This Forgotten Marvel Superhero Is One of the Most Powerful Comics Characters

Marvel Comics is home to many of the strongest characters in fiction, from cosmic beings who exist on an interdimensional plane to regular humans imbued with incredible superpowers. While the Marvel fandom will always be entrenched in various debates about which character is more powerful than another, certain individuals will always stand above the rest. From the mighty Sentry to Galactus, Devourer of Worlds, certain Marvel characters redefine the franchise’s power scale–but even they are not the most powerful beings in the comics universe.

Interestingly, one of Marvel’s strongest characters is also one of its most often forgotten. Molecule Man, a character created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the early 1960s, is easily one of the strongest individuals in not just the Marvel Comics universe but all of comics. Boasting a godlike ability to control the very molecules of creation, Molecule Man has dabbled as a hero and a villain during his decades-long history. Despite his incredible power, Molecule Man is not a character with whom casual fans are familiar. He has only made sparse appearances in the comics over the decades and had no live-action appearance at that time. So, who is the Molecule Man, and what makes him so powerful?

Who Is The Molecule Man In Marvel Comics?

Molecule Man was one of the Fantastic Four’s first villains, dating back to 1963. Owen Reece was a regular child who spent his early days in Dinosaur, Colorado. Accounts differ on the happiness of his childhood, as Reece claimed that his mother hated him. However, certain stories suggest quite the opposite, depicting an overbearing and overprotective mother intent on protecting her frail son.

After moving to Brooklyn, the young Owen Reece developed an affinity for scientific endeavors and eventually became a lab technician at the Acme Atomic Corp. However, he soon found that his dreams were not all he’d hoped, suffering subpar work conditions, low pay, and long hours. Fed up with how he was treated in the lab, Reece grew careless with his work. His nonchalance led to a horrifying lab experiment that caused him to be inundated with tremendous amounts of radiation, turning him into the Molecule Man.

The lab accident led Owen Reece to develop incredible superpowers, which gave him control over molecules, the very building blocks of the world. Though he could not control organic matter, Reece could manipulate the molecular structure of virtually anything in his environment, making him extremely powerful. As the Molecule Man, Reece ran afoul of the Fantastic Four, who defeated him in their first encounter.

As powerful as he was, Reece’s underlying trauma made him more of a child than a supervillain. Though he had godlike powers, he was always tormented by his own self-doubt and fear. These demons always prevented the Molecule Man from reaching his full potential despite being one of the most powerful characters in the entire Marvel Universe.

The Molecule Man’s Most Important Storylines, Explained

Molecule Man proved himself to be one of the strongest Marvel characters in 1984’s Secret Wars crossover event. The storyline revealed that the Molecule Man’s origin had created a singularity in space-time, alerting the cosmic being known as the Beyonder to become aware of Earth-616 for the first time. Interested in studying the most powerful beings of Earth-616 in further depth, the Beyonder transported dozens of superheroes and supervillains, including Reece, to Battleworld to fight one another.

Reece started a relationship with the supervillain Volcana, whom he came to love very deeply. After an extended battle, Doctor Doom stole the powers of the Beyonder and used them to remove the mental blocks that Reece had subconsciously placed on himself, finally unlocking his full power. The follow-up storyline, Secret Wars II, delved deeper into the Molecule Man’s nigh-godlike powers as he realized that he truly was more powerful than anyone else he’d ever faced.

The Molecule Man grew in strength, even becoming powerful enough to fight the Sentry. For several decades, Molecule Man would appear for several issues before disappearing again for years. However, the character was always present for any Secret Wars event, each of which focused on the immense power that the Molecule Man possessed–and the threat that he posed to the multiverse. His next major storyline was Jonathan Hickman’s 2015 Secret Wars, which reset many facets of the Marvel Universe and underlined just how powerful the Molecule Man truly was.

What Happened To The Molecule Man?

During the 2015 Secret Wars event, Doctor Doom stole the Beyonders’ power again to become God Emperor Doom. To save the multiverse from endless incursions, Doom patched various realities into his own Battleworld, where he hid the Molecule Man. In the following story, Molecule Man became essential to creating the new multiverse, giving a bit of himself to each new reality that young Franklin Richards created. Incidentally, with each piece of himself that he sacrificed, a part of Owen’s trauma was healed. The Molecule Man became the power source behind the formation of the new multiverse and the anchor for each new reality.

Unfortunately, this made him a target for a powerful being known as the Griever at the End of All Things. She hunted down and killed the various versions of Molecule Man that had tethered the new multiverse together, as she represented entropy and saw it as an insult to her existence. Thankfully, the mainstream version of Molecule Man was able to save himself from the Griever by condensing his being into a single molecule and escaping into the multiverse, making it nearly impossible for him ever to be found again until he wants to be found.

Although the Molecule Man is an obscure character in the Marvel Universe, he is also one of the most powerful individuals ever. A character so powerful as to attract the attention of cosmic beings from other dimensions, the Molecule Man also found the strength to reignite the multiverse itself. Such a character deserves greater recognition than he ultimately receives, not only for his incredible strength but also for his surprising humanity. Owen Reece is a great character not because of his immense power but because he is a real, tangible human being who struggles with his inner demons.