This version of the Fantastic Four is far different from the normal family we all know and love. Rather than being brought together by an expidition gone awry, and using science to carve their path forward towards a brighter future, this group has a very different origin and goals.

Each of them were negatively affected in some way by the multinational pharmaceutical and chemical organisation, Alchemax. To the world they are one of, if not the leading corporation behind anything ranging from makeup to cancer medication. Another faceless conglomerate whos name is ignored on every pill bottle and dialysis machine. However, to those who can get close enough to the truth without being silenced, they are much darker and nefarious.

Patrick 'Eel' O’Brian was a small-time thief, a cat burglar and safe-cracker who made his living in the cracks between Mammoth Citys bigger fish. The one thing in his life he never expected was that his biggest score would come with a corporate contract. When Alchemax offered him a job to steal back some 'sensitive research documents' from a rival, the pay was too good to refuse. What they didn't mention was that the papers exposed Alchemax's own illegal experiments and cover-ups. After returning the documents to his employer he was shot, and disposed of in a chemical vat in an Alchemax factory, courtesy of the same corporation that hired him.

He woke days later changed, his body melted and reformed into living plastic. Patrick O'Brian became something more than a man, he became Plastic Man

Alec Holland was a botanist and bio-chemist with a dream. To heal the world's dying ecosystems through synthetic biology. Alchemax promised him funding, resources, and freedom to pursue his 'bio-restoration formula.' What they didn't tell him was that his work would be repurposed into a weapon, a toxin meant to sterilize crop fields in conflict zones. When he discovered the truth, he tried to destroy the research. Instead, the lab exploded.

Holland should've died that night. But something ancient and alive in the swamps pulled him back, merged him with the soil, the rot, the endless Green. He became something beyond human, a consciousness woven through the roots and water, merging with the plantlife around him and beyond.

Now, Swamp Thing haunts the edges of civilization, neither man nor monster. His body remembers fire, his soul remembers betrayal. And beneath the moss and mud, he feels Alchemax's corruption spreading, poisoning the world he has become part of.

Ronnie Raymond never asked to be a hero. He just wanted to graduate, play football, and keep his mom from worrying about rent. But when his high school partnered with Alchemax for a 'future of energy; internship program, he jumped at the opportunity. The company promised a scholarship, hands-on training, and a chance to work with one of their lead physicists, the famed Professor Martin Stein.

Neither of them realized that Alchemax's 'Project Firestorm' had ulterior motives. The project was meant to stabilize quantum energy harvested from dimensional tears into a new clean energy, free from the societal bias nuclear energy had. However, their intention was far from stabilizing this, they wanted to tear open the tears and built the reactor with this in mind. The reactor went critical, and Stein in an attempt to save Ronnie's life jumped in front of the blast.

Instead of dying, they fused: two minds, one atomic body. The two became one, both consciousnesses existing within the same body. In the aftermath, Alchemax erased the records, declared Stein missing, and painted Ronnie as a reckless vandal. Now he's on the run, trying to keep the unstable nuclear force within him under control and trying to avoid Alchemax at all costs. Against their will, Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein became Firestorm

Zatanna Zatara grew up surrounded by smoke and mirrors. The daughter of a stage magician whose shows blurred the line between performance and true sorcery. To her, magic was a craft of illusion, sleight of hand, and timing. To her father, Giovanni, it was something far older and far more dangerous. She never understood why he warned her never to read from his black journal, or why he'd vanish for days under the guise of 'consulting work'. But for a girl who was living the dream of travelling the country doing magic, she knew better than to doubt a good thing. However, this all came to a head in her teenage years when her father went missing for good. She'd later come to the conclusion that he'd abandoned her, and moved in with her relatives to live a semi-normal life.

Years later, she learned the truth. Giovanni had been contracted by Alchemax after one of their dimensional research experiments went wrong, a tear in reality opened during an attempt to weaponize extradimensional energy. They brought him in to 'contain the anomaly' but it was far more than a science problem. It was magic. Giovanni succeeded in sealing the being they had summoned, but it cost him his life. Alchemax covered it up, branding it a lab fire and erasing every trace of his involvement.

After his death, Zatanna finally opened her father's old trunk she'd refused to look in since his disappearance, and found the journal. It was filled with backwards words, binding sigils, and sketches of the Alchemax sigil hidden inside magical circles. When she spoke one of those words aloud, the world changed: light bent, reality folded, rabbits began pouring out of every hat in the room. The illusions she had been practicing all her life became real.

Now she travels the shadows between the seen and unseen, tracing the threads that connect Alchemax's experiments to the entity still imprisoned beneath their labs. Her father died sealing the door, Zatanna intends to be the one who opens it and makes them pay for what crawled through. To this end she has set out to find and connect those affected by Alchemax. Her name eponymously is Zatanna and she intends to lead her Fantastic Four against injustice.

As evident from my last application in 'Ultimate One Universe: Resistance', the traditional Fantastic Four are my favourite comic team, and Reed Richards might just be my favourite comic character. I really enjoyed writing a different take on them, but wanted to go for something a bit different in this roleplay.

My thought process behind this is taking the idea behind the Fantastic Four and flipping it on its head entirely. The Fantastic Four are very science forward, they were given their powers by a freak experiment and solve a lot of their problems through the use of science. On top of this they are brought together by their familial bond, both in blood but also in love. They were family before their accident and brought closer together by it.

This team is the complete inverse of that. They were all given their powers or at least affected in some way by science, yes. But science used for evil rather than good. A corporation bent on its own nefarious means that scarred each of them and took away their family and life. They chase down Alchemax not for altruistic reasons, but for selfish ones, they are out for revenge and I aim to tell a story about a revenge based on loss and how each of them grow and form a found family from this experience.

As another reversal of the classic Fantastic Four concept, I aim to lean more towards the magic and mysticism of these characters rather than the cosmic science expiditions of Reed and the family. They are all relatively new to their powers, and haven't looked far into how they got them or what they mean for them. I want to explore The Green, Zatanna's 'homo-magi' lineage, the Firestorm Matrix, and maybe some other surprised for Plastic Man.

I aim to have them roam and do battle with both the mystic and human enemies at Alchemax' disposal. I want to have them available either as a team, as a duo, or individually to be able to show up in others stories. I'm keen to collab as much as possible with this team and would love to get involved with others.