Personally, I have long held that Reed did provide enough shielding for the expected journey. But they ran into a cosmic ray storm - much as a thunder storm appearing out of a forecasted light summer shower, in a similar way to the cosmic storm the X-Men ran into some years later that released the Phoenix. (COROLLARY QUESTION: Why did Jean have to sacrifice herself when she could have used her powers to transfer that knowledge to Colossus or Wolverine, and then protect HIM while he landed the shuttle? Ah, let's never mind right now.)

And let's remember - we're shooting at this snipe sixty years after the fact. Our sensibilities and experiences are a little different from the audience of that time.

Copyright Chris Claremont.

If upheld, it means that pre-flight Reed wasn't in Doom's class when it comes to brains-- except that he provably is, because he found a critical flaw in Doom's work.

No, Reed was a singular kind of super-genius before the flight and after it. In how I've read the stories, it doesn't seem as though cosmic rays affected his smarts in the least.

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Ha! Chris would never make a character just one thing.

Reed's a gamma-enhanced mutant Vampire Kung-fu expert whose father is from another planet and his mother is from the future and related to everyone else in the MCU. 19 siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins to follow.

While flying, she thought that not even Colossus could survive that level of radiation. Her TK shields usually function in line of sight range.

Seriously  ;-)

All this other supposed stuff is just bullshit/lazy writing.

Of course it would ruin the storyline, but I'm just wondering about another idea. (In the "What If-" about the original X-Men, Polaris was able to work the controls by magnetism. Jean could have managed the same while in the life module if only they'd had a camera... :) )

ITEM: I'll break this down to as simple and effective argument as I think I can. Reed Richards, unenhanced, built a operational rocket system to the stars ALONE. Oh, maybe Ben helped with the navigation systems and piloting specifics - but Reed incorporated that into the design.

Did the cosmic rays make him smarter? They didn't seem to have such effect on the others. Oh, Johnny learned he had pyrokinesis, but that surely didn't apply pre-flight.

One MIGHT note a discrepancy in that Ben's powers were always on and the others' weren't. It might have been a bit more consistent if Johnny had to concentrate to turn OFF his flame, Sue had to focus to be visible, and Reed had to set his mind to keeping a human form, and not a pool of melted Reed-sicle.

But Stan's story and design are GREAT for me. Any arguments can be taken to the source. :)