Warning: Contains spoilers for Fantastic Four #24!Fantastic Four have spent decades making the unbelievable into the achievable. Once in a while, something truly remarkable still manages to surprise even Reed Richards, like a previously unknown and mind-bogglingly fast form of travel. Upon discovering a living pilot in one of the "OMG Particles" crashing into the Earth, the Fantastic Four uncovered a species traveling beyond lightspeed inside protons.

Fantastic Four #24 by Ryan North and Carlos Gómez at last solves the mystery of the OMG Particles bombarding the Earth when the team finds an alien named Zrixa. The "particles" are actually protons containing of Zrixa's species who used the makeshift ships to escape their home planet situated billions of light-years away from Earth.

While the Fantastic Four has encountered all manner of strange occurrences and anomalies in both space and time, Zrixa's people accomplished something astounding by completing "a journey of billions of years" in only seconds. It came at a dire cost, but the concept is easily one of the fastest ways to travel through the Marvel Universe.

The Fantastic Four Discover a Lightspeed Proton Travel

It Makes a Billion Years in the Blink of an Eye

The Fantastic Four includes some of Marvel's most advanced superheroes. The team is practically overflowing with genius, and Mister Fantastic is typically able to turn their best ideas into practical, real-world inventions that get as close to "magic" as science can manage. Yet even Reed hadn't conceived of the type of travel Zrixa had discovered, all made possible by a special particle housed within her planet's sun. It allowed her species to shrink enough to go inside a proton and launch off their planet at something close to the speed of light, clearing unfathomable distances so quickly that their bodies wouldn't age.

It's hard to imagine Reed and the F4 completely shelving the idea that contains so much potential.

Unfortunately for Zrixa's people, there was a fatal flaw attached to proton travel. As Zrixa harvested more of the particles, their sun dimmed and was eventually extinguished, dooming their people. Moreover, once inside the protons, any escaping pilots had no way to control or guide their makeshift "ships." It's far from a perfect concept, both for selfish and scientific reasons. Yet it's hard to imagine Reed and the F4 completely shelving the idea that contains so much potential. With the right tweaking and technology, proton travel could open the door to so much good - as long as it remains in the right hands.

Lightspeed Proton Travel Is as Dangerous as It Is Exceptional

Will It Be Misused by Other Marvel Characters?

As with any powerful idea, proton travel has the potential to be misused, as Zrixa demonstrated. However, perfecting the idea would allow the Fantastic Four to respond to disasters in a literal instant. If something happened on the other side of the galaxy, they'd have the means to help without question. Proton travel could grant the right people a near-infinite capacity to do good across the universe, but it could put an equal amount of power into the wrong hands. For now, Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four have exclusive knowledge of lightspeed proton travel, the new fastest way to traverse space and time.

Fantastic Four #24 is available now from Marvel Comics.