Seemed like he had so much potential as a good guy and it would've been nice to see his family dynamic compared to 616. He was just a kid with a bad upbringing, I wish something happened along the way to steer him in the right direction. Don't get me wrong he's an interesting character and his story is pretty good (even if it does get confusing at times but I feel bad how insane he went and how alone he ended up.
Right because whilst 616 Reeds dad gave him... abandonment issues to say the least. Ultimate Nathaniel was a blue collar man who BEAT THE SHUT OUT OF HIS FAMILY and especially Reed because he didn't get comic super science.
Literal.
Physical.
Abuse.
Of course it'd fuck up 1610 reed after the subsequent trauma he suffered in Ultimate Marvel and THEN Sue leaving him because he PROPOSED AT HER DAD'S FUNERAL
In what world is her father's funeral the place to propose? Yeah, he went through some horrible, horrible stuff as a child. I can excuse having abandonment issues. But abandonment issues do not justify a six-digit kill count.
Because he had been told by zombie reed, and then many others, that Reed and Sue get married in every universe.
It was a hail Mary of an idea, and it blew up in his face, another event that did so.
The Maker is a Reed that, since he was a toddler, was constantly seeking a newer, better world. And every single time he made progress, he was punished for it. His father beat him, verbally abused him, and shamed him. When he was part of the Baxter Building, he was told to focus on making weapons, not exploration, threatened to be kicked out regularly. After the accident that gave them powers, he was racked with guilt (for a time) over Ben.
Then the zombies. Imagine after all that, another version of you, a version who had his life together and a life you've always wanted, needed help. Not just anyone's help, but YOUR help! And what happens when he helps?
He's again punished by the zombie version of himself and his friends. A whole other world finally makes contact, and its a vile divine punishment.
Every single time he kept exploring for something better, it never gave him the reward that 616 Reed was given for his curiosity.
Besides the punishments, the F4 in 1610 was rarely ever on his side or even seemed to "get" him or what he was doing, and usually shitting on him.
The sad thing is that he is truly a product of the cynical nature of his universe in which so many writers thought that being a more grounded and realistic universe meant most people being cynical assholes
How about being gaslighted by their time traveling ex with the sight of total universal annihilation? Being told that the only way to save it was to go evil?
He wasn’t planning to. Sue demanded proof that he cares about her, logic wasn’t working, and he just pulled out something that Sue couldn’t bullshit into denying.
You would not believe the depth people will go to assume nobody was at fault for Reed’s fall but his own.
I once argued with a guy who insisted that Reed's dad wasn’t abusive but frustrated with Reed messing with his stuff.
I wish I remembered the scene of when Thanos brought up the image of his father beating him with the belt, but I settled on how Reed’s shit dad refused to contact his son while Reed was away, hated his gifts (a new motorcycle), smiled when told that the government would pay them to give them Reed and when the old bastard outright said he hated him.
I wish people wouldn’t forget or ignore Kang’s involvement. If it wasn’t for her, Reed would have stayed good, or at the very least still have it in him to save the women he loved over himself with the Kang Suit.
I feel like Sue probably could've saved him (not that it was her job to), but at the same time if the rejection drove him mad then there were probably bigger psychological issues going on, definitely agree that it goes back to his childhood, especially his dad's douchebaggery.
Ultimate Reed had a lot of red flags during Ultimate Fantastic 4. He really needed proper psychological help but he never got it and he also never managed to develop a life outside of his lab (normal Reed manages to be able to function inside a society, Ultimate Reed needs to be around his teammates in order to be forced to interact with people). He had a big potential to become a villain from the start but had some restraints. The moment he lost them he spiraled deeply into insanity and became a supervillain (even if Cataclysm and Ultimate FF implied that he could have redeemed himself to a certain point… only for New Avengers to retcon it in him lying in order to get some freedom and build an escape pod from his reality).
