Once an aspiring actress, Susan Richards instead found worldwide fame as a member of the legendary Fantastic Four. But this Invisible Woman isn't about to fade into the background! Bathed in cosmic radiation during a fateful trip into space with her three friends, Sue continues to develop her powers and play an active role in the team's leadership.

Real name: Susan Storm Richards
Occupation: Adventurer
Group affiliation: Fantastic Four, formerly the Avengers
Base of operations: Baxter Building, New York City
First appearance: Fantastic Four (Vol. 1) #1 (1961)

Height: 5'6"
Weight: 120 lbs.
Eye color: Blue
Hair color: Blonde

Powers: Sue Richards' psionic ability to manipulate ambient cosmic energy enables her to bend light without distortion -- thus rendering herself, and other people and objects, invisible. Sue's brain cells produce psionic force she can shape into highly resistant protective fields and relatively simple forms -- such as rectangular planes, globes, cylinders, cones and domes. By projecting columns of psionic force beneath her, she can travel through the air.

Weapons: None

History: Susan Storm, the eldest of two children born to a physician and his wife, grew up comfortably in suburban Long Island. By age 12, she had met her future husband: Reed Richards, then a Columbia University graduate student living in her aunt's New York City rooming house. Enamored of the shy but handsome scientist, Sue promised to keep in touch with him. When she moved to California to pursue an acting career, She again encountered Reed. The two began a long-term romantic relationship, ultimately becoming engaged.

An aeronautical engineer, Reed designed and fabricated an experimental starship capable of interstellar travel. When the government threatened to cut off its partial funding of the project, he chose to make an immediate test flight with best friend Ben Grimm as his pilot. Rounding out the four-person crew were Sue and her younger brother, Johnny. In space, the starship unexpectedly encountered intense radiation, causing Sue and company to abort the flight. After surviving a crash-landing, all four discovered that the cosmic rays had mutagenically altered their bodies. Sue could turn invisible at will, while Johnny gained the ability to envelop his body is fiery plasma. Ben's transformation was perhaps the most shocking: He had become an orange-colored, thick-skinned, heavily muscled, superhumanly strong "thing." Newly elasticized, Reed convinced his friends that they should use their unique powers for humanity's benefit. Under Mr. Fantastic's leadership, the Human Torch, Invisible Woman and the Thing continue to challenge the unknown as the greatest team of adventurers ever assembled: the Fantastic Four.

Some time after the freak accident that created the Fantastic Four, Sue married Reed. Like all couples, Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman have experienced their share of problems -- thanks, in large part, to Reed's devotion to his work. However, they always return to one another. The two have one son, Franklin, who possesses latent mutant abilities; their second child was stillborn, as the changes wrought by the cosmic rays had weakened Sue's body.

Still known as "Invisible Girl," Sue learned how powerful she truly was when the emotion-manipulating Psycho-Man and his android creation, the second Hate-Monger, temporarily brainwashed her into attacking the Fantastic Four in the guise of Malice. The horror of the experience caused Sue to re-evaluate herself and her role on the team, and she updated her code-name to "Invisible Woman."

When Reed was thought dead following a battle with the Fantastic Four's archenemy, Dr. Doom, Sue assumed control of the team. Reed's return threw the FF's leadership into question, though it generally was accepted that he would resume his former role. However, Sue continues to take an active hand in the team's direction. As such, she has been faced with a number of trying decisions -- chief among which was her determination to send her son into another dimension to protect him from the Fantastic Four's many enemies.