Growing up in Queens, the oldest child of three, Reed Richards was brighter than those around him. Reed's friend, Ben Grimm, protected him from bullying by lesser classmates, but Reed's father couldn't deal with his son's genius and treated his children harshly, leaving Reed and his sisters infelicitous. While still a child, Reed discovered another dimension and built an oscillator which allowed him to view it. Six months later, in fifth grade, at the Midtown Middle School science fair, Reed demonstrated his ability to send items to that dimension. This caught the eye of Lieutenant Lumpkin, a "scout" for the Director of Mainland Technology Development who scoured the world for exceptional children.

Reed was placed under supervision of internationally renowned scientist Dr. William Storm at the Baxter Building, a midtown Manhattan government facility for gifted children. Reed's father was relieved to be rid of him, so Reed rarely saw his family thereafter. His only close contacts were fellow students and his dog Einstein. Missing his family, Reed covertly constructed a "Fantasti-Car," a fuel-free vehicle with the capacity to fly at MACH-7, but never used it. Reed studied the N-Zone, but never completely cracked its problems until fellow genius Victor Van Damme adjusted Reed's calculations; over the next five years Damme would help Reed with his N-Zone teleporter while Reed aided Victor's work in miniaturized robots. When Reed built a life-sized N-Zone teleporter, Van Damme surreptitiously made some last minute alterations in superposition calculations, and the activation of the gate created a phase-state fugue which altered Reed and his friends forever, granting them superhuman abilities.

Unable to convince Van Damme to help him reverse the changes, Reed returned his focus to science, perfecting his transporter and adapting it to both time travel and accessing parallel dimensions. After the team went public battling the alien Nihil in Las Vegas, Reed began craving the public approval of being a super-hero, perhaps compensating for his father's disapproval. He now balances his obsessive love of science against his relationship with Susan Storm and his new celebrity status.