Warning: contains spoilers for Fantastic Four #27!
The Thing Exoskeleton designed to replicate Ben Grimm's powers.
Fantastic Four #27 sees the family facing the Griever - an abstract entity bent on the utter destruction of all that is - and in the course of the story, creators Dan Slott, R.B. Silva, Juanan Ramirez, and Ze Carlos reveal an awesome new invention that gives Mr. Fantastic a huge bump in power.
Faced with the Griever, Reed activates a wrist-worn device which Sue Storm, aka the Invisible Woman, guesses is an antimatter field generator. Coated in antimatter energy, Reed's density and power are massively increased, to the point he explains that the design was intended to help them in their next tangle with Terrax the Tamer, or any other of Galactus' Heralds. The Heralds are imbued with the Power Cosmic, one of the most powerful forces in the Marvel Universe, so the power-up offered by Reed's antimatter field is huge, and likely especially effective against enemies who draw their power from natural forces, given its use of matter from outside the existing universe.
Sadly, as the Griever points out, she is an abstract being - a conceptual entity expressing itself as an individual, but not actually tied to a single body or possessed of a single consciousness. Consequently, the antimatter field is a uniquely poorly suited weapon to deploy - the equivalent of trying to destroy an idea with a hammer. The moment underlines how poorly suited Reed is to conquering this particular foe - an inventor trying to operate by rules which simply don't apply to his opponent; a point repeated when he follows this defeat by trying and failing to get rid of the Griever by collapsing the team's multidimensional base around her.
Despite its failure here, fans should be excited to see Reed's antimatter field in action against its intended opponents. Terrax is a huge physical threat - the kind who can go toe-to-toe with the Hulk and have a chance of winning - so the idea that Reed alone might be able to restrain him suggests a true royal rumble the next time he makes the trip to Earth. And that trip may be sooner than fans think, since a tease for the next issue suggests the Fantastic Four's next port of call will be the Ultimate Nullifier - a device that Galactus and his minions have a great deal of interest in keeping out of anyone else's hands.
