UPDATE 2/28/15 10:47AM EDT: The Fantastic Four website has updated the language on Reed Richards character biography.
UPDATE 4/27/15 8:00PM EDT: “Fantastic Four” writer Simon Kinberg clarified Reed Richards powers exclusively to HitFix.
Original Story Below:
When it comes to superhero movies, everything is malleable. Spider-Man can go from needing web cartridges to producing silk organically from his wrists. Batgirl can become the niece of Alfred Pennyworth. Some changes work, some changes don”t.
And some just leave fans scratching their heads in bafflement.
The new description of Reed Richards – aka Mr. Fantastic – from the Fantastic Four website, falls with a resounding thud into that last category. Hidden at the bottom of character biography, a bomb is quietly dropped. Reed doesn”t have the power of elasticity, despite the new trailer showing Mr. Fantastic in all his Stretch Armstrong glory.
Wait, what?
This is a perplexing choice. Especially considering the rest of the team remains intact. How is it that invisibility, spontaneous combustion, and physical transformation into a rock monster are acceptable, but “super stretchy” is considered too far out there? Does one of the best known character powers in the Marvel Universe really need a convoluted physics retcon to explain why he only “appears” to be stretching?
“Fantastic Four” events horizons into theaters on August 7, 2015.