Warning: Spoilers for Fantastic Four (2022) #22 forward!

The conclusion of the Blood Hunt occasion has shaken up the Marvel established order: vampires not worry daylight, Doctor Doom is now Sorcerer Supreme, and (most curious of all) Reed Richards has lastly begun experimenting in the discipline of magic – form of. This presents an interesting potential state of affairs for Marvel the place the title of Sorcerer Supreme is up for grabs, with none aside from Reed Richards and Doctor Doom as the primary contenders.

Fantastic Four (2022) #22 by Ryan North, Ivan Fiorelli, and Jesus Aburtov picks up after the earlier situation’s cliffhanger, with vampires breaking into the shelter Reed and Alicia have created for the Blood Hunt’s survivors. While Reed stresses about making a remedy for vampirism, Alicia factors out that he is aware of subsequent to nothing about magic and wishes to assume smaller.

The trick works: utilizing his scientific information as a base, Reed creates a tool to intrude with vamprically altered cells – which, technically, is his first foray into magical examine.

Mr. Fantastic Is Branching Out Into Magic – And Just In Time

Fantastic Four #22 by Ryan North, Ivan Fiorelli, and Jesus Aburtov

Reed Richards and his nemesis, Victor von Doom, have lengthy stood as polar opposites – form of. Reed is an unbelievable scientist, pushing the boundaries of what’s attainable in the Marvel universe; in the meantime, trendy depictions of Doom present him as one in every of Earth’s strongest sorcerers. The disparity arises when one remembers that Doom is additionally one in every of Reed’s closest scientific friends, with their educational rivalry going way back to Doom’s first look in Fantastic Four (1961) #5. This signifies that Doom technically has the benefit over Reed, having mastered science and sorcery mixed (although Reed is the higher scientist).

Reed’s anti-vampire machine marks his first foray into making use of his technological know-how to magical rules, and the implications therein shouldn’t be missed. Reed is regularly hailed as one in every of the most clever folks in the Marvel Universe, mastering superior ideas and full fields of examine in the span of weeks (if not days, and even hours). While Reed admits that “my entire foundation of knowledge…simply doesn’t apply” to magic, his previous historical past and on the spot success together with his anti-vampire machine means that he stays able to studying magical rules at a frighteningly speedy tempo.

Reed’s Magi-Science vs. Doom’s Sorcerery

Although Doctor Doom has efficiently swindled the station of Sorcerer Supreme from Stephen Strange, the concluding panels of Fantastic Four #22 make it very clear that Reed and The Fantastic Four aren’t going to take Doom’s newest bid for world domination mendacity down. This is what makes Reed’s willpower to create “a new science – one based on tested and repeatable properties of magic” so thrilling: it means that, for the first time, Reed is exploring choices that can permit him to contest Doctor Doom in the discipline of sorcery.

Reed Richards and Doctor Doom have been rivals for over sixty years of comics publication; as such, it makes for pleasant narrative symmetry for Reed to be the one to problem Doom’s reign as Sorcerer Supreme. While Doctor Doom has the benefit when it comes to magic, Fantastic Four #22 sews the seeds for Reed Richards to start his personal foray into the magical arts, elevating this traditional Marvel rivalry to a complete new degree.

Fantastic Four #22 (2024)
	Writer: Ryan North Artist: Ivan Fiorelli Colorist: Jesus Aburtov Letterer: Joe Caramagna Cover Artist: Alex Ross