Happy Birthday, Darling!

The Fantastic Four, Alicia, Franklin and Wyatt Wingfoot have surprised their leader Reed Richards with a birthday cake. Reed is genuinely surprised as his birthday managed to slip his mind. With many candles on the cake, Reed decides to delight Franklin by using his powers to expand his lungs to comic proportions allowing him to generate the gust of breath needed to blow out all the candles. Once the festivities being, Sue begins to notice that something is troubling Reed. Confirming her feelings, Reed takes his wife outside and makes an admission to her: he cannot remember his mother's eyes. Reed explains that while they were exploring the Negative Zone and he was made a prisoner of Taranith Gestal, who absorbed Reed's mind into an entire machine, he has realized that since being restored to normal there are gaps in his memories. As Reed tries to struggle to remember these missing memories, he tells his wife that the earliest thing he can recall is a few years before they became the Fantastic Four when they battled the being known as Gormuu....

Years ago, a much younger Reed Richards is driving through Central City, glad that his lover Susan Storm had decided to come out and visit him. As they are driving, they witness as a strange alien ship passes by their car. Driving to the landing site they are shocked to discover a horrible looking alien creature emerging from the ship. It introduces itself as Gormuu, the warlord of the planet Kraalo. When Reed questions the alien's purpose on Earth, Gormuu explains that he has come to Earth to conquer it. As Reed pleads to the alien visitor not to do so, it merely brushes off his pleas and walks away, growing with every step. Soon the United States Air Force is deployed, but their weapons have no effect on Gormuu, who continues to grow and become stronger.

Meanwhile, Reed is meeting with military officials to brainstorm on ways to stop Gormuu and his invasion of Earth. When reports that the creature is approaching Central City, an evacuation is ordered. When the general contacts the White House for assistance, the President tries to contact the Russians to get permission to launch nuclear weapons at the monster without any retaliation. The Russian premiere warns the President against such an action as it might be seen as an act of war. With the governments of the world locked in their nuclear rhetoric, Reed decides to try something out. Racing out to Gormuu's ship, Reed goes inside to investigate. There he discovers the device that is constantly pumping Gormuu with energy causing him to grow. Going out to investigate the footprints. Measuring the deepness of the footprints, Reed finally has the solution he is looking for.

Rushing back to the Richards Rocket Group facility, Reed begins building a device that will bombard Gormuu with more power. As he is working he is joined by both Sue and Ben Grimm. When Reed tells them what he is up to, Ben believes that Reed is betraying them to Gormuu and tries to stop him. Reed is forced to punch out his best friend then activates the device. When the beam from the device begins to strike Gormuu, he suddenly shoots up in size. The alien invader initially gloats, but when he cannot stop growing he begins to panic as suddenly Gormuu's body grows larger than the planet itself, loses all cohesion and fades away. In the aftermath of the invasion, Reed explains that he discovered that while Gormuu's body increased in size, it did not increase in mass. That by increasing Gormuu's size to an exponential level it would cause him to dissipate. With the threat neutralized, Reed takes Sue and Ben outside where his new experimental spacecraft is in its final stages, telling his two closest friends that today's attack makes their future space flight all the more important...

... Finishing his recollection, Reed comments how they went on their unauthorized space flight not long thereafter which resulted in their exposure to cosmic rays and becoming the Fantastic Four. Reed once more chastises himself for being responsible for Ben Grimm's transformation into the Thing. When Sue reminds her husband that Ben has gotten over that and has become comfortable with who he is. Reed responds by saying he is not so sure, pointing out their recent involvement in the Secret Wars on Battleworld where Ben discovered he could change back and forth between his human and Thing form. Reed had deceived Ben into thinking it was the planet itself that triggered the transformation when he knew full well that it was Ben's own force of will. Reed wonders how Ben will feel if he ever returns to Earth and discovers the truth. Sue tries to assure to her husband that what he told Ben wasn't really a lie per se, as he told Ben what he needed to hear.

Putting aside the conundrum for a time, Reed decides to make an announcement to the rest of the team: They are returning to Central City, and the Richards family home so that Reed can finally close any gaps he still has in his memory. They soon arrive at the Richards estate where Reed is reunited with Giles Peacock and his wife, the on-site staff that has worked for the Richards family for years. After a round of introductions is made, the Fantastic Four and their friends all sit down to dinner. There, Reed explains that his father disappeared three years prior to the space mission that gained the Fantastic Four their powers. Reed's father had left him a few million dollars for his project. When Wyatt asks about how Reed still has this estate considering the Fantastic Four's early financial woes. Reed points out that his father's maintained separate ownership of the home from Reed, and that it had enough funds to be maintained and operated by the Peacocks in his absence.

