Mister Fantastic will be Marvel Rivals’ first duelist vanguard hybrid who can deflect Iron Man’s ult and stun enemies into one another—in other words, he’s busted

Ahead of the Fantastic Four joining Marvel Rivals in Season 1, we’ve got a short sneak peek at what Mister Fantastic’s kit is going to be like, and from the look of things, he’s going to be a powerful duelist and a massive pain in the arse.

Marvel Rivals’ official YouTube channel posted a character reveal for Reed Richards (aka Mister Fantastic), revealing all of his abilities. If you haven’t read the comics or seen the 10-out-of-10 2007 film, then you may not know that Reed Richards’ superpower grants him cellular elasticity, allowing him to stretch and contort his body however he wants.

Some heroes in Marvel Rivals have abilities that aren’t necessarily tied to their traditional character traits, such as Black Widow’s primary fire being a sniper rifle or Hulk having a Gamma Shield ability. But that’s not the case for Mister Fantastic. All of his abilities not only make sense considering his superpower but also seem like moves he’d actually do in a fight.

Mister Fantastic doesn’t use a gun for his primary fire. Instead, he elongates his arms to punch enemies, dealing damage to a small area around his fists. Then, his first ability lets him grab two enemy players at once and bash them into one another, stunning them and dealing damage. I can foresee this ability being the catalyst for quite a few team chat arguments and maybe even some bannable offenses. But that’s not surprising given the embarrassing nature of the attack—if I got knocked into one of my bumbling duelists, I’d probably have a hard time keeping my not-so-nice thoughts to myself.

Another ability sees Mister Fantastic able to deflect incoming damage. This makes Reed Richards a natural counter to Iron Man and his ultimate Pulse Cannon, which fires a massive energy bomb that inflicts a huge amount of damage to whoever gets caught up in the explosion.

Unless your team has a vanguard with a shield, the current strategy to avoid this move from Iron Man sees players scattering to the four corners of the map. If one of my friends or I spot an Iron Man gearing up for an ult, one of us has to yell, “Split up and look for clues,” to signify that we all need to get as far away from each other as possible to minimise the damage.

Alongside this damage deflection, Reed Richard can also briefly turn into a vanguard, making him bigger and granting him up to 800 health. However, he won’t regenerate the full 780since. If he gets damaged quickly enough, he’ll morph back into a duelist in no time. Despite this ability only granting temporary health, it’ll still make Mister Fantastic one of the most self-sufficient duelists currently available to play.

There are only a few duelists who have access to what is essentially an emergency pot of health that can help them get out of sticky situations. Iron Fist can self-heal, and Wolverine has a regenerative healing factor that grants him bonus health when he’s almost dead. This means that Mister Fantastic has great flanking potential and can be a real thorn in the enemy team’s side during team fights. I can only imagine the headache this hero will give me as a strategist.

But just when you thought Mister Fantastic couldn’t get more painful to play against, his ultimate looks like Sir Barnes Wallis’ wet dream. Reed Richards can inflate his body and fists and bounce up and down, damaging every enemy hero in a radius which is about the same size as Winter Soldier’s ultimate area of effect. I guess the only way to counter this would be to try and kill Reed before he does too much damage, but, and I’ll say it again for the readers at the back: this hero looks like a real pain for a little old strategist like me who will likely be the target of this attack.

Apart from the nightmares that Mister Fantastic will almost certainly inflict on the backline, this character will also get a new skin when Season 1 launches on January 10. This is The Maker costume, which will “unleash the dark brilliance of Mister Fantastic, showcasing a version of Reed Richards who’s embraced the ultimate extremes of intellect,” according to a Marvel Rivals X post.

The Maker first appeared in Ultimate Fantastic Four issue 1 in 2004. This version of Reed Richards is a supervillain turned bad after a series of tragedies and immense mental trauma and even serves as an enemy to Earth-616’s version of Eddie Brock/Venom. It’s small but still a very cool reference to make and a great version of Reed Richards to pull from for Mister Fantastic’s first season in Marvel Rivals. However, this skin won’t make getting flattened for the umpteenth time any easier to endure.