Overview
Franklin Benjamin Richards is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character is usually depicted as a supporting character in Fantastic Four. He has been portrayed as a child and as a budding superhero, albeit inexperienced.
Franklin is an immensely powerful being with vast reality-manipulating and psionic powers beyond Omega level mutants, despite not being a mutant himself (though he was believed to be a mutant throughout most of his appearances). He is the young son of Mister Fantastic and the Invisible Woman of the Fantastic Four, the older brother of Valeria Richards, and the nephew of Invisible Woman's younger brother, the Human Torch. His parents named him Franklin Benjamin Richards; his middle name is taken from his godfather Ben Grimm, the Thing. Franklin's first name comes from Franklin Storm, his maternal grandfather. He has started using the code name Powerhouse. During the Dawn of X storyline, Franklin became human again and went back to live a normal, everyday life.
Publication history
Franklin first appears in Fantastic Four Annual #6 (November 1968), and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, although he didn't receive his name until two years later in Fantastic Four #94 (January 1970). Lee recounted:
Appearing sporadically in the pages of Fantastic Four over the following fifteen years, Franklin became a member of the pre-teen superhero team Power Pack as of issue #17 (December 1985) of that title until its cancellation with issue #62 (February 1991). From November 1994 an older version of the same character (aged for the purposes of a story) appeared in the pages of Marvel's Fantastic Force until publication ceased as of April 1996. Between appearances in these other titles, Franklin has remained a recurring cast member of the Fantastic Four comic book. From July 2007 until the series' cancellation in February 2009, an alternate version of Franklin appeared as a cast member in the Marvel Adventures all-ages Power Pack series of titles.
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