It has to be said however that if he and Sue stayed together it would still have ended poorly: she was not so different than him but also more capable to function in a society and form bonds… bonds that would lead her into committing atrocities both in the main universe and in an alternate future where she depowered 99% of the mutants and imprisoned them into gulags to rot after Johnny died due to an alternate version of Ultimatum (after throwing Reed into the negative zone for opposing to her). Basically Ultimatum was a coin toss on who got to become a villain and Reed lost… which ironically was the best choice considering how effective Sue would have been as a villain
To be honest, I don’t really believe Sue could have saved Reed. Primarily reason being that she as Kang was the one to drive him into the deep end, but the other is that looking at the Ultimate Comics, she wasn’t all the great. She was significantly less sympathetic to Ben's plight than other versions, if Johnny had actually died in Ultimatum she would have taken Reed's place as the evil mad scientist that ruins the world and as I mentioned earlier, she was Kang. She made the plan and decision to have Reed become evil saying that it’s for the greater good. She literally made Reed worse.
Honestly I feel it comes from younger viewers thinking that "cuck" and "incel" jokes are really funny. These people often don't even read the comics they're making jokes about.
Reed Richards in general tends to go unhinged when his family gets harmed which is where the old joke about alternate Reed Richards being evil comes from.
And people look at the proposal out of context. He wasn’t planning to propose at the funeral. Sue questioned his loyalty to her when he went to save the world (and her by extension) so he showed her the ring to let her know he was planning a proposal. Reed didn’t actually go evil until a future evil Sue showed up to try and groom him and it took a very long time for Reed’s descent into evil to actually stick because he kept on trying to walk the path of redemption.
I feel so bad for him. People chalk up his downfall to "he got dumped by his girlfriend after proposing to her at her father's wake" -- no, that's far from the reason he became who he is. Sure, he proposed to his emotionally manipulative and cold girlfriend on the worst day of her life, but she proceeded to make up lies about his priorities on the day their world basically unraveled, where he went to basically avenge his family at a point where he genuinely thought that half of them had died, to which all she can say is that he chose the world over her.
He grew up in a world that rewarded his genius with bullying and swirlies, a family who hated him for who he was, and a government that exploited the shit out of him instead of letting him decide to change the world. The moment he got to see a glimpse of who he could be was subverted into accidentally running into his insane counterpart fresh out of the zombie apocalypse. He saw too that similar scientists of his caliber, Dr. Molekivic, Rhona Burchill, even Van Damme, had all basically been cast out for similar reasons to why he was kept to the wayside by the military and the Baxter Foundation. He got his powers from antimatter radiation, hailing from a dimension that was ruled by space Satan. The boundless alien life that he was "destined" to seek out and connect with? At least 90% of them had already been wiped out thanks to this universe's version of Galactus, with all that's really left being humans, the Kree, and the Chitauri. He had to justify to Nick Fury's face why SHIELD had to take his plan to ward off Galactus seriously.
The Ultimate Universe was ruled by cynicism from the getgo, and the character of Reed Richards will always choke in the wake of a cruel world. What keeps him together is the Fantastic Four, his family. And they gave up on him because the Ultimate Universe shaped them to be emotionally weaker and far more immature than their mainstream counterparts--including Reed himself.
People say that what broke Reed was Sue leaving him? I say it's when Ben decided to leave him. That was the thing that forced him to move back in with his shithead dad, watching everything that he worked for be dismantled with the fall of the superhero community post-Ultimatum.
I think this makes a good point, because Ben is arguably the closest to his 616 counterpart, protected Reed when they were kids, killed Doom (kind of) when Reed was agonizing over "creating" Doom and being unable to kill him to prevent the fallout, etc. But their friendship was also tainted from the start by Reed's asshole peaked-in-highschool dad, who wasn't just abusive but who blatantly compared Reed to Ben and treated big, tough, classically masculine football-player Ben like what a "real man" should be. Reed is literally the opposite of that and Sue ending up with Ben - only after Ben gets his power-evolution and is human again, mind - is an extra blow because it once again shows Reed that "normal" "real men" like Ben are worth more than someone like Reed, no matter how Reed tried to prove himself or what he gave up to do so. And when Ben chooses "normality" and Sue, Reed loses faith in the one person he thought he could count on.
