Invisible Woman Fact — November 3, 2026

Today's Fact

For 24 years Marvel called a grown wife and mother a girl — until the darkest week of her life made her bury that name herself.

SUE STORM BECAME THE INVISIBLE WOMAN ONLY AFTER A VILLAIN TURNED HER INTO MALICE, MISTRESS OF HATE!

The Featured Fact

Sue Storm debuted in Fantastic Four #1 (1961) as the Invisible Girl — and kept that name for nearly a quarter of a century, through marriage and motherhood. It took a villain to end it. In Fantastic Four #280 (1985), by writer-artist John Byrne, the Microverse tyrant Psycho-Man — aided by the Hate-Monger — used his emotion-control box on a Sue still grieving a miscarriage, amplifying her buried anger and resentment until she emerged in spiked black leather as Malice, Mistress of Hate.

Malice was no puppet with diluted powers: she turned Sue's force fields lethal, forming spikes and suffocating constructs, and she beat her own team — overpowering She-Hulk, who was then standing in for the Thing, and holding off the rest of the Fantastic Four. Reed Richards finally broke Psycho-Man's hold, but the violation did not end there. Chasing revenge over the next issues, Sue confronted Psycho-Man in the Microverse, endured his Psycho-Ray visions of her family's deaths, and then turned his own weapon back on him, collapsing his autonomic nervous system and nearly killing him.

What she did next was the point of the whole arc. In Fantastic Four #284 (1985) — her final appearance under the old name — Sue rejected Invisible Girl for good and rechristened herself the Invisible Woman. The new name was not a promotion handed down by an editor or a teammate; it was Sue's own declaration that the girl was gone, made after she had faced the hate Psycho-Man found inside her and refused to pretend it had never been there.

Why It's Obscure

Most heroes get a new name from a costume change or a rebrand. Sue earned hers by surviving the worst version of herself.

1961–1985

A girl in name only — Sue carried “Invisible Girl” for 24 years — as a founding Avenger-era hero, a wife, and a mother — because nobody at Marvel retired the diminutive.

FF #280 · 1985

Malice, Mistress of Hate — Psycho-Man's emotion box inverted Sue's love into hate; the spiked, black-clad Malice then defeated the Fantastic Four she had spent decades protecting.

The revenge

His weapon, turned back — Hunting Psycho-Man down, Sue seized his own control technology and shorted out his nervous system — the act that forced her to confront what Malice had shown her.

FF #284 · 1985

The name she chose — Fantastic Four #284 is Sue's last outing as the Invisible Girl; from that issue she is the Invisible Woman, on her own terms.

Gallery

Malice is in every frame — as the shadow Sue cannot shake, on the cover of the issue that created her, and face to face with Sue herself.

Invisible Woman in her blue Fantastic Four suit with the spiked shadow of Malice looming behind her — **The shadow behind her**Sue in her blue Fantastic Four suit, hand fading invisible — while Malice's spiked, red-eyed silhouette claws up the wall behind her, exactly where Psycho-Man left her.

Fantastic Four issue 280 cover with the team trapped in giant letters spelling HATE — **Fantastic Four #280**The July 1985 cover that started it all: the Four trapped inside giant letters spelling HATE — the issue where Malice is born and the Invisible Girl begins to die.

Comic panels of Sue Storm confronting and absorbing her Malice persona — **Sue versus Malice**Later panels tell the sequel: Sue refuses to destroy her dark side and absorbs Malice's persona into her own mind instead — “We'll see… but I wouldn't gamble on it, sweetie!”

Sources

Every fact on this page was checked against at least two independent sources before publication.

Bullpen Bulletins

Susan Storm (Earth-616) — Marvel DatabaseFull Earth-616 history: Psycho-Man amplifies Sue's negative emotions into Malice, she turns his Control Box on him, and the episode ends with the Invisible Girl changing her name to Invisible Woman; cites Fantastic Four #280 and #284.
Who Is Malice? What You Need to Know About Sue Storm's Dark Side — ComicBook.comComicBook.com's Malice explainer: Psycho-Man creates Malice in Fantastic Four #280, and Sue's second confrontation with him inspires her to change her hero name to the Invisible Woman.
Fantastic Four: First Steps Star Hints at Malice Turn — ComicBook.comIndependent ComicBook.com report confirming Fantastic Four #284 as Sue's final appearance as the Invisible Girl, where she rechristened herself the Invisible Woman.