Fantastic Four

Reed Richards, a brilliant but timid and bankrupt scientist, is convinced that evolution can be triggered by clouds of cosmic energy, and has calculated that one of these clouds is soon going to pass near Earth. Together with his partner, the gruff yet gentle astronaut Ben Grimm, Reed convinces his conceited MIT classmate Dr. Victor von Doom, now CEO of his own enterprise, to allow him access to his privately-owned space station. Von Doom agrees, in exchange for control over the experiment and a majority of the profits from whatever benefits it brings. He brings aboard Susan Storm, his shy, though assertive chief genetics researcher (and Reed's ex-girlfriend), and her diametrically opposed brother Johnny, the maverick and hot-headed playboy pilot. The quintet travels to space to observe the cosmic energy clouds; despite Reed's calculations the clouds materialise well ahead of schedule. When Victor refuses Reed's plea to abort the mission, the station is engulfed by its vast energies. Whilst Victor is seemingly safe behind the station's shields, the others attempt to rescue Ben (who was space-walking at the time) and are exposed to the cloud.

The astronauts make it home intact; however, before long they begin to mutate, developing strange powers as a result of their exposure to the cloud. Reed is able to stretch like rubber; Sue can become invisible (by bending light around objects) and create force fields, especially when angered; Johnny can produce fire at up to supernova-like temperatures, and is able to fly; and Ben is transformed into "The Thing", a large, rock-like creature with superhuman strength. After Ben, brooding about his situation on the Brooklyn Bridge, inadvertently causes a major traffic pile-up whilst attempting to stop a man about to commit suicide, the four manage to use their powers to prevent any loss of life and to rescue a fire truck and its crew from falling off the bridge in a resulting explosion. The media dubs the team the 'Fantastic Four'; whilst Johnny eagerly embraces his powers and new life, Ben - the most heavily disfigured - particularly suffers from his transformation. His disfigurement has caused his fiance, Debbie, to abandon him and has seen him shunned and feared by much of New York. Blaming himself, Reed vows to return Ben to his human form. Therefore he, Sue and Ben work on a cure, constructing a healing chamber in Reed's high tech Baxter Building loft-turned-laboratory. During this time, Reed and Susan begin to rekindle their attraction to one another. Susan admits that she is not interested in Victor, but had turned away from Reed because he feared to make a binding vow, thinking only in terms of variables.

Unknown to the others, however, Victor's body is also mutating; he is turning into organic metal capable of absorbing and manipulating electrical energy. As a result of the disastrous expedition, his company is going bankrupt and he is losing public stature; blaming Reed for his misfortunes, Victor swears revenge. After killing a bank chairman who had pulled investment out of his company, Victor sees the opportunity to finish off his rival once and for all. Manipulating Ben's insecurity and anguish, Victor tricks Ben into thinking that his teammates are not working on a cure with due diligence; after a vicious argument between himself and Reed, Ben storms out of the Baxter Building. Reed experiments with the curative machine on himself and nearly dies in the process, but learns that the machine only needs more power to fully succeed. Victor, who has been spying on Reed, tricks Ben into entering the machine and provides the extra power. Ben becomes normal again, while Victor's own mutation increases exponentially, increasing his power but also physically disfiguring him. When Ben realizes that Victor merely wanted the super-strong Thing out of the way so that no one could stop him, Victor immobilizes Ben and renders Reed unconscious, taking him prisoner and freezing him to prevent him using his powers of distention.

When Susan and Johnny realize what has happened, Victor - now calling himself 'Doom' - fires a heat-seeker missile at the Baxter Building, intending it to target and kill Johnny. As Johnny uses his powers of heat and flight to lead the missile to open water, where he ignites a garbage scow to safely dispose of the missile, Susan attempts to rescue Reed and confronts Doom. She is hopelessly outmatched against the powerful Doom, and he is on the verge of killing Susan when Ben - having activated Reed's machine and used it upon himself to restore his mutation - bursts into the room. Doom and Ben fight, until the battle spills onto the street below. The rest of the team join Ben to defeat Doom; under Reed's direction and using their powers in sync, the team vanquish their enemy with a coordinated attack that seemingly leaves Doom as a statue of inert metal, superheated by Johnny and then rapidly cooled with water from a fire hydrant. Ben informs Reed that he has accepted his condition with the help of Alicia Masters, a woman for whom he has developed feelings, and the team decide to embrace their roles as superheroes and unite officially as the Fantastic Four. Reed proposes marriage to Susan, who accepts. Doom's remains are being transported back to his homeland of Latveria when the ship carrying them experiences unusual electronic interference.