doom.
Fittingly, Doom lets Reed have a chance to save the women.
Reed’s solution is to “reverse the polarity of the neutron flow”.
I’m no Dr. Who fan, but even I know that’s where it’s from.
Did I mention Peter David is one of my favorite writers?
You’d expect Doom to be mad at this, but it was all part of his plan.
Why? Because after a trip to Egypt and several pages of adventure, Reed manages to find the Claw of Bast for Doom.
Did I mention that etcetera etcetera.
Unfortunately this result into THE SPHYNX COMING TO LIFE. (!!!)
Reed manages to stop Almost Doctor Doom with a freeze grenade…
…and to use the Claw of Bast to stop the Sphynx.
It also cured Reed’s teacher, bringing everything to a close.
Franklin is not impressed by this ending.
However, remember when Reed saved the young prince waaaay at the beginning of the review? The bad guy of that segment of the story comes back!
Franklin defeats him by throwing one of Reed’s freezing grenades, and now he’s convinced that the entire story is true.
Well that ending came out of absolutely nowhere, that’s for sure.
Doom significance: 0/10
This is an interesting glimpse into a time when he wasn’t quite Doctor Doom yet, but it’s never referenced again. I’m also not 100% sure that we should really consider this story as really happening the way it’s shown.
Silver Age-ness: 4/10
It was a solid 0/10 until the Sphynx came to life!
Does it stand the test of time? 10/10
A constant reminder that this category is NOT the same thing as a quality score: here a 10/10 simply means that you can easily re-publish this today without changing anything. No big surprise, since it’s just 20 years old.
It’s a very well written story that manages to make the young swashbuckling Reed fit with the older scientist father figure. Doctor Doom is also written well, with his talents not yet matching his ambitions. The art isn’t anything spectacular but it fits the tone, even though the Sphynx scene doesn’t come up as jaw-dropping as it should be.
I prefer this to be just a story that Reed made up for the simple reason that there’s way too much interaction between Reed and Doom! I really, REALLY prefer having Fantastic Four #5 to be the first time they meet after the incident.