Ben remains close with Reed and are considered best friends. After college Air Force R.O.T.C., Ben graduated with the rank of 2nd Lieutenant, earned the rank of captain,and at the behest of Reed, joins the NASA astronaut training program to become a shuttle pilot servicing the International Space Station on transport and supply runs. This gives Ben's involvement legitimacy and believability being he will be one of the shuttle pilots transporting the science research crew from the Baxter Bldg.
Reed and Sue agree to marry after returning from orbit with Dr.Storm's blessings.
Meanwhile Prof.Elder, who has a private lab in his cellar, continues to experiment and expand upon his prior successes when employed at the Baxter Bldg., with stunning and exponentially frightening results. He believes achieving a scientific breakthrough independent of his colleagues will validate his credibility. He names his new life forms 'moloids'.
Were's Victor Von Doom during this time? Glad you asked!
Doom is a complex character and could in fact carry his own movie. He's much to idiosyncratic to be relegated to a two dimensional villain. We know the comic book cause of his hate and menace toward society in general is because of his disfigured face,and that he wears the iron mask to hide his face, but this is too inconceivable especially with modern surgery techniques. Even now , 2 people have so far received complete face transplants! So if Doom were injured he's much too vain and proud to leave himself untreated- the idea of wearing a mask as a remedy is just absurd.
Representing Latveria, Doom's scientific time/matter displacement theory, and remarkable genius(which he secretly attributes in part to sorcery learned from his mother as a boy) has earned him a grant from the European Space Agency to join the joint American research effort aboard the International Space Station. There he will coordinate with Reed in combining talents to achieve a singular goal: inter-dimensional travel.
Doom is presently aboard the Space Station awaiting his fellow scientists and is making the necessary preparations for the experiments...
This ends part 2...
Part 3 : The gang finally meet in the next article...!