Before the FF: Reed Richards

    (Marvel, 2000)
™ and ©2000 Marvel Characters, Inc.

Move over Indiana Jones because you’ve got competition in the form of… Reed Richards? That’s right, before Mr. Fantastic, before that historic space flight which forever changed his life, this “average” man led a life that was far from ordinary. According to the background provided in this series of specials, the world’s smartest man was actually involved in several globetrotting adventures—the likes of which are the focus of this story.

When Franklin Richards finds a box of mysterious artifacts hidden inside his father’s closet, the boy is subjected to a “back in my day” type of story by his “old man.” Its focus: the search for the Claw of Bast—an ancient Egyptian artifact said to give life to the dead or the dying. Richards, who was apparently quite the ladies man in his day, was inadvertently thrust into the search for this object to aid his dying physics professor. But the stakes were raised when Victor Von Doom (in his pre-Doctor Doom days) also set out in search of the talisman. What ensued was a good old-fashioned romp—sans the supper-powers—the type of which was found in the Saturday afternoon serials of old.
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