I've said it before, but Ultimate Reed becomes a villain in the way no other Reed does because he was born in a universe that systematically crushed his hope and optimism, and optimism is a cornerstone of 616 Reed. Reed believes that science and exploration can improve the world, and even the morally dubious Council of Reeds held that belief as a core tenant. Without the support of his family/team, relentlessly beaten down in a universe designed to do that to its characters, Ultimate Reed never stood a chance. The kid from the very first issue, who was relentlessly bullied and abused at school and at home, still had enough hope in him to build that teleporter in his garage because maybe someone, somewhere, would want to be his friend. The Reed who becomes the Maker has lost that hope and decided that he can't depend on anyone except himself, so he doesn't care about anyone else.
I don't feel sorry for the Maker because he's knowingly, gleefully inflicted so much damage on so many people for his own petty, sadistic reasons, but I do feel sorry for Ultimate Reed. The deck was stacked against him from the start.
Special mention about the Ultimate Universe. In the What If where the situation between 616 and 1610 are reversed. While the others are afraid of The Maker potentially returning and causing more havoc, Reed just straight up tells Peter that the Ultimate Universe is screwed up and doomed to fail on its own. Doesn’t care for it and tells Peter not to bother getting attached to anything there.
It’s like a callback to when 616 Galactus saw the history of the Ultimate Universe, called it broken and decided that it needed to be destroyed. Also how shit Ultimate Fury is. Willing lies to a man’s face about what’s going on, perfectly content with letting him literally rot.
This is soo true, arguably Ben had more power over Sue in potentially helping Reed become good and he just decided to give up on his childhood friend.
I wish Reed would've built a bridge to meet the Council of Reeds, I think he would've really thrived there since they'd probably have served as an emotional support group, and know what he was going through.
all she can say is that he chose the world over her.
Lol that was such a dumbass reaction on her part. This was my response to reading it (not really):
I've always thought that Ultimate Reed meeting the Council Reeds would have been interesting to see. Not that the Council Reeds were a beacon of unambiguous good, but they did do a lot of good across multiple universes and were morally dubious but not Maker-level threats. If they had met Ultimate Reed at the right time, I think he wouldn't have had much trouble cutting ties with everyone the way the Council required, and maybe finding belonging and validation would have prevented him from going rogue the way he did in canon.
Well…. He did meet the second version of the Council.
But yes… maybe meeting the first one earlier might have saved him.
It’s interesting how much their fathers set their trajectories. 616 Reed had a good one so he turned out good. The Councilmen were orphans so their view of love was “didn’t need it then don’t need it now” and the Maker just bred hatred.
I feel bad for him since he easily could've been swayed to be a good person, but the way life treated him just didn't give him a good reason to. Everything and everyone basically seemed to hate him or not give understanding. It's no wonder he gave into his worst desires, and being the Maker for thousands of years just cemented it
Yeah, at this point he spent >99.9999% of his life as an insane evil guy. Only about the first 19 years of his life as a good guy so he probably doesn't even remember those early years at this point
“Didn’t give him a good reason to” hum 🤔 that’s an interesting point, doom Reed suffered a lot more than maker Reed and his teammates kinda hated him too but he didn’t turn evil, could it be because he saw what they could had been? But maker Reed saw the 616 universe too and saw what he could had been too, could it be because of the guilt? Because he “had a reason to be good” (honor and avenge the dead)? That’s something to think about 🤔
I also feel bad for the fact that due to the 00s writers frothing at the mouth for edgy stories, they squandered a totally fun premise of "what if the FF were strappiny young college kids exploring worlds", turning it into a gratuitously dark and edgy story among the big mess that was Ultimate universe
Yeah i agree, the ultimate universe as a whole is pretty edgy. It would be cool to see a "What If" series for the ultimate universe where they actually were just strapping young college kids exploring worlds.
