Obscure Invisible Woman Trivia

I saw Fantastic Four: First Steps over the weekend and it got me thinking about the character of the Invisible Woman. I won't get into the movie but while I thought Vanessa Kirby did an excellent job, they did give her one line of dialogue that sounded WILDLY out of character for any version of the FF that I've known over the past 40+ years that I've been a fan of the characters. (If you know the FF at all, you know what line I'm talking about.)

But I got around to reviewing some of the comic stories that feature Sue prominently and I came across something that surprised me a bit. A bit of retroactive rationale that I'm pretty sure was not intentional, so I thought I'd bring it up here.

A little over a year ago, I wrote about how they had recently identified Susan Richards as having a doctorate in archeology. She was first identified as having a doctorate in 2013, but it wasn't until 2022 that anyone mentions what that doctorate is in and it's another six months later that it's actually used as a story element for the very first time. I had mentioned that I thought the choice of making her a doctor of archeology was a smart one, but they botched it a bit by saying she had gotten it before Fantastic Four #1, since there were NUMEROUS instances where such a degree would've come in very useful (any/every time they ran into Rama-Tut just to start) but Sue just never says anything about it. Had they simply left the timing open, then it would be easy to just place the degree sometime after the various stories that she logically should have said something about it but didn't.

But one thing I did like about the archeology angle is that it tied in well with the late '90s revelation that her husband Reed had dated a Lara Croft type character by the name of Alyssa Moy before connecting with Sue. It would make sense that if Sue saw Reed dating an archeologist, she might want to pursue an archeology degree as well. It would be a petty rationale, true, but we do have multiple instances of Sue noting her jealousy at Reed's having dated Alyssa. But what I uncovered actually gives Sue a legitimate interest in archeology years earlier, and a rationale that is less petty.

In the year 2000, there was a series of three three-issue titles collectively titled Before the Fantastic Four which told some of the adventures the various team members had in the couple years prior to Fantastic Four #1. The one on Ben Grimm teams him up with Wolverine and Carol Danvers in a military/spy operation; the one on Reed Richards teams him up with Alyssa Moy for some Indiana Jones style adventures; and the one with Sue and Johnny Storm have them wrapped up in something of a Scooby-Doo type of adventure, where some of Dracula's acolytes are trying to recover the Amulet of Zarathos. And the reason the Storms get involved is because the Amulet was in the possesion of one Henry Brandies, the father of one of Sue's good friends from school that lived just down the street. But why does Brandies have the Amulet? Becuase he was an comparative religions professor studying exactly this kind of thing. But the ensuing adventure included Brandies' daughter and his brother-in-law, Max Parrish who happened to be an archeologist. (There's the connection you'd be waiting for me to finally get to!)

While Max did not fit the "stereotype" of the Indiana Jones type of archeologist, he was still very adventurous and made for a powerful male role model as he saved the kids more than a couple times. And even once their adventure with the Amulet of Zarathos was over, he stayed with Sue's friend for a while to help with the loss of her father.

Which means that Sue had an impactful adventure with a strong and influential role model shortly before trying (and failing) at an acting career. If she were to look at some "backup" profession in the wake of some... unseemly aspects of the business that she almost got wrapped up in, then it makes sense that archeology would be relatively top of mind for her, having just had this powerful experience with an archeologist.

Do we need this additional motivation for Sue? No. Were any of the creators thinking about this when they worked on that issue first mentioning her interest in archeology? I sincerely doubt it. But it does tie in very serendipitously and makes for a neat bit of trivial continuity that Marvel seems to rarely care about any more. And since that's mostly in response to their readers, I suspect not many people will care about this either, but I always liked the archeological aspects of digging through the anals of Marvel continuity to find nuggets like this.

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