I was reading your Sue Storm post and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on Valeria and whatever Marvel is trying to do with her and Doom.
On the list of things that rule about the Fantastic Four so much that I tell people about them whenever possible, it's the fact that Doctor Doom saved the wife and delivered the daughter of his arch-nemesis specifically to gloat in his face forever about it, and then she grew up to become his favorite person in the whole world, to the point that when he learns that he’s been manipulated into dying fighting the mad gods of reality by a three year old, he doesn’t skip a beat congratulating her for it. Whatever it is they're "trying" with Valeria, I'd like them to do more of it, she's an incredibly delightful character I'd always like to see more of. I think she adds a truly wonderful twist on Doom's dynamic with the family, although I would really like to see her develop more of an identity outside of her dynamic with Doom.
She both benefits and is negatively affected by the fact that she's coming in later in the family compared to Franklin, and that the circumstances of her birth are so complicated in themselves - and I'm not even just talking about all that Marvel Girl Claremont stuff that preceded her "proper" debut, but the fact that her birth was a difficult process and that she herself is, to borrow a rather detestable term, much more of a "problem child" than Franklin - If Franklin's birth was arguably the greatest triumph of the Fantastic Four as a family unit and superhero team, then Valeria's is arguably the greatest triumph Doctor Doom has ever had over them, and it's reflected in both of their characters and how they respectively relate to their families.
Franklin is a regular boy with regular boy problems and insecurities who was born with godlike cosmic powers and essentially a divine mandate ensuring that he will use them to save all of reality with them, that he will grow up to become the greatest force of good in the Marvel Universe, that Galactus will listen to and make room for him, that he'll have the ultimate Power for the ultimate Responsability, and so it's up to him and everyone else to figure out ways to navigate that in the present when he obviously can't be that yet. He is the "golden child" of the family, and thus he's become emblematic of everything optimistic and hopeful and aspirational around the Fantastic Four and their role in the universe, and thus he has to be constantly stopped from becoming the kind of superhero that the Marvel Universe doesn't allow for on a serial basis. Valeria, in turn, lives in the negative space of that. If Franklin inherits the cosmic rays that divinely empowered the Four, Valeria inherits the hubristic genius that got Reed Richards to steal a rocket and endanger his family in the first place.
If Franklin is emblematic of the utopian dream embodied by the Four, Valeria often stands for the fraught, turbulent, compromised and conflicting struggles that defines the actual day-to-day lives of the team. He is potentially the most powerful person in the universe, and she is potentially the smartest person in the universe, and that invites much different, much less joyful complications into her life right from the outset. She is the sole living member of the family (besides Alicia) who does not possess superpowers, but as a toddler she possessed an intellect that surpassed even her own father, already knowing from early on to hide it to try and preserve the family's stability. Franklin is a regular boy who happens to have world-changing powers - but Valeria's is a world-changing mind with no powers or maturity to enable her to act on it.
Franklin can turn off or seal away his powers and thus live and learn things like everyone else does, but Valeria has never had that option. She was practically born ready to join the Illuminati with all the other adult genius anti-heroes hashing out the fate of the world and whatever moral compromises they must do to achieve it, even though obviously the Richards family won't let her go off and do that, and obviously no one will seriously humor the little tot who talks like a megalomaniac grown-up (no one save one, but we'll get to that).
Valeria Richards, as defined under Millar and especially Hickman, is not a particularly good or moral person, certainly not like the rest of her family. She is pragmatic, calculating, reserved and willing to dabble with the kinds of amoral plans and alliances that Reed Richards generally feels very terrible about having to resort to. She is neither very nice nor heroic, even when, and especially when, she is the only one who knows what needs to be done. She was born far more prepared to partake in missions and world-shaking decisions than Franklin ever was, but obviously the family can't let her do that unless they have no other choice. Her brother is the one with godly superpowers and the one who is fated to reach the end of the universe along with Galactus - but what becomes of Valeria isn't set in stone. Quite often, we've seen future or alternate takes on Valeria where she sacrifices herself or dies in order to ensure a plan to save everyone comes to pass - Hickman himself has killed her in just about every alternate timeline he's put her in.
