Frightful Four - Fictional Team Biography

Fictional Team Biography

The Frightful Four first appeared in Fantastic Four #36, consisting of the Wizard, the Sandman, Paste-Pot Pete (the latter two who freed the Wizard), and Medusa (who had amnesia at the time). The villains were originally fairly successful, almost defeating the Fantastic Four during Sue and Reed's engagement party in their first appearance. They captured all the members except the Torch, who was able to free the others. The Frightful Four even stole the Fantastic Four's powers which later almost killed them in their second appearance.

When the Fantastic Four disappeared, the Frightful Four attempted to break into the Baxter Building, but were accidentally scared off by Norse God Balder believing him to be the Human Torch.

The Wizard later uses a hypnosis device on the Thing in order to make him their obedient slave. When the Fantastic Four find a lead on where Ben is, they travel to New Jersey and are soon attacked by the Frightful Four. During the fight, Thing arrives and attacks his former comrades. The Thing's added strength is what the Frightful Four needed to defeat the Fantastic Four, while all the members are bound by different booby-trapped restraints. While Mister Fantastic is glued to a wall with the Trapster's paste, the Wizard convinces the Thing that it's Reed's fault that he's a monster and convinces him to kill Reed. Human Torch and Invisible Woman managed to free themselves from their respective traps and counterattack the Frightful Four giving Mister Fantastic enough time to free himself from Trapster's paste. However, while fighting the Thing one on one, Ben manages to catch Reed and smash him into an urn. During the fight, Johnny is captured and Sue chases after the urn with Reed inside. While the Frightful Four brainwash Johnny, Sue frees Reed and they get a hold of a number of the Wizard's anti-gravity discs. Using them to disorientate the other Frightful Four members, they use one to make taking Ben back to base easier. However, although the other members are caught up, the Wizard and Johnny are still free and chase after Reed, Sue and Ben. While being chased by Wizard and a mind-controlled Human Torch, Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman manage to escape from them. The Frightful Four incapacitate Human Torch when they find out that he was pretending to be mind-controlled. Meanwhile, Reed tries to use a device to reverse the brainwashing on Ben. Ben, however, tries to destroy the machine in order to get free, causing an explosion that exposes him to a near lethal dose of radiation. Although it works and Ben is changed back to normal, he's put in a bed to see if he will live or die. The Frightful Four then return to the Baxter Building and attack Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman, showing them that they have Human Torch hostage. However, the Thing revives just long enough to crush the Wizard's body armor, giving Human Torch the chance to free himself from the gigantic anti-gravity disc he is tied too. The Fantastic Four then easily defeat their opponents, and capture Wizard, Trapster, and Sandman. Medusa, however, manages to escape. After the three remaining members of the Frightful Four are turned over to the police, Thing decides to rejoin the Fantastic Four with hopes that if Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman can endure this sort of daily danger and be married, then maybe some day he can be normal again.

The Frightful Four gets back together and spies on the Fantastic Four during their visit to child-rearing expert Agatha Harkness. That time, they planned to kidnap Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman's newborn son Franklin Richards. This time, they are defeated by Agatha who revealed to the Fantastic Four that she is also a witch.

Electro joins up with the Frightful Four when they are planning revenge on Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. After Dr. Curt Connors cures Spider-Man of his Spider-Lizard form, the Frightful Four begin their revenge plot against Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four The Frightful Four later arrive at the Statue of Liberty where Spider-Man and Human Torch meet. Electro uses a specially-made suit that imitates Human Torch's powers and uses it in order to lure Spider-Man to them. Spider-Man is caught off-guard because of this and ends up overpowered. He then plans to have Trapster pose as Spider-Man. After Trapster's infiltration, the Frightful Four then attacks the Baxter Building taking out the Fantastic Four. The Wizard, Trapster, and Sandman reunite in order to look for a fourth member after Medusa regained her memories. Recruiting Electro as their fourth member, their plot involves them capturing Spider-Man and impersonating the web slinger to infiltrate the Baxter Building, taking out the Fantastic Four one at a time. Although they are able to take the other three by surprise, they are defeated when Spider-Man escapes and comes to Mister Fantastic's aid. Spider-Man tricks Electro into knocking out the Wizard before he and Mister Fantastic trap Sandman and Electro in a vacuum cleaner and a fire-hose respectively. Trapster surrenders when he is confronted by the other three Fantastic Four members after they regain consciousness.

Thing is later attacked by the Frightful Four with Thundra as their fourth member. Medusa aids Thing only to be roped up by Trapster. They then attacked Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman as Franklin unleashes energy that ends up awakening Thing. Thing manages to fight off the Frightful Four who managed to get away. While away from the Frightful Four, Thundra later kidnaps Alicia Masters in order to fight Thing at Shea Stadium.

