My husband hates Reed Richards. Maybe you haven’t heard of Reed Richards, aka Mr. Fantastic, the leader of the Fantastic Four. When you ask him why, he kind of splutters—“He’s soooo smart, and soooo rich, and…guh!”

I’ve figured it out. Reed Richards is a winner. Now, there are other characters in comic books of whom this is true. Most notably, Batman. He doesn’t have any special powers, he’s #4 or so in the rankings for best martial artist in the DCU… but he always wins. Even against people who are better fighters than him - because he’s so committed, so paranoid, and so prepared. But people love Batman. I’ve heard people say Batman is boring, or one-dimensional or too angsty, but the aggravation and eye-rolling hatred I’ve heard about Mr. Fantastic - not just from Matt (and not just from Victor von Doom)—does not adhere to Batman. Why?

I think I’ve figured that out, too. You see, Batman is smart. Maybe a genius, maybe just smart. He’s handsome, strong, incredibly rich. But the reason he always wins is that he has given up so much. He was robbed of his own family, he’ll never get married (the man was shying from commitment before Bridget Jones ever mentioned “emotional fuckwittage”), he never seems to let himself have fun. He’s not a good friend—not supportive, rather perfunctory. He has crafted his birth identity as Bruce Wayne into a mask to cover his “real identity” as Batman (unlike Clark Kent, who cheerfully admits that Superman is a mask to cover Clark Kent). He is basically deeply, deeply broken, and that’s how he wins all the time.

Reed Richards? Okay, he has superpowers. He has a gorgeous blonde wife, and two adorable kids. He’s a stuper-genius (yes, I said stuper), the smartest man in the Marvel Universe. He has, in addition to his own nuclear family, the rest of the Fantastic Four, the “family of explorers”. He has a kajillion patents, owns a big shiny building in Manhattan, and is openly a superhero - no angst. Even has a FF gift shop on the groundfloor of the Baxter Building. He’s the blasted Richard Cory of the superhero world - and if he ever, like said Cory, tried to put a bullet in his head, it would bounce back.

The current authors of The Fantastic Four have been making the story compelling by beating up on Reed. Scarred his face permanently, traumatized both his children, had the UN take him down, had Sue stay with relatives indefinitely, and killed The Thing. But that’s the problem. They’ve taken it too far. No one will allow them to leave The Thing dead. No one will buy the Fantastic Three. And so, as elasticly as Mr. Fantastic himself, the Marvel Universe will spring back to normal… and Reed Richards will have won again.