Did the Fantastic Four create the universe?

The Fantastic Four are known for epic sci-fi adventures, ever since their fateful journey into space in 1961. In their latest outing, as part of the fabulous series written by Ryan North, they may have outdone themselves, heading back to the very dawn of time; to creation itself. Well, almost. In doing so, were they the reason behind the universe existing in the first place?

Spoilers ahead for Fantastic Four #33 (drawn by Cory Smith and coloured by Jesus Aburtov)!

The Fantastic Four travel back to the very beginning.

In One World Under Doom #2, Doctor Doom, currently Sorcerer Supreme and ruling the planet, takes away The Thing’s powers. This leaves Ben Grimm in his human form, which in the past might have been his preferred state, however this is a matured Ben who has long come to accept his rocky form. Doom’s ‘gift’ has an unexpected result though as it turns out that the Fantastic Four’s powers all depend on each other. Johnny Storm‘s, Reed Richards‘ and Sue Storm’s powers all begin to fade.

The Big Bang

Valeria comes up with a plan to get Ben his powers back, while the rest of Marvel’s first family work on perfecting it. They decide to travel back to the Big Bang, where there would be a dose of cosmic rays strong enough to get him back to clobberin’.

They have to travel back to just after the Big Bang began. It would be impossible to travel back before then, as there was nothing, and too long after would not have enough cosmic rays to help Ben. They decide to travel back to just after a stage of the Big Bang called Plank’s epoch at 10⁻⁴³ seconds (that’s 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds after the Big Bang!) but before the quark epoch at 10⁻¹² seconds.

H.E.R.B.I.E.

Despite planning for a hostile environment, that includes extreme heat and indescribable physical effects, their ship fails on arrival leaving the Fantastic Four doomed to die. Except they were not alone. Luckily, they were accompanied by Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-Type, Integrated Electronics. H.E.R.B.I.E.

The trusty, helpful robot had been souped up by Mr Fantastic and Valeria, giving it the processing power to help them with any problems, reacting faster than should be possible. Working in picoseconds, H.E.R.B.I.E. sacrifices itself and transports the Fantastic Four back to their time. H.E.R.B.I.E. realises that it did this out of love and dies happy knowing it saved the others.

“I understand that if I can love, then I am alive”
H.E.R.B.I.E.

The Big Question

Back on Earth and in the tight time, there is still one issue to be resolved. Valeria raises an unsolved bit of physics with her dad that has perplexed scientists for years – baryogenesis. The amounts of matter and antimatter should have cancelled each other out. However an tiny, currently inexplicable, excess of quarks and leptons allowed for matter in the universe. Without it, none of us would be here.

Valeria brings up H.E.R.B.I.E.’s sacrifice with Reed. Could his body and the ship have caused that tip in the balance of matter over antimatter? Are the Fantastic Four and H.E.R.B.I.E. the reason the universe exists? It would be fitting for the superheroes who started Marvel as we know it to be responsible, but as Reed says “I think it’s too big for any of us… and I think it’s impossible to prove“.