Baxter Building
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Art by Jack Kirby
The Baxter Building is a fictitious Manhattan 35-story office building whose five upper floors house the Fantastic Four's headquarters in the Marvel Universe.
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[edit] Description
Located at 42nd Street and Madison Avenue in New York City, it had been built in 1949 by the Leland Baxter Paper Company. Originally designed as a high-rise industrial site to accommodate pulp recycling machinery to serve the mid-Manhattan area, each floor height is 24 feet.
The building's steel frame construction utilized the first application of "K bracing" in the world and is one of the strongest structures of its kind. The Baxter Building is located a few city blocks from the United Nations Building. Reed Richards has applied for many land-use zone variations to allow massive reconstruction of the top five floors for the installation of a heavily-silenced silo, with a muffled rocket.
The design of the headquarters of the Fantastic Four is along strictly utilitarian lines, except for apartments and public areas. All aspects of the design are constantly being improved, including security. For example, windows are 2 ft thick composites of various glasses and plastics which are mirrored on the outside. Solid, armored, exterior walls are also mirror-clad and are indistinguishable from transparent sections.
The top five sections of the Baxter Building are completely airtight; all doors are airlocks. Complete environmental support (including atmosphere) is provided by the area between elevators 2, 3, and 4 on all floors. The building's steel-alloy framework is rigid enough to be stood on one corner and not collapse (It was suggested that the Baxter Building did not collapse under its' own weight due to the use of tactile telekinesis by Gladiator of the Sh'iar Imperial Guard. Reed himself stated that even with the reinforced structure, it should not be possible otherwise).
The buffer-zone is the interface between the top five floors and the lower levels. It provides a rapid-disconnect between upper and lower segments of building. It contains an array of large oil-rams to dampen any oscillations between the five upper levels and the base of the building. The buffer-zone contains some support equipment for the upper levels, but mostly it is the "mechanical floor," which provides heating, ventilation, air-conditioning and elevator support equipment for the lower 30 stories.
[edit] Ownership
A running joke for years in the title was that the landlord was initially eager to rent out to a superhero team for the publicity and prestige, but he soon regretted his decision, as the building became a constant target for numerous attacks by supervillains. The attacks made things difficult not only for the Four, but for the other tenants in the lower floors as well. Eventually, Reed Richards decided to invoke a clause of the rental agreement and bought the entire building to avoid eviction.
[edit] Iterations
Eventually, the building was destroyed by the adoptive son of Doctor Doom, who shot it into space and exploded it in a bid to murder the Fantastic Four. It was replaced by Four Freedoms Plaza built upon the same site. After the destruction of Four Freedoms Plaza the Fantastic Four moved to a retrofitted warehouse on the pier which they named Pier 4. The warehouse was destroyed during a battle with Diablo after which the team received a new Baxter Building courtesy of Reed's former professor Noah Baxter. This Baxter Building was constructed in Earth's orbit and teleported into the vacant lot formerly occupied by the original Baxter Building and Four Freedoms Plaza. The current Baxter Building's ground floor is used as a Fantastic Four gift shop and museum open to the public.
[edit] Ultimate Fantastic Four
In the Ultimate Marvel universe, the Baxter Building is a US government think tank, where exceptionally gifted children are offered government positions to use their intelligence to serve their country. The government contacted Reed Richards because of his experiments in teleportation; they had found small toy cars that he had sent into the N-Zone. At the Baxter Building, Reed meets Professor Franklin Storm; Storm's two children, Susan and Johnny; as well as Victor Van Damme (Dr. Doom).
In this version, the Mole Man is originally Dr. Molekevic, a former employee of the Baxter Building. His service is terminated when his projects are deemed "unethical" (one such project is presumedly the Mole Men that appear in the latter half of the first story arc).
After the accident that gave the Fantastic Four their powers, the children who were not altered were moved to another facility in Oregon. The Baxter Building then becomes the FF's headquarters.
The Baxter Building also appears in Ultimate Iron Man.
[edit] 1602
In the Marvel 1602 miniseries The Fantastick Four, Sir Richard Reed and Susan Storm are renting a manor house from Lord Baxter. Sir Richard has equipped it with an observatory and chemical laboratory.
[edit] In other media
The Baxter Building was not featured in many cartoons or television series, being replaced by the Four Freedoms Plaza. It appeared in the 2005 Fantastic Four Movie, being displayed as an art-deco apartment block, where Reed Richards (Ioan Gruffudd) had rented the entire top floor and turned it into a laboratory/home. Victor Von Doom (Julian McMahon) referenced many times that he couldn't pay the bills to keep the lights running. Vancouver's Marine Building is standing in for the building in its sequel [1].
In the late 1990's the Fantastic Four had a two season cartoon in which the first season featured the team in the Baxter Building. By season 2 it was replaced with Four Freedoms Tower. In this cartoon the disgruntled landlord was replaced by a landlady, Ms Forbes, voiced by Stan Lee's wife Joan Lee.
In 2006 Cartoon Network aired a new version of the Fantastic Four, which shows the team inside the Baxter Building. As the comic book, the Fantastic Four reside in the top 5 floors.
In the video game, Ultimate Spider-man, you can meet Johnny Storm at the top of the Baxter Building for a race.
| Fantastic Four | |
|---|---|
| Characters | Mister Fantastic · The Invisible Woman · The Human Torch · The Thing |
| Titles | Main continuity: Fantastic Four · Four · The Thing Other continuities: Ultimate Fantastic Four · Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four · Marvel 1602: Fantastick Four |
| Television | Fantastic Four (1967) · Fantastic Four (1978) · Fantastic Four (1994) · Fantastic Four (2006) · Other appearances |
| Movies | The Fantastic Four (1994) · Fantastic Four (2005) · Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007) |
| Related | Locations · Video games |
