Baxter Building

Latest revision as of 06:45, 21 October 2020

The Baxter Building is a building that features in Marvel Comics.

History

Yancy Street overlooking the Building in Fantastic Four 1234 v1 #1.

Headquarters of Parker Industries in Amazing Spider-Man v4 #3.

The Baxter Building

During the Secret Invasion, the Skrull Queen Veranke recruited Lyja and reactivated her abilities where she was dispatched to eliminate the Fantastic Four. At first, this involved using an S-Bomb to kill everyone in the structure but Lyja could not do this and instead planned to send the building into the Negative Zone. (Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four v1 #3) She was disguised as Susan Richards where she gained access to the portal thus shunting the entire building into that alternate dimension in an effort to remove these obstacles from the Skrull's plans to conquer the planet. (Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four v1 #2)

The Baxter Building was secretly struck by a new incarnation of the Frightful Four that consisted of Wizard, Klaw, Trapster and Lyra. They managed to catch the heroes by surprise thus defeating them leading to the capture of Reed Richards whilst the Negative Zone portal was set on overload to destroy everyone in the building. However, the Red Hulk was on the scene where he worked with the Thing in order to shut down the portal thus saving everyone after which he departed the scene. (Hulk v2 #19)

S.H.I.E.L.D. was responsible for shutting down the building. (Fantastic Four v5 #9)

After the Fantastic Four were missing, the Baxter Building was left abandoned and derelict with the Doc Green persona using it as a temporary base of operations. (Hulk v3 #11)

Peter Parker met with the Avengers in order to fund them and offered them the use of the top floors of the Baxter Building as their headquarters. (Avengers v7 #1) The company later filled for bankruptcy leading to all the Parker Industries being sold thus depriving the Avengers of their new base. (Avengers v7 #11) This led to it being open for a bid with Liz Allan of Alchemax looking to purchase the building. (Amazing Spider-Man v1 #789) It was later sold to a new superhero team called the Fantastix who modelled themselves on the Fantastic Four. They made their public debut made by their manager who had paid the Wrecking Crew to rob a site outside the Baxter Building just when the real Fantastic Four returned. The supervillains being paid was exposed by Valeria Richards and the Fantastic Four resolved the conflict with the Fantastix by allowing the new team of heroes to use the Baxter Building as they had bought the premise. The Fantastic Four then departed as they decided to settle for creating a new headquarters for themselves. (Fantastic Four v6 #4) Thus, they decided to stay at Ben Grimm's place at 4 Yancy Street where Reed Richards along with his daughter Valeria converted it into a new headquarters that included laboratory facilities. (Fantastic Four v6 #5)

Afterwards, a higher dimensional being known as the Cormorant was dispatched by his master in search of an item on Earth. The trail led him to the Baxter Building where his arrival obliterated the structure nearly killing the Fantastix. Mr. Fantastic and the Fantastic Four attempted to stop the creature from opening Container Zero that Reed Richards was forced to leave in their former headquarters as the box could not physically be moved by anyone o Earth. Despite their efforts, they failed in their task but Container Zero was not the target of interest for the higher dimensional being who departed in search of his target. The cracking of Container Zero released the Zero Force that was the source of pre-primordial power that predated all existence that ended a universe and began the next one. It threatened to spread and destroy the entire cosmos until Valeria Richards arrived where she deployed her new specially made telepod that used the Zero Force as an energy source thus creating the Forever Gate that was a gateway to every point in space-time. Such a dangerous object meant that Reed Richards re-claimed the ruined site of the Baxter Building that was to be watched over by the Fantastic Four where they were to protect the Forever Gate. Doctor Doom also deployed his Herald Zora Vukovic to help in its protection and to serve as Latverians Ambassador on this matter. (Fantastic Four v6 #25)

Overview

One of the chambers built was the Zeno Room that was named after Zeno's Paradoxes where anything attempting to get from one side to the other would take forever. (Mighty Avengers v1 #26) Another chamber created was the Omega Room that replaced the former panic room. It was an upgraded equivalent to serve as a mayday suite and was said to be the safest place in the universe. (Fantastic Four v4 #2)

For a time in reception, there was a robotic receptionist that resembled a blond haired woman but the lower body was fixed to her position with her being tasked to greeting visitors. (Fantastic Four v1 #239)

Any breach of the building saw it going into a complete lockdown down to a molecular level with only those DNA security key allowed entry. In this state, the interior came to be defended by Humanoid Experimental RObots with B-Type Integrated Electronics along with recycled Doombots. (Mighty Avengers v1 #25)

Inhabitants

• Reed Richards :
• Susan Richards :
• Johnny Storm :
• Ben Grimm :
• Walter Collins :
• Roberta :

Notes

• The Baxter Building was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby where it made its first appearance in Fantastic Four v1 #3 (March 1962) though the modern version appeared in Fantastic Four v3 #38 (February 2001).
• In Back Issue! (2010), John Byrne commented in an interview, "The FF’s HQ building had long been established as 35 stories in height. Quite impressive in 1962, but not so much in 1980, when I came to the book. It didn’t seem like I could just start referring to the building as taller than all those previous stories had made it, so I decided on something a wee bit more dramatic."
• According to the Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe v1 #4 (1983), the building was built in 1949 by the Leland Baxter Paper Company.

Alternate Versions

• In Old Man Quill v1 # (2019), an alternate version of the Baxter Building was shown to inhabit the world of the Wastelands located on Earth-807128. During the supervillain uprising, it was said that the Baxter Building was dropped on a gigantic Loki causing the ruined building to sink deep underground. Despite the devastation, some of its defensive systems and features still resided with a vault inside said to hold the Ultimate Nullifier. Fifty years later, Star-Lord came to Earth in order to find the Ultimate Nullifier and use it against Galactus who had become the leader of the Universal Church of Truth that had conquered much of the universe.

In other media

Television

• In Fantastic Four, the Baxter Building featured as the headquarters of the Fantastic Four in the 1990s animated television series.
• In Fantastic Four: World's Greatest Heroes, the Baxter Building featured as the headquarters of the Fantastic Four in the animated television series.
• In Iron Man: Armored Adventures, the building itself did not appear but a Baxter Think Tank was mentioned in the episode "X-Factor".
• In The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, the Baxter Building made a few guest appearances in the animated television series in the episodes "The Man Who Stole Tomorrow" and "The Private War of Doctor Doom".

Films

• In Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, the Baxter Building appeared in the live-action film sequel where the roof served as the setting for Reed Richards and Susan Storm's wedding.
• In Fantastic Four, the Baxter Building featured in the live-action 2015 film with it being the base for the Baxter Foundation. The foundation was a government sponsored research institute for young prodigies that was founded by Dr. Franklin Storm. It was the site for experiments in the creation of a Quantum Gate in order to open a doorway to another world and dimension.

Video games

Appearances

• Fantastic Four v1:
• Secret Invasion v1:
• Hulk v2:
• Mighty Avengers v1:
• Amazing Spider-Man v1:
• Avengers v7:
• Fantastic Four v4:
• Fantastic Four v5:
• Fantastic Four v6:
• Old Man Quill v1:

External Links

• Marvel Database Entry
• Wikipedia Entry

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