While watching the recent episode of WandaVision, there was a point where I was a little nervous. In previous episodes, Monica had mentioned her astro-engineering friend. There was speculation that this friend would turn out to be Reed Richards. I was glad it was not Mr.Fantastic. Allow me to explain my reasoning.
If the MCU version of Reed Richards is similar to the comics version, then he needs to be the smartest person on the planet. Reed is smarter than Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and just about everyone (except possibly Victor von Doom). If he exists in this world, then how come we have not met him. Even without his super-powers, I feel like someone would have mentioned him at some point. “Oh hey, we can’t solve this time-travel thing, maybe we should ask Reed Richards for help” or “oh shit, there is an alien invasion and some crazy power source, maybe we need the help of that Richards guy.”
This brings me to my next warning to Disney & Marvel: do not make Reed and Sue young kids. We do not need the flirting, we do not need the “will they get together or will nerdy Reed screw this up?” I have already mentioned before how I would introduce them, but allow me to say it again.
I would have them in a pocket universe, having adventures. They would have left in the 1960s and they think they have only been gone for like ten or so years. And when they come back to our universe, it has been like sixty years (I would definitely make it a point to mention that Reed Richards and Howard Stark knew each other). Think of it like the Quantum Realm, maybe they were in another version of that (the N-Zone, the MacroVerse, etc). And wherever they come from, also brings Galactus with them.
Anyways, stop worrying about appealing to to people with a romance angle. Guess what? People will love a married couple. You know who my wife loves on This Is Us? Randall and Beth. She loves seeing their interactions as a married couple, she loves seeing Randall being a great father and husband. I love it as well, but I also enjoy seeing the real arguments they have.
So please Disney/Marvel. Do not go down the path of making the Fantastic Four this young team (it failed last time) and do not give us this story of Reed and Sue falling in love. I want them older, I want them married, I want them having married problems (it would be even cooler if they have a kid already and have to juggle that issue). I have faith in you and if you want to use my idea for how to introduce, please do. I only ask for one thing: have a character named Josh somewhere in the movie. He can be killed really early, I am fine with it.