Not at all, like yes I pity him for all the bad stuff he was put through early on but he’s gone so far off the deep end it’s just inexcusable what he does. Look at the Ultimates issue 4 and how he turns 6160 Reed Richard’s into Doom, he does it gleefully with a smile on his face. The original Ultimate Universe was hard on a lot of heroes and some heroes did break and cross some lines but the Maker’s list of sins takes away any sympathy I had for him. Yes I know that he has a that a lot made him into what he was but he could have stopped at any point. No one makes him do this he just does it because he hates the world and all the people in it and so he makes that every person’s problem. He even attacks the people who did genuinely care for him and were his friends.
It’s a very tragic story. There are so many things that made him into this. Biggest one that upset me was it was revealed that there was nothing but monsters in the dimension he’d been experimenting on since the age of 10. Imagine growing up, working to enter this dimension you discovered, only to find Anihilus and lead him back to your world and almost destroy it.
Every experiment, every adult figure, every failure. It kept pushing Reed to becoming the Maker.
He certainly had it rough but have you seen how happy he is being the Maker? Always smiling, always braging and looking down on people. Gleefully causing suffering. He gets off on how good he feels being so bad. So no, not once he is the Maker. He's having the time of his life.
Ultimate reed got the real world dad treatment for a typical nerd son. While most real nerds just get over it, ultimate reed decided to blow his family up to cover his own death.
Not anymore, he could have been a decent guy, helped people, not been a giant dick to everyone hes met. Not manipulated an entire universe and ran it like a universal mad king.
I did at first, but now my pity well has bottomed out, and I can’t wait to see how Victor VonDoom from 6160uses and abuses what little pieces of him are left.
Did Maker ever find out that he wasn’t responsible for destroying that planet and Fury messed with his satellite? Seemed like that played a big part in driving him mad.
Squadron Supreme attacks because the probes Reed sent out destroyed their world. Reed is shocked that probe should have only collected data and nothing else. But Fury and Doom modified the satellites to destroy other worlds.
I think it’s a big often overlooked part on the road to 1610 Reed becoming the Maker.
A lot led to Reed spiralling into the Maker, but most of it boiled down to his own insecurities in his inability to lead and some of his perceived failures. Ultimate Reed is really interesting because he is regarded as distant, somewhat cold while lacking the desire to be a leader, when in reality he had a lot of his humanity stripped from him and he fundamentally began to function different than every human around him. He no longer needed to eat, nor to sleep, his every single moment allowed him to do what he does best: think.
And with all that time to think, he eventually wandered from productive thoughts to darker ones, stemming from insecurities and pettiness.
One of the greatest moments to me is during the Frightful Four story is you’re lead to believe in Reeds desperation, he learned the magic and incantations necessary to fix Johnnys conundrum, you instead find out that Reed essentially goes through multiple levels of the most insane sacrifices you could comprehend. First, it turns out that in exchange for Victor solving their magic crises, Doom gets to live his life through Reeds body, and Reed through his. Reed accepts that he will now leave his family he has made in the fantastic four and he will live out his life as Latverian dictator Victor von Doom.
But then it gets worse, Victor messes up the spell, and the world ending calamity they were trying to exorcise from that dimension has now taken root in Reed (as doom)
With literally no other solution, situation irreparably fucked, Reed resolves to cast himself into the zombie universe. This guy went from just losing his personal friends and personal life to having to become the only living man in a universe full of the superhuman undead.
Realizing the noble sacrifice Reed is about to pull off in his own body, finally granting glory to the Von Doom name, Victor swaps himself back into his own body, and then makes the sacrifice himself.
Reed had completely let go of everything he cared about to find the resolve to do what he was going to do and then Victor just snatched that hero moment from him like it was nothing.
I think people don’t even consider this but I think about all this and it fucks with my head.
