“It’s all Reed Richards’ fault. Him and his endless pursuit of progress.”
but was Harvey Elder aka Mole Man right?
In every iteration of the Fantastic Four, from the lycra-clad optimism of 1994, to the CGI adventures of 2005 and 2007, to the darker Fant4stic in 2015, and even the “smartest man alive” cameo in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Reed Richards has always been presented as the team’s voice of reason. His leadership is justified by one thing above all else: his extraordinary intelligence (although after the whole Black Bolt incident with Wanda... perhaps not completely infallible).
It is an easy narrative to believe. Surely the person with the best strategy, the one who can think through impossible problems, balance competing risks and arrive at evidence-based solutions, would make the strongest leader. It is an academic’s dream.
But does intelligence automatically create legitimacy?
Unlike previous versions of the Fantastic Four, where we are introduced to awe-struck young scientists discovering their powers, First Steps presents us with an established team. These are astronauts, researchers and public figures. Reed Richards, played by Pedro Pascal, is no longer a university prodigy discovering the world. He is a man who has already spent decades trying to understand it. Ben Grimm, played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach, carries the same sense of experience, while Sue and Johnny Storm, played by Vanessa Kirby and Joseph Quinn, are no longer simply young heroes but influential political and cultural figures in their own right.
This iteration of the Fantastic Four are not just superheroes. They are political actors. They shape public policy, advise governments and determine the future of their world. In many ways, they embody the logic of technocratic governance.
To summarise an entire field of political philosophy: technocracy is the belief that political decisions should be guided primarily by expertise, scientific knowledge and evidence-based reasoning. The word itself comes from the Greek techne, meaning skill or craft, and kratos, meaning rule or power: quite literally, rule through technical knowledge.
The idea itself is far from new. Plato imagined philosopher-kings ruling through knowledge and wisdom rather than popular opinion. Francis Bacon’s New Atlantis envisioned a society guided by scientists and empirical discovery. Later thinkers such as Henri de Saint-Simon argued that increasingly complex societies required leadership from experts, engineers and industrial planners.
As societies became more technologically advanced, these ideas became increasingly influential. Modern states rely on technocratic institutions every day: central banks setting monetary policy, scientific panels advising public health decisions, engineers designing infrastructure and experts modelling climate risks.
The appeal is obvious.
Complex problems require knowledge. Evidence is often better than ideology. Long-term planning is often better than short-term popularity.
Reed Richards represents this ideal perfectly. He does not seek power because he wants control (that is usually the role Victor von Doom occupies in these stories, despite only appearing in the end credits here). He seeks responsibility because he believes understanding creates an obligation to act. As Elder puts it, his “endless pursuit of progress” comes from a desire to make the world safer. Reed wants to “baby-proof the whole world” because he believes every problem has a solution if only humanity can gather enough information, enough '“variables”, and enough understanding.
Not everyone, however, accepts that authority.
This brings me back to Harvey Elder, the ruler of Subterranea. Better known in the comics as the Mole Man, he is usually portrayed as an eccentric supervillain. Here, however, he feels closer to an anti-hero, in much the same way Poison Ivy is often written as a villain trying to save the environment. He becomes Reed’s political opposite as much as his narrative foil.
I think that is deliberate.
Reed Richards and Harvey Elder represent two competing ways of making decisions. Reed believes the best solutions come from expertise, planning and scientific knowledge. Elder, by contrast, repeatedly justifies his actions by claiming to represent the interests and wishes of his people.
Political scientist Cas Mudde describes populism as a worldview that divides society into a morally pure 'people' and a corrupt 'elite’, arguing that legitimate politics should reflect the general will of ordinary people. Importantly, Mudde’s definition also highlights populism’s anti-pluralist tendency: the assumption that there is one authentic ‘people’ whose interests can be clearly identified. Those who disagree can therefore be dismissed as outsiders, corrupt elites or enemies of the public good. Whether or not Mole Man is correct, he consistently frames Reed as an out-of-touch elite imposing his own vision of progress from (quite literally) above.
Both of these positions carry genuine appeal. Both also carry genuine risks. Technocracy can become detached from the people it is meant to serve, mistaking analytical clarity for moral authority. Populism can collapse complexity into a single imagined “will of the people”, using that claim to silence disagreement and justify decisions that may ultimately harm those it claims to represent. The danger, then, is not expertise itself, nor is it popular participation. The danger is believing either one is sufficient on its own. Both are also vulnerable to being co-opted by authoritarian leaders.
A technocratic authoritarian does not need to claim that people love them. They justify their authority through competence: the belief that difficult problems require decisive action, and that experts should be trusted to make necessary choices without interference. Political disagreement becomes framed not as a legitimate difference of opinion, but as an obstacle to efficiency and progress.
The populist authoritarian takes the opposite route. Rather than claiming authority through expertise, they claim to embody the will of the people. They position themselves as the only true representative of ordinary citizens, with opponents portrayed not as political rivals but as enemies of the people themselves.
The irony is that these two forms of authority, despite appearing opposite, can arrive at a similar destination. Both can become hostile to pluralism. Both can treat disagreement as illegitimate when their own source of authority is considered unquestionable. Both can argue that their source of legitimacy is the only one that matters.
If my research on governance and design has taught me anything it is that: The best decisions rarely come from above or below alone. They emerge through negotiation.
The margins are where I wander a little further. Here you’ll find personal reflections, behind-the-scenes thinking, and connections to the wider ideas and essays that make up the Pop Culture as Parable archive.
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This is Essay #6 of 102.
Between now and the release of Avengers: Doomsday, I’ll be working through every corner of the Marvel multiverse, using each story as a starting point to explore a bigger question about politics, philosophy and what it means to be human.
If that sounds like your kind of thing, I’d love for you to join me.
Subscribe below to follow the countdown, receive every new essay in your inbox, and let me know your own thoughts in the comments. Whether you agree, disagree, or have a theory of your own, I’d love to hear it.
If you want to learn more about the theories mentioned here, why not check them out? They should be available at your local library or through second-hand book sellers. They are both great reads that say far more than I can fit in this quick 600-word reflection.
Bacon, F. (1627). New Atlantis. London: William Rawley.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The Production of Space. Oxford: Blackwell.
Malkki, L. H. (1995). Refugees and Exile: From “Refugee Studies” to the National Order of Things. Annual Review of Anthropology, 24, 495–523.
Mudde, C. (2004). The Populist Zeitgeist. Government and Opposition, 39(4), 541–563.
Saint-Simon, H. de. (1825). The New Christianity. London: Hurst, Chance and Co.
Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
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