How Do You Solve a Problem Like Franklin Richards?

By Jim McDermott

December 10, 2020

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I’ve always loved Franklin Richards. In fact, I think he’s my favorite member of the Fantastic Four. The reason is pretty simple: he seems like an ordinary kid. While his family are on fire, trapped in rock or being all super genius-y, Franklin has usually seemed to be a lot more like us, just watching all that crazy Fantastic Four stuff unfold. Through him, we become part of the family too.

From Fantastic Four #26, art by R.B. Silva

Of course, Franklin isn’t “just like us.” He’s a mutant with powers so great he puts the “Oh my God” in “Omega.”

Or, he did, until the most recent issue of Fantastic Four (#26), in which Dan Slott (and Charles Xavier) dropped the bombshell that Franklin isn’t a mutant after all. Rather, he’s been unconsciously using his powers to pose as one.

That move has stunned some readers, who neither want to see Franklin turned into some kind of unconscious race and culture thief nor appreciate the idea of stripping a character of their identity and community. For queer readers in particular, the insistence that someone is not who they “think” they are is all too familiar.

But as out of left field as this announcement has seemed, it’s also completely in keeping with Franklin’s history as a character. From the very moment of his birth in Fantastic Four Annual #6 in 1968, his life has been almost entirely a series of crazy story decisions that have nearly always been kind of a disaster. He may not be a mutant (for the moment), but something in his DNA certainly seems to be a honey trap for big, problematic story ideas.

And the bigger question in some ways is not why are they doing this to Franklin now, but why does this keep happening to this character?

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Am I the only one who wants Cyclops and Emma to have a daughter who can shoot diamonds out of her one eye?↩
When it comes to Franklin, Reed is a really bad dad, you guys.↩
Usually after finding a way to shut down his powers so he wouldn’t, I don’t know, erase Chicago.↩
From May 1993-June 1996.↩
Also, his costume looks like pajamas, and that is adorable.↩
Does everyone know Matt Murdock is Daredevil again? Are Peter and MJ together again? Who can say? Is it Tuesday?↩
And I am so here for that.↩
Add Molly Hayes and writer Jeremy Whitley and you’ve got a spinoff title I have to read.↩
There is a whole other piece to be written about the Nightmare Parenting of Reed Richards. Usually he has served as the writer’s stand-in, enacting the terrible things they want done to Franklin. If you want to know whether a writer cares about Franklin, watch how Reed treats him.↩
The reveal in #26 is actually presented in a very odd way, a single page in which Charles Xavier appears in the now-depowered Franklin’s mind, tells him he made the whole thing up and bounces. Given the significance of that revelation, one would expect there’s more to come.↩

Notable Replies

rasmus says:

December 10, 2020

Great piece!

One thing I’ll mention is that Slott said on Twitter that everyone has known about his plans for Franklin since he was brought on to write FF. So presumably Zdarsky and Hickman knew what was coming and has included it in their stories, just like Slott has factored in their stories.
We only got the very beginning of a story at this point, so - hard as it might be - let’s try not to jump to conclusions (not that you’re doing that, Jim. You’re more pointing out dangers in the road ahead).
levi says:

December 11, 2020

I saw the Slott response. The Hickman response was…different…hahaha

AIPT

X-Men Monday #86 – Jonathan Hickman & Tini Howard Answer Your X of Swords...

Plus, 7 eXclusive preview images from upcoming X-Men comics!

AIPT: Something a lot of X-Fans asked about didn’t even happen in an X-Book–it happened over in Fantastic Four. X-Fan Michael asked if the recent decision around Franklin Richards’ mutant status change your long-term plans for the character?

Jonathan: Well, part of the problem with talking about this stuff publicly–and this is one of the (minor) reasons that I just don’t do it much anymore–is because it really doesn’t serve anyone to show how the sausage is made.

When I was writing Avengers, I was working from a tight outline. I pretty much knew where I was headed the entire run. Not everyone works that way, and it would be unreasonable for there to be an expectation that everyone work that way, but I do. None of that changes the fact that one day I woke up and had to deal with Old Man Steve Rogers, Superior Spider-Man, Unworthy Thor, and Iron Man a billion miles away from Earth in Guardians.

These are just the naturally-occurring complications of writing ‘Big Books’ at Marvel.

Now, obviously, we would not have laid down the track we did in House of X and Powers of X and X-Men/Fantastic Four if we weren’t planning on playing with that stuff–and who knows, we still might–but the truth is that Dan’s story evolved.

Which is kind of the larger point. Dan’s the writer of the Fantastic Four. He gets to write the book. And I support him the same way I’d support Leah on hers or Zeb on his, and on and on. Velocity and volume make the job hard enough, and none of us have the time or energy to spare on pointless territorial disputes.

And at the end of the day, you’re talking about characters that have been around for over 50 years. It’ll be fine.
rasmus says:

December 11, 2020

Yeah, David mentioned this to me too.
Didn’t know that!

And I’m inclined to believe Hickman more. He always seems like he’s honest, often even too much.
SKTCHD says:

December 13, 2020

levi:

I saw the Slott response. The Hickman response was…different…hahaha

One interesting tidbit that likely won’t come up in my Secret Wars oral history that fits this to a degree: during AvX, of the five writers who worked on that, all of them besides one supported killing Xavier. The only who didn’t? Hickman, who had plans for the character in New Avengers and beyond as part of the Illuminati.

Also, I love Hickman’s responses to everything. So rational and sassy at the same time.
levi says:

December 13, 2020

I remember hearing about that one back in the day and it definitely stuck with me. I’ve always thought he was wrong because of how well Scott killing Xavier set up interesting X-Men universe stories.

But I think it’s actually a “they were both right” scenario, because the X-universe was far better for Xavier being dead but Xavier would have been a much better member of the Illuminati than Beast (who was the one Illuminati member he never really found an interesting angle for).