Marvel Gives The Fantastic Four Their Best Base Of All Time
Published Oct 10, 2026, 10:55 PM EDT
Jared is a writer, editor, and Communications Studies graduate who loves popular nerd culture (almost anything to do with Marvel, DC, Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings) and the interactive storytelling medium. Jared's first console was the PS1, wherein he fell for Spider-Man, Spyro the Dragon, and Crash Bandicoot.
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Warning! The following contains SPOILERS for Midnight Fantastic Four #1.The best superhero teams across DC and Marvel have iconic operational hub locations, such as the Justice League’s Watchtower, the X-Men’s Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters, the Teen Titans’ Titans Tower, and the Fantastic Four’s Baxter Building. In particular, the Baxter Building has had many architectural designs in various incarnations, though the tower base housing Marvel’s First Family is relatively humble, with only the five highest of its 35 floors dedicated to the living quarters and scientific exploits of the Fantastic Four.
However, everything you think you know about the Fantastic Four may as well be thrown out a window when it comes to the Reed Richards, Victor von Doom, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm’s novel relationships and whereabouts in Midnight Fantastic Four, one of the first three books that have launched for Marvel Comics’ new horror line.
The Fantastic Four Pack Their Bags In The Midnight Universe
Midnight Fantastic Four #1 debuts Storm Systems HQ, located outside San Francisco, California. Storm Systems HQ nestles itself into a forest and coils its impressive-looking corridors and faculties around skyscraper-esque trees. Here, Reed and Sue are able to enjoy their breakfast (served by H.E.R.B.I.E.) as they look out on a dense, lush treeline that’s otherwise untouched by humanity, and that’s far more special than the view from the Baxter Building could ever offer in Manhattan.
It is made abundantly clear that, as the owner of the “multi-billion dollar company” Storm Systems, Sue is a woman of great status and wealth: Ben is her security advisor and certainly doesn’t mind getting violent in this continuity, and Sue provides the New York Institute of Technology with a new science building after Reed’s single-minded recklessness destroyed it.
How Long Will Storm Systems HQ Be A Home To The Fantastic Four?
In this universe, Victor was a grad student and research assistant of Reed’s, sort of like how Peter Parker is Dr. Curtis Connors’ research assistant in Midnight Spider-Man, only Peter has barely turned 18. Someone is now bringing him back to life in a way that’s undoubtedly meant to evoke how Dr. Victor Frankenstein conjures his monster, and Storm Systems HQ may not be a haven for this continuity’s Fantastic Four for long.
It’s anyone’s guess how long Storm Systems HQ will remain a lovely homestead on the outskirts of San Francisco. In fact, the ship that Johnny pilots (and apparently crashed, presumably resulting in the loss of his legs) could easily be their sole headquarters as they traverse the Midnight universe’s Negative Zone. Only time will tell, but the locations both depicted and teased so far make Midnight Fantastic Four a fascinating read and reimagining of the classic Fantastic Four mythology.
There’s a decent likelihood of Midnight Fantastic Four adapting the Baxter Building in the future. Still, the solicitation for Midnight Fantastic Four #2 is proof that this series rightfully appears to be more concerned with telling a unique story:
Reed Richards — haunted by a past he can barely recall and a scientific breakthrough he can barely understand — begins his tenuous working relationship with Sue, Johnny, and Ben at Storm Systems. They're about to test out one of his theories — a theory that will revisit and redefine the perils of the atomic age.
Midnight Fantastic Four #1 is out now.
Video Game(s) Fantastic Four (1997), Fantastic Four (2005)
First Film The Fantastic Four
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