History

Cosmic radiation was responsible for the creation of theFantastic Four onReed Richards' fateful space flight. Lack of sufficient shielding caused Reed Richards,Sue Storm,Johnny Storm, andBen Grimm to receive exposure to cosmic rays in space. This led to lifelong mutagenic changes in the four.^[1]

Although Reed and the others believed that he had miscalculated the amount of necessary shielding, years later they learned that he had not.^[2] The storm was an attempt by the alienEntity to communicate,^[3] and the powerful denizen of the planetSpyre known asRevos directed the storm at Reed's spacecraft to prevent the flight from detecting and visiting Revos' planet. After realizing that the crewmates of the spacecraft survived their encounter with the cosmic rays and were granted powers, Revos took some of the radiation and tried to mutate a group of his own planet's citizens to grant them superpowers, just in case Reed and his crew ever tried to use their abilities to still come and attack the planet of Spyre.^[2]

The manipulation of cosmic rays has frequently been a part of Reed Richards' attempts to restore Ben Grimm to his human state.^{[citation needed]} Reed himself used a cosmic radiation storm to recharge his own powers at a point when he had lost his elasticity.^[4] Another storm was responsible for further mutating Ben Grimm for a time, along with his partnerMs. Marvel.^[5]

The cosmic radiation that transformed the Fantastic Four is usually deadly to humans. It would have killedJean Grey when she interacted with it, had not thecosmic entity known as thePhoenix Force intervened.^[6]

Other individuals have occasionally tried to recreate the cosmic ray event in order to gain powers for themselves, with varying success. TheRed Ghost and hisSuper-Apes, theU-Foes,Doctor Midas, andFeilong all succeeded in becoming cosmically empowered after the Fantastic Four.^{[7][8][9][10]}

Cosmic rays were employed byMODOK and theLeader to create a combinedgamma-cosmic process, empoweringGeneral "Thunderbolt" Ross andBetty Ross to become the Red Hulk and Red She-Hulk.^[11]

Notes

• Cosmic rays have been shown to cancel outgamma energy. TheU-Foes calls it "anti-gamma" and "pure poison" to agamma mutate like theHulk.^[12]Jackie McGee calls cosmic radiation the "opposite" of gamma.^[13]
  • TheLeader speculates that cosmic and gamma radiation share the same source.^[14] If so, cosmic radiation should be a tool for theOne Above All like gamma radiation to theOne Below All.
  • InImmortal Hulk #24, theFantastic Four getting bombarded by a cosmic ray storm whileBruce Banner getting exposed to aGamma Bomb are shown to be mirrored events.
    • In theFourth Cosmos, "Four-Are-One" and "One-Is-Four" are the archetypes for the FF and the Hulk, respectively.^[15]
  • Nadia Van Dyne identified cosmic radiation as a combination ofGamma Radiation, X-Rays, andKirbons.^[16]
• A solar flare caused theVan Allen Belts to be charged with ultra-high levels of cosmic radiation during theFantastic Four's fateful spaceflight.

See also:Fantastic Four #1

Cosmic Ray Enhanced Characters:

• Fantastic Four
  • Mister Fantastic
  • Invisible Woman
  • Human Torch
  • Thing
• Red Ghost
• Super-Apes
• U-Foes
  • Ironclad
  • Vapor
  • Vector
  • X-Ray
• Sharon Ventura
• Cosmic Man

• Fantasy
• Sci-fi
• Marvel