Cold War Fluidity & Mr. Fantastic

Superheroes often reflect normative physical ideas: men are big & hard, women curvy & sexy. Non-normative bodies complicate matters, but aren’t always subversive. For instance, Stan Lee & Jack Kirby’s Mr. Fantastic is both fluid & an ideal Cold War patriarch. #FantasticFour 1/13

The “monstrous” quality of some Marvel superheroes reflects complex responses to atomic energy. Circa 1961, the bombings of Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the tests at Bikini Atoll, and the first nuclear power plant revealed atomic energy’s vast productive & destructive power. 2/13

In keeping with the double-edged sword of atomic energy, the powers of Marvel’s atomic-spawned superheroes are often similarly double-edged. The Hulk is uncontrollable. Spider-Man is labelled a “freak” and persecuted by the press. The Thing hates himself. 3/1

Mr. Fantastic isn’t tormented by his transformation, but his stretchy body can’t be described as normative. According to scholar Antony Easthope, in Western culture, “The most important meanings that can attach to the idea of the masculine body are unity and permanence.” 4/13

Where Plastic Man and the Elongated Man were comical, Mr. Fantastic’s transformations are simultaneously wonderous & frightening. He can be seen exhaustedly collecting his floppy limbs & suffering radical losses of integrity, grimacing in pain, fingers splayed with shock. 5/13

Also, there’s something suggestively feminine, and specifically motherly, about Mr. Fantastic’s body. Almost as often as he uses his powers to attack supervillains, he lovingly cradles his teammates, swaddling them, comforting them—a practical & literal security blanket. 6/13

But despite some feminine postures, Mr. Fantastic’s body remains impenetrable & permanent. He can be a security blanket in one panel because he can be a bullet in the next. He can be assaulted (or penetrated) by bullets in one panel because he can repel them in the next. 7/13

Still, Mr. Fantastic’s defining feature is not hardness, but fluidity—and adaptability. This can reflect a shift in postwar conceptions of American masculinity. According to scholar Susan A. George, in her book “Gendering Science Fiction Films”: 8/13

Atomic Age sci-fi & Westerns moved away from the ideal of the “lone warrior” in favor of “good team players” whose heroism is associated with leadership, fatherhood, and the ability to maintain the trust of community & family. Fittingly, the FF are both a team & a family. 9/13

Mr. Fantastic’s adaptability also evokes Cold War containment culture. Both an official foreign policy & a cultural obsession, containment advocated maintaining strong, unified social & physical barriers against the creeping threat of communism & other “un-American” values. 10/13

In his battle against the Super-Skrull in Fantastic Four #18 (1963), Mr. Fantastic becomes a straightjacket & a protective bubble before becoming a sledgehammer. He attempts to contain the Skull until the alien’s escalating threat justifies enhanced aggression. 11/13

In Fantastic Four #27 (1964), Mr. Fantastic also contains the Sub-Mariner to preserve heteronormativity. Defeating Namor, an exotic, virile outsider, preserves the Invisible Girl’s innocence (or literal virginity) & the FF’s (comparatively) traditional family unit. 12/13

Ultimately, Mr. Fantastic preserves conservative values: a patriarch protecting the sanctity of family & nation against exotic aliens. But his example also reminds us masculinity isn’t stable. It’s a spectrum that’s ever-transforming, in stories & the eye of the beholder. 13/13