Giles tells Reed that things have been going smoothly with the exception of the occasional ghosts that appear in the night. He tells the Fantastic Four that they have been regularly visited by strange specters that periodically emerge from the lab owned by Reed's father. Curious as to what these ghosts might be, Reed and the rest of his team go down to the lab. He stops She-Hulk before she can smash the door open, warning about traps. Instead, Reed has Sue use her powers to make the wall transparent so Reed can spot the triggers and has Johnny uses his flame powers to melt through them, deactivating the traps. Getting into the lab, they are all shocked to see a massive time platform just like the one the Fantastic Four confiscated from Doctor Doom early on in their career. Examining the controls, Reed sees that it was set for yesterday’s date and realizes that his father had traveled back in time to try to get to this point in history and something must have happened along the way and ended up strapped in a parallel universe. Reed tells his friends and family that there is but only one course of action: use the time platform and try to find his father.

Recurring Characters

Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, She-Hulk), Ben Grimm (in flashback), “Alicia Masters”, Franklin Richards, Wyatt Wingfoot, Giles Peacock

Continuity Notes

• Present Day

• This is not the real Alicia Masters, but a Skrull spy named Lyja. As per Fantastic Four #358, Lyja replaced Alicia to infiltrate and spy on the Fantastic Four.

• The number of candles of Reed's cake count to 40. Reed's actual age should be considered a matter of interpretation. Based on a tombstone in Fantastic Four #605, Reed was born 38 years prior to the start of the Modern Age. Per the Sliding Timescale, six years has passed since the start of the Modern Age, placing Reed’s age somewhere around the age of 44 at the time of this story. One could assume that the number of candles here represent Reed’s physical age after being de-aged in issue #214.

• Reed mentions how his mind was pulled from his body by Taranith Gestal during their exploration of the Negative Zone. The Fantastic Four ventured into the Negative Zone between Fantastic Four #251-256. Reed's mind was harvested and trapped in Gestal's ship in Fantastic Four #254-256.

• This is the first time Reed's parents are mentioned. Reed's father is identified as Nathaniel in Fantastic Four #273, his mother Evelyn is named in Fantastic Four: Unplugged #2. Fantastic Four #273 also reveals that Reed's mother died when Reed was only seven years old.

• Reed mentions how Ben stayed behind on Battleworld during the Secret Wars. As seen in Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars #12, Ben decided to stay on Battleworld when he discovered he could change back and forth between his human and Thing forms. Ben remains on Battleworld between Thing #11-22, when he discovers the truth about his ability to change back-and-forth, only to lose that ability in the process. This, along with the discovery that Johnny and "Alicia" are dating in Fantastic Four #277 leads to Ben being estranged from the Fantastic Four until he rejoins the team in Fantastic Four #296.

• Wyatt makes mention of the Fantastic Four's previous financial problems early on in their career. This is a reference to Fantastic Four #9 when the Fantastic Four filed for bankruptcy and Reed had to sell off their assets.

• Reed states that his father disappeared three years prior to the space flight that created the Fantastic Four. From the perspective of this story, the events of Fantastic Four #1 happened roughly six years prior per the Sliding Timescale. This would place Nathaniel Richard's disappearance as happening nine years prior to this story. However, this contradicts Fantastic Four #572, which shows Nathaniel leaving when Reed was still a boy. Reed also doesn’t mention that he saw his father again when he was in university as seen in Fantastic Four #581-582. Since these stories were published years after this one, there are no explanations for the discrepancy. One could assume that since Nathaniel utilized time travel in Fantastic Four #581-582, he could have erased Reed’s knowledge of the future. Or, it could be Reed has his facts mixed up due to the aforementioned loss of memories.

• Reed makes the observation that his father's time platform resembles that of the one they confiscated from Doctor Doom following their first battle in Fantastic Four #5. This is somewhat accurate, as revealed in Fantastic Four Annual #11, Reed did indeed confiscate it but was forced to return it for diplomatic reasons, but not before he was able to duplicate the device for his own use.

• The Past

• All Cold War references in this story should be considered topical references per the Sliding Timescale of Earth-616. As the modern age slides forward so as not to prematurely age the character, such is the same with everyone's past prior to the birth of the Fantastic Four. Per History of the Marvel Universe #2, all international tensions in this story could be attributed to the Sin-Cong Conflict, a fictional conflict that exists within Marvel history to work around topical references like this.

• As revealed in Conspiracy #1, General Edward Hannigan provided Reed with the equipment he needed to defeat Gormuu, and was later responsible for covering up the whole incident from the general public.

• Naturally, the space ship seen here is the one that Reed and his friends pilot in the accident that turns them into the Fantastic Four way back in Fantastic Four #1.