Fantastic Four #273
Fathers and Others
While searching for Nathaniel Richards on Other-Earth, the Fantastic Four are brought to the massive citadel controlled by the Warlord by the gunslinger known as Bret Colby. As they prepare to press forward, suddenly a massive tripod weapon rises out of the ground to face them. This time the Fantastic Four are ready for them. The Human Torch flames on and confuses the pilots of the weapon by creating flame duplicates of himself, until he can melt the side of the hull with his real self.
Watching this from her control room is Cassandra Richards, wife to Nathaniel, who is furious that her primitive warriors cannot stop these four outworlders intruding upon her domain. She warns her minions not to fail her again or they will suffer a painful death. Outside, the Fantastic Four search the inside of the ship and discover that it is empty. Reed deduces that the tripods can be controlled remotely this close to the base. The Fantastic Four and their allies suddenly spot some warrior women flying in on mechanical steeds and decide to act cautiously. With Sue erecting a force-field around them, they wait until the warrior women land. Their leader begins to ask them why they are clashing with the Warlord. When Reed introduces himself, the react violently to the name Richards, accusing him of being relative to the Warlord. Reed quickly subdues the warrior woman attacking her, and the rest of the warriors are ordered to stand down by their elder. She asks Reed to release her daughter as they have much to discuss.
After they have compared notes, and it is revealed that the Fantastic Four are from a parallel universe, the leader of the Eyriennes explains that by their calendar it is the year 1127. She explains that on their world their calendar begins on the date that their people first landed on the moon. She explains that the first to travel to the moon developed a colony called Luna. Soon a war between Luna and Earth erupted leading to a nuclear war that nearly wiped out the human race, but ended in the destruction of Luna. The planet was plunged into a nuclear winter and after ten years it also became bombarded with debris from the shattered moon. Poverty and war reigned supreme until one day the being who became known as the Warlord appeared, Nathaniel Richards. Richards tried to help this world by utilizing his knowledge of science. He eventually ventured to the land of the Eyriennes. With this class of warrior women, Nathaniel helped rebuild society, arming the Eyriennes as a military and building his massive citadel. In thanks for rebuilding their society, the Eyriennes gave one of their own -- Cassandra -- to be his wife. However in the passing years someone calling themselves the Warlord had become a tyrant, controlling the outside society from within the citadel. Someone they believe to be Nathaniel Richards.
Impressed by the story, Reed theorizes that this reality did not experience the "great interruption", the period of time in during the dark ages when the advancement of science completely stopped. Suspecting that the Warlord is his father, Reed decides to approach the citadel alone to try and talk sense into Nathaniel and stop hostilities. As Reed approaches the citadel, he recalls how he came to this realm to find his father and hopefully close the gaps in his memory. He thinks back to how his father raised him to have a love for science and eventually funded his spaceship project until he disappeared three years prior to the birth of the Fantastic Four. His thoughts are cut off when suddenly a sentry device pops out of the ground and demands to know who he is. When Richards identifies himself and asks for an audience with the Warlord, the Warlord obliges with a holographic image. Unable to discern the identity of the Warlord due to the helmet and masked voice, Reed asks if the Warlord cannot recognize his own son. When Reed asks the Warlord how he could use his science to turn this alternate world into a perverted warzone, the Warlord simply answered by unleashing a massive army of attack planes and tripods upon them.
The Fantastic Four, Eyriennes and Colby's cowboys all join in the bloody battle ahead. As the fight rages on, Wyatt Wingfoot manages to slip away to get closer to the citadel. On the other side of a ridge, he spots the Warlord and one of his men prepping an anti-matter cannon that will kill all the intruders. With the lives of his friends hanging in the balance, Wyatt makes the uneasy decision to take a life to save his friends by tossing a rock into the anti-matter cannon. With the weapon jammed, it instead explodes on the spot while Wyatt tries to leap to safety. Wyatt later awakens in a medical lab within the citadel. Soon they all learn that the Warlord was actually Nathaniel Richard's wife Cassandra, who was posing as him to the outside world. Nathaniel is heartbroken by this truth but is glad that it has been revealed and he has been reunited with his first son. Nathaniel tells the Fantastic Four that he intends to stay on Other-Earth until he can fix all the wrongs carried out by his wayward wife....
... Centuries later in the year 3000 of Other-Earth, a man watches old 3-D Stereovision tapes of the past and finds them more exciting compared to the dull future world he lives in. Deciding to do something about it, this bored man decides to travel to the long-abandoned citadel of the Warlord. Inside he finds plans for a time machine, deciding to travel back in time to ancient Egypt, he disguises the time machine as a massive Sphinx and uses it to go back in time where his destiny awaits him....
Recurring Characters
Fantastic Four (Mister Fantastic, Invisible Girl, Human Torch, She-Hulk), Wyatt Wingfoot, Warlord, Nathaniel Richards (Reed’s father), Bert Colby, Nathaniel Richards (the future Rama-Tut/Kang/Immortus)
Continuity Notes
This parallel universe is designated Earth-6311 as indexed in Marvel Encyclopedia: Fantastic Four.
Reed mentions having gaps in his memories, this was the result of his mind being plucked from his body by Taranith Gestal, an alien that needed mental energy to power his ship, as seen in Fantastic Four #254. When Reed's mind was restored to his body in Fantastic Four #256 he suffered some memory loss, although he did not discover this until Fantastic Four #271.
Following his appearance here, Nathaniel does not appear again until Fantastic Four #375, part of a long-time mission to help the Fantastic Four prepare for various trials and tribulations that last full-on into Fantastic Four #416.
Reed speaks of his father as though he hasn’t seen his father since he was a child. Indeed, Fantastic Four #572 shows Nathaniel leaving while Reed was still a child. However, neither Reed nor his father mentions when the latter reappeared while Reed was attending State University, as seen in Fantastic Four #581-582. No explanation is given other than that story was published years after this story. However, one could assume that since that story involved time travel, Nathaniel erased the memory of these events from Reed’s mind, or perhaps this is one of the memories Reed had lost after the Taranith Gestal affair.
The epilogue at the end of this story retells the origins of Rama-Tut, who the Fantastic Four clashed with in Fantastic Four #19. This is the first of a long-running mystery of the origin of this character. 30th Century Nathaniel Richards next appears in What If? (Vol 2) #39 where the Richards Rocket Group attached a Saturnyne Symbionte to Richards in order to prevent a scheme being potted by his future self Immortus.
This story implies that Reed Richards is a distant ancestor of the man who will become Rama-Tut, Kang, and Immortus. There has been conflicting accounts stating that Kang is related to either Reed Richards and Doctor Doom.
In Fantastic Four Annual #2, Rama-Tut meets Doctor Doom and suggests that they might be the same guy from two different points on the timeline. Avengers #269 reveals that this was a lie on Rama-Tut’s part.
What If? (vol. 2) #39 seems to resolve this when a DNA test confirms that he is related to Reed Richards.
This was thrown into question again in Avengers Annual #21, where it is suggested that Kang doctored the results to perpetuate a lie.
The issue appears to have been finally put to bed in Fantastic Four (vol. 6) #35, which seems to confirm that Richards is Kang’s ancestor when he was able to access a chamber used by Kang and his counterparts that is keyed in to Richards DNA.
The closing narrative here states that those confused by the Rama-Tut origin at the end of this issue that answers will be provided in upcoming issues of Avengers. They are referring to the connections between Rama-Tut and his future incarnations Kang and Immortus. "Soon" is a little off the mark as the story they are referring to doesn't happen until Avengers #267-269 published a year and a half after this story.
