Warning: Contains spoilers forFantastic Four #24!Mister Fantasticis no stranger to amazing discoveries, and theFantastic Fourhave spent decades making the unbelievable into the achievable. Once in a while, something truly remarkable still manages to surprise even Reed Richards, like a previously unknown and mind-bogglingly fast form of travel. Upon discovering a living pilot in one of the “OMG Particles” crashing into the Earth, the Fantastic Four uncovered a species traveling beyond lightspeed inside protons.
Fantastic Four#24 by Ryan North and Carlos Gómez at lastsolves the mystery of the OMG Particlesbombarding the Earth when the team finds an alien named Zrixa. The “particles” are actually protons containing members of Zrixa’s species who used the makeshift ships to escape their home planet situated billions of light-years away from Earth.
Whilethe Fantastic Four has encounteredall manner of strange occurrences and anomalies in both space and time,Zrixa’s people accomplished something astounding by completing “a journey of billions of years” in only seconds.It came at a dire cost, but the concept is easily one of the fastest ways to travel through the Marvel Universe.
It Makes a Billion Years Pass in the Blink of an Eye
The Fantastic Four includes some of Marvel’s most advanced superheroes. The team is practically overflowing with genius, andMister Fantastic is typically ableto turn their best ideas into practical, real-world inventions that get as close to “magic” as science can manage. Yet even Reed hadn’t conceived of the type of travel Zrixa had discovered, all made possible by a special particle housed within her planet’s sun. It allowed her species to shrink enough togo inside a proton and launch off their planet at something close to the speed of light, clearing unfathomable distances so quickly that their bodies wouldn’t age.
It’s hard to imagine Reed and the F4 completely shelving the idea that contains so much potential.
Unfortunately for Zrixa’s people, there was a fatal flaw attached to proton travel. As Zrixa harvested more of the particles, their sun dimmed and was eventually extinguished, dooming their people. Moreover, once inside the protons, any escaping pilots had no way to control or guide their makeshift “ships.” It’s far from a perfect concept, both for selfish and scientific reasons. Yetit’s hard to imagine Reed and the F4completely shelving the idea that contains so much potential. With the right tweaking and technology, proton travel could open the door to so much good - as long as it remains in the right hands.
Will It Be Misused by Other Marvel Characters?
As with any powerful idea, proton travel has the potential to be misused, as Zrixa demonstrated. However, perfecting the idea would allow the Fantastic Four to respond to disasters in a literal instant. If something happened on the other side of the galaxy, they’d have the means to help without question. Proton travel could grant the right people a near-infinite capacity to do good across the universe, but it could put an equal amount of power into the wrong hands. For now,Reed Richardsand theFantastic Fourhave exclusive knowledge of lightspeed proton travel, the new fastest way to traverse space and time.
FANTASTIC FOUR #24 (2024)
Mr. Fantastic
Fantastic Four (2022)
“WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE FANTASTIC FOUR?” It’s the start of a new era for the Fantastic Four…and they’re already in a ton of trouble. Something has gone terribly wrong in New York, and the Thing and Alicia are traveling across America to escape it! But when they stop in a small town for the night and wake up the morning before they arrived, they find themselves caught in a time loop that’s been going on since before they were born… That’s been going on since before they were born…