Franklin was born on the Lee/Kirby days, but Valeria was born in the 2000s, with Civil War only a couple of years away, a period where Reed Richards was particularly known as a bastard willing to do anything to protect his family. That was largely walked back - at present the Fantastic Four do not face nearly so calamitous circumstances as the ones Valeria was defined as a character under, but in many ways that leaves her with even less to do. Valeria simply doesn't have the divine favor nor the job security that Franklin Richards has - no one will ever position baby Valeria as a figure of uncomplicated feel-good vibes. No one will ever put her in the 60s, you can't, that's just not where she was born in. She was not born in a Lee/Kirby cradle of colors and gizmos and cheers.
She is excellent in part because her existence changes Doctor Doom as a character, without making him any less of a threat or villain to the Fantastic Four: he will spare Valeria and only Valeria and think nothing of it, even when she truly annoys him, even when she endangers his life and everything he's worked for, even when she outright sends him to his potential death. Even as his world is unraveling in Secret Wars: that Doctor Doom can profess to love another human being and mean it, even to someone who is really really annoying him at that moment, even in the context of a vague threat, is no small feat, and is further testament to how Valeria's late arrival into the family informs so much about her. She marks too big of a change in how Doctor Doom functions from that moment onwards. She came into a fraught and complicated and compromised modern world wrapped in the cold, murderous grip of Victor von Doom, as he smugly rubbed in his ultimate victory in the face of her parents, and I think a lot of people struggle with the fact that Valeria clearly does not resent him for it, or for all the countless horrors he's inflicted on her family even after she was born.
I've seen several people profess a wish for a storyline where Valeria "learns" about the horrific truths of Doctor Doom and renounces him, for her to reject him in her life as anyone with a clear understanding of how evil he is surely would, and quite simply I think these people are asking for Valeria to be a different character than she is, and for her dynamic with Doom to be something a lot more simplistic and boring than it actually is. It doesn't mean they can never have problems, obviously, but she is a character of unresolvable contradictions, same as him. She loves her family, and she loves Uncle Doom, the enemy of her family. Uncle Doom loves her and treats her safety with sacred concern, and he will not stop trying to hurt and kill her family that she loves. She is Doctor Doom's favorite person in the whole world, the one person he will entertain and accept and even encourage as superior to him (in no small part because her greatness reaffirms his own), and the feeling is reciprocated.
Valeria very, very blatantly prefers Doom over her family: she doesn't think "what would Mr.Fantastic do", she thinks "what would Uncle Doom do". She knows she is the only person in the world who can walk up to Doom and demand anything, at any time, and he'll give it to her. He brought her into this world, and she holds the key to his heart. And crucially, she doesn't bear much, if any, resentment towards her family - she's not throwing her lot with Doom to get back at them, she's not driven by spite over her lack of superpowers, she's certainly not doing it because she's blind as to what Doctor Doom is and does. It is dismissive and insulting to Valeria to assume that she doesn't plainly know who or what she's dealing with: surely yes, the many horrific things that Doctor Doom has done and continues to do to her family would put most people ill at ease in her place - but she's not most people.
She is not evil, but she is not very good either - uncomplicated superhero morality hasn't been an option for her since she was 3 years old. She doesn't set out to be evil, certainly she doesn't just want to be Doom Jr, but she is just at odds with her surroundings as Franklin Richards is, in a completely opposite way, and unlike Franklin, her future is not so written in stone. I think Valeria is one of the Marvel characters who I'd most like to see stretch her legs and get a title of her own. She is not Doom Jr - that's what the Doombots and Kristoff Vernard, who is mostly a flesh Doombot, are for - I wanna see what becomes of her in her unwritten future, one that doesn't have her dying or just following Franklin. I want her to live up to the promise that Doom sees in her, that he alone seems to understand. I want to know more about how she relates to her family and their acquaintances and how she engages with their world that is, in many ways, inaccessible to her.
And I would really like to see her and Bentley hang out more, their dynamic was one of my favorite things about Hickman F4 and it's crime the Future Foundation's been abandoned. I thought it ruled that she was the Greatest Genius Of All Time, godfathered by the Greatest Villain of All Time, and she was friends with a kid whose major ambition in life is to be a Powerpuff Girls villain, this tryhard insecure little Calvin whose own evil dad plainly and completely sucks and wants him gone. I thought they had a really wonderful dynamic that I'd like to see more done with. I'd like to read about what happens in that negative space of the Four's superhero image, what kinds of friends and enemies will follow someone who can put into motion world-destroying plans as a means to cheat around homework. Accidentally, of course.
