Fantastic Four #10: Reed's Stretchy Body 15

Fantastic Four #10, page 2, panels 3-6 Script: Stan Lee

Pencilling: Jack Kirby

Inking: Dick Ayers

Uncredited Lettering: Art Simek

Today's stretchiness is wonderfully iconic and over-the-top in only a minor way.

Having locked himself and the team in the lab, Reed resorts to stretching himself to the very limit, forcing his arm through the lock and around the Baxter Building  to find the window which he can open. I love the scale of his stretching here, with a staircase in view showing that his arm is spreading over at least two floors.

This kind of feat is a great visual representation of Reed's powers, so it's not surprising that it was adapted for the first Fantastic Four film, as the first time we really see Reed in control of his powers. Shame about the pitifully fake CGI that made his arm look slightly less realistic than Stretch Armstrong's, with some incredibly creepy artificial arm hairs...

Check out our coverage of Fantastic Four #9 on our seventh episode: Don! Don! Don! Don-Don-Don! Don-Don-Don!

[audio http://traffic.libsyn.com/ffcast/FF_Episode_8.mp3]