The Mad Thinker created a series of androids to defeat and replace the Fantastic Four, all of which had the powers of the originals. The android made to look like the Human Torch ambushed the real Johnny Storm with an ice ray while he enjoyed a car rally. Then he traveled to the Baxter Building where he pretended to be the real Johnny, which fooled the Thing. When Ben let his guard down, the android fired a heat-powered stun ray to disable him and replace him with his own android version.

He notified the Thinker - right on schedule - and the androids waited while their two pseudo-team members replaced their own originals. The Invisible Girl’s android came next, followed by the Mad Thinker, himself, who rode his own secret elevator that he installed in the Baxter Building while the four heroes were away in Europe fighting Doctor Doom. The last of them, Mister Fantastic’s replacement, soon appeared, but he quickly revealed himself to be the real Reed Richards and attacked the Thinker. The fake Human Torch and his android team members attacked Richards, until Richards realized that the android disguised as his wife hid a specific closet, and he opened it to reveal the real Thing.

The true Ben Grimm’s grogginess wore off quickly, and he leapt into the fight, smashing the android Torch with a single blow. Ben was surprised, but as Reed explained: since the Torch was an android, and not human, the destruction of his mechanisms meant his own death. The Thinker himself was later subdued and brought back to the authorities.