Reed Richards can stretch his body into almost any shape imaginable. Benjamin Percy wants you to consider how absolutely disgusting that would actually look.
Percy and artist Kev Walker are reimagining Marvel’s First Family this October in Midnight Fantastic Four, and their approach to Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben is considerably more horrifying than the superpowers readers are accustomed to seeing.
In fact, Percy doesn’t consider them powers at all.
“These so-called powers that they have, which are actually curses,” Percy told me on the AIPT Comics podcast when discussing his approach to the characters.
Percy is leaning into cosmic and Lovecraftian horror for the series, and that extends directly to what happens to their bodies.
“These are not heroes,” Percy said. “And they don’t have powers. These are people who are facing horrors within that help them battle back against the horrors without.”
To illustrate what that means, Percy gave us one particularly gruesome example involving Reed Richards and a locked door. Imagine Reed placing his hand flat against it. His bones remain stationary while his skin begins to “dribble down.” Then come the veins and flesh.
“You start to see these green and red tendrils from veins and flesh work their way downward beneath the crack at the door and up the other side, unlocking it so that he could then get in,” Percy said.
It’s still Reed Richards using elasticity to solve a problem. It’s just a version of elasticity you might wish you hadn’t seen.
“You should feel absolute revulsion when looking at him transforming,” Percy said.
There’s another major difference from the traditional Fantastic Four. Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben aren’t a family when the story begins.
“At the start of the story, none of these people they aren’t together,” Percy said. “Reed Richards has no idea who Sue is, who Ben is, who Johnny is.”
Percy described the book as an origin story and a “very slow burn” when it comes to the four characters becoming entangled and eventually acquiring their abilities.
That could also mean the trauma associated with becoming the Thing won’t be quite so unique this time around. Ben Grimm has traditionally carried the physical burden of the Fantastic Four’s transformation while Reed, Sue, and Johnny retain recognizably human bodies. Percy’s comments suggest everyone is going to have something horrifying to contend with.
The variant covers are already beginning to hint at those transformations, but Percy clearly wants readers to experience the full effect on the page.
<img src="https://comicvibe.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/MIDNIGHTFF2026001_B_Stegman_MidnightBloodbath-scaled-2.jpg" alt="Exclusive: Benjamin Percy details the horrifying new elasticity of Midnight Reed Richards”>
Midnight Fantastic Four #1 by Benjamin Percy and Kev Walker launches October 7. For more on the Midnight Universe, listen to the chat wherever you get your podcasts or below!
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