For virtually his entire publication history, Mister Fantastic has been depicted as one of the most intelligent characters in the Marvel Universe. A visionary theoretician and an inspired machine smith, he has made breakthroughs in such varied fields as space travel, time travel, extra-dimensional travel, biochemistry, robotics, computers, synthetic polymers, communications, mutations, transportation, holography, energy generation, and spectral analysis, among others. However, he is never afraid to admit when others have greater expertise in certain fields than him, such as recognizing that Doctor Octopus possesses greater knowledge of radiation, that Hank Pym is a superior biochemist, or that Spider-Man can think of a problem from a biology perspective where he would be unable to do so, since his expertise is in physics. Richards has earned Ph.D.s in Mathematics, Physics, and Engineering. His patents are so valuable that he is able to bankroll the Fantastic Four, Inc., without any undue financial stress. Mind control is rarely effective on him and when it does work, it wears off sooner than it would on a normal person, due to what he describes as an "elastic consciousness". However, this intelligence can be a handicap in his dealings with magic, as it required an intense lesson from Doctor Strange and facing the threat of his son being trapped in Hell for Reed to fully acknowledge that the key to using magic was to accept that he would never understand it.