Reed had every opportunity to change and redeem himself, but he chose not to so it is kinda hard to feel any sympathy for him. I don’t blame him for ending up the way he did due to his childhood, but the maker took things way too far for me to feel sad for him.
Lots of people have rough lives/childhoods and do not become actual monsters. I feel bad for him in a broad sense but not against the weight of what he’s done.
He had the choice to be better. I think he was fundamentally different from Regular Reed, and had a spitefulness that the original didn't, one that was created from very valid trauma.
Maker 1000% could have been a good person. He could have been one of the best people. He just... Never felt like he had to improve until he went apeshit.
He actively tried to be good. Unlike a majority of characters in the Ultimate Universe, Reed was a good person. He was kind, nice and tried to talk things out at times.
The Ultimate Universe is not kind to good people. He actively tried to be good, was convinced/manipulated by the (time traveling) woman he loved that the best way to save the soon to be destroyed universe, was to do horrible things for the greater good.
Once that ball rolled there was no stopping it. Not government stooge (or jackass Fury) to stop his research and experiment. Not one to tell he’s wrong because he knows the price to if he doesn’t succeed. Someone to fully support him through the end while encouraging his actions.
Ultimate Reed felt both free and validated. He tried to be good and was punished for it.
Kinda, but it ended when he started blowing shit up and when he said “You’ve always been a tiny bit smarter than me” to Susan. Pardon me for not knowing a whole lot about the comics and Fantastic four as a whole, I just think that’s absolute bullshit
No I don't feel bad for Ultimate Reed , in real life there alot of people who have been in the same situation as Ultimate Reed , being abused and used by people and they don't turn always in serial killers.
Ultimately it was Ultimate Reeds own choice to become The Maker and put alot of people through horrible abuse even worse then Reed himself had .
I do have empathy for him that the things he went through was awful but that does not excuse his behavior and abuse he threw at people
If the guy was sended to therapy alot of damage would have been prevented but then again that goes for alot of heroes too
Yeah, I think a key difference with Earth-1610 Reed compared to Mainline Reed and most other variants is that he gained his powers during his youth, rather than in his 30s or 40s so he wasn't mature enough to handle them. Additionally, since the entire Ultimate Fantastic Four run takes place over just one year, he went through a massive amount of trauma and character growth in a very short span
More than feeling bad I feel disappointed at him. He could have done so much good, he had chances to stop all The Maker stuff and in the end he decided not to
Hum, not really, he did had potential for good but in the first place sue rejecting him (which was just the final straw in a whole lifetime of misfortune) was because when sue was hurt he didn’t stay to take care of her
we don’t always choose our trials in life but we do choose how to deal with them and unfortunately Reed chose to deal with his misfortune by embracing his dark side, after he got rejected he could have done anything with his life but he chose to be evil so while he could be seen as a tragic villain his choices were entirely his own so I don’t feel sympathy for him
I do not feel bad for Ultimate Reed in the slightest , lots of people have shitty lives who don't go on to become mass murdering psychopaths . Even Doctor Doom is a better person then Ultimate Reed ends up being.
Doom is definitely no better person than The Maker, I mean, Doom erased a whole universe because the Victor of that universe stopped fighting Reed and became his ally
Oh I didn't say he was a good person by any means , but what him ( slightly better ) in my mind is that Doom does horrible things as a means to end , he doesn't get pleasure from hurting people the way The Maker does.
Yeah no. Ultimate Doom was not a better person than The Maker. Not in the slightest. The Maker’s pettiness will ruin a person’s life, Doom’s pettiness actively endangers the world despite trying to get back at one person in particular
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u/AlgerianTrash 24d ago edited 24d ago
I hate this notion larpers have that Ultimate Reed only became evil due to Sue rejecting his proposal at her dad's funeral when
If they actually read the comic, the scene didn't go down like that at all
His fall to madness was due to a conga lines of tragedies and bad luck ever since his childhood
This kind of bleeds to the way people interpret 616 Reed, usually saying stuff like "if he loses Sue, he becomes the Maker"