Fantastic Four #551

The Beginning of the End

75 years after the Civil War, Reed Richards is the administrator of a high-security prison of 6 people (unsurprisingly, Dr. Doom is one of the prisoners). One of the androids inform Dr. Richards that Doom has escaped, but Reed calmly says that he remembered this event well, but did not know precisely when it would happen.

In the Present, The FF are celebrating a victory against Diablo. Suddenly, the intruder alarm goes off and Ben and Sue go to check on the children, while Johnny and Reed go to the lab, and Reed reads a temporal incursion but sees nothing. Meanwhile, when Sue and Ben go to the children's room and see an aged Namor and Black Panther. T'Challa says that they are from more than 60 years in the future, and Dr. Doom enters with evidence that they are indeed from the future. The team is hostile toward Doom, and T'Challa convinces them to hear them out. Namor explains that Doom stole a machine and recruited himself and T'Challa to go back in time and save the world from Reed Richards. Reed takes them to his private sanctuary and Sue explains that Reed calculated a catastrophe in the near future, and the 100 ideas composed by Reed and Tony Stark were to save the world. Doom says that he did implement plan #101 to create a utopia, and Namor, T'Challa, and Doom came to convince him not to. Doom says that after Reed "fixed" the world, his behavior became erratic after Sue left him for Namor because he became increasingly distant toward her. Reed takes a dark look at Namor. He picks a ray gun off a counter and disintegrates Namor's head, and seemingly remorselessly says that the problem is solved.

Recurring Characters

Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch, Thing), Franklin Richards, Valeria Richards, Mister Fantastic and Doctor Doom of Earth-81551