Reed Richards (Earth-721)

Thing
Name	Reed Richards
Current Alias	Thing
Physical Characteristics
Gender	Male
Eyes	Irises: Blue
Hair	No Hair At All
Skin	Orange
Unusual Features	Rock-like skin
Origin and Living Status
Origin	Human mutated by exposure to cosmic rays
Living Status	Alive
Reality	Earth-721
Personal Information
Identity	Public
Citizenship	American
Occupation	Owner of Reed Richards Robotics
Creators and Appearances
Creators	Archie Goodwin, John Buscema
First	Fantastic Four #118 (January, 1972)
First	Fantastic Four #118 (January, 1972)

History

Reed Richards and Ben Grimm piloted a starship into space and were bombarded with cosmic rays. Reed mutated into a rock-like creature called the Thing. Bitter about his transformation and also over having lost Sue to Ben, Reed exiled himself to an island. There, Reed, initially delusional over his losses, designed a large number of scenes and robots patterned after various eras on Earth, such as England in the 19th century, the Crusades and the O.K. Corral. He also designed the villains of these eras in his form. In this way, he acted as his subconscious hatred for himself. It was during this time that the Ben Grimm of Earth-616 inadvertently traveled to his reality and, after fighting off some of Reed's robots, learned Reed's history before returning to Earth-616.

Reed later eventually recovered from his depression and established a company, Reed Richards Robotics. The company designed the Andrones. Reed was tricked by Albert DeVoor of Inter-Related Technocracies into selling his company in exchange for much-needed cash that he needed to fund his continuing experiments. Reed later learned of the IT's true plan, and traveled to Earth-616 in an effort to gain help from the Thing. But before he could do so, he was attacked and overpowered by Arkon and taken to IT's base. After some time there, he managed to reach across the interdimensional barrier and contact his Earth-616 counterpart and explain the truth to him about the extra-dimensional attacks. He then met up with the Thing of Earth-616 who had traveled to his reality in search of him, and had been captured as well. The two escaped from the IT base and helped put a stop to the inter-dimensional wars. Reed then accompanied the Fantastic Four on a mission to bring down IT, and he succeeded in overpowering Arkon himself.

Reed would later assist his Earth-616 counterpart with a counterpart device on Earth-A to facilitate the return of the Earth-A natives from Earth-616. During the help, he noted that he had a strong temptation to go to Earth-616 and realign his atoms with those of his Earth-616 counterpart in order to return to normal.

Attributes

Powers

Seemingly those of Benjamin Grimm (Earth-616)#Powers

Abilities

Seemingly those of Reed Richards (Earth-616)#Abilities

See Also

• 6 appearance(s) of Reed Richards (Earth-721)
• 1 minor appearance(s) of Reed Richards (Earth-721)
• 2 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Reed Richards (Earth-721)
• 2 image(s) of Reed Richards (Earth-721)