Wizard, Sandman, and Trapster reunite to hunt down the Fantastic Four after returning from Atlantis. The Fantastic Four managed to turn the tides against them.

The Frightful Four takes over the Baxter Building and captures the Fantastic Four. They then hold an audition for a fourth member much to the disappointment of the Baxter Building's landlord Walter Collins. Texas Twister was the first to audition, but declined when he learned that they aren't going to pay him for his services. Captain Ultra was another person to show up at the audition and showed off his powers only to faint when one of the Frightful Four members lights a match. Then another person called Osprey auditioned in order for them to give him superpowers which caused Wizard to attach a hover-disk to Osprey sending him flying out of the Baxter Building. Wizard announced on the PA stating that those that don't have superpowers don't need to audition...or else. When Tigra arrives and frees the Fantastic Four, Wizard announces that whoever can defeat them can join the Frightful Four. Out of the villains that left, only Brute remained. Brute joins the Frightful Four and assists them in fighting the Fantastic Four.

Wizard is later freed from his prison on Ryker's Island by a mysterious person who has joined up with the Frightful Four. As they make their escape, the guards come after them only to be stopped by a sea monster summoned by the mysterious person. Wizard is impressed as the two head to land to hunt down Spider-Man. Wizard uses a giant mechanical spider on the World Trade Center in order to draw out Spider-Man who ends up knocking the giant mechanical spider off the World Trade Center. The device that was on the mechanical spider enabled Wizard and his ally to track down Spider-Man's Spider Senses to his apartment building where they end up rounding up the tenants. Spider-Man attacked them from a different direction. After rescuing the tenants, Spider-Man goes after the two. Upon meeting up with Trapster and Sandman, the mysterious ally of Wizard is revealed to by Llyra. Spider-Man learns of this when Namor comes to town. Spider-Man and Namor engage the Frightful Four and managed to defeat them.

Wizard later assembled Hydro-Man, Titania, and Klaw as the Frightful Four when attacking the Four Freedoms Plaza following Sandman's reform. During the battle, Thing regresses to his human form. The Frightful Four managed to take down the other Fantastic Four members as Klaw is defeated. When Dragon Man is brought in as Klaw's replacement, Thing ends up having to rescue his teammates and stop the Frightful Four.

The Fantastic Four ended up fighting the Frightful Four that consisted of Wizard, Klaw, Red Ghost, and She-Thing.

Wizard gathers Absorbing Man, Living Laser, and Mister Hyde together as an unofficial Frightful Four. They attacked the wedding of Rick Jones and Marlo Chandler only to end up fighting the Hulk.

At some point, the Wizard assembles a Frightful Four consisting of himself, Deadpool, Taskmaster, and Constrictor as a test team.

Wizard later assembled Trapster, Dreadknight, and Man-Bull together as the Frightful Four when it came to abducting Dr. Cargill and forcing him to use his expertise for the Wizard's endeavor. They ended up opposed by Spider-Man, the Rangers, the Right Riders, and Dr. Cargill's daughter Turbine.

At the time when Doctor Doom switched minds with Mister Fantastic, Wizard led the Frightful Four (consisting of himself, She-Thing, Trapster, and Punisher Robot) in an attack on the Baxter Building. Due to the appearance of Doctor Doom and not knowing what happened, Wizard ordered a retreat not wanting to fight Doctor Doom.

Another version of the Frightful Four (consisting of Wizard, Hydro-Man, Titania, and Trapster) appears to challenge the Fantastic Four again, only to find themselves dealing with the additional presence of the Black Panther and Storm, who had temporarily joined the Fantastic Four while Reed and Sue were on a second honeymoon to work on their marriage after their separation during the Civil War. When Klaw's body was restored to normal by Wizard and joins up with him, the group becomes the Frightful Five.

When the Thing recently got engaged, his fiance received a wreath from the Frightful Four with a card saying "See you at the wedding."

At the time when Thing was fighting Red Hulk, a new line-up of the Frightful Four (consisting of Wizard, Klaw, Lyra, and Trapster) attacked the Baxter Building.

In a flashback recalled by Spider-Man and Invisible Woman had Spider-Man pulling down Human Torch's pants before the Frightful Four (consisting of Wizard, Trapster, and Beetle) attacked them. Invisible Woman managed to pull their pants down and was arrested alongside them for indecent exposure. Lucky for her, Spider-Man and Human Torch bailed her out.