Kirby very early on realized that Reed was not Plastic Man, and the Plastic Man-like stunts faded away.

I have to shamefully admit I was all about Mr. Fantastic during Wolfman and Keith Pollard's run, leading up to FANTASTIC FOUR ish 200...Reed lost his stretching powers and then (spoiler beyond, I guess for the uninitiated) had to fly into space and get bombarded with cosmic rays (while fighting the Red Ghost no less...god I miss the "old" story-telling) and ended up nearly twice as powerful as he was before.

I thought this was wicked cool when I was nine or so...at one point in the big Dr. Doom fight in ish 200, Reed makes his fist a spiked square mace, actually shredding metal off Vic's chin.

Is this "impossible" though? Was the amped-up Reed somehow hardening his mace-fist to the point of being hard enough to shred steel? This would suggest he controls the density of his bones and flesh consciously, like Johnny flames on or Sue turns invisible.

Reed unconscious falling out of a crashing airplane would splat like any normal person, while Reed conscious turns into a giant rubber ball?

Keith Thomas wrote: Where's the 5 ft of extra webbing behind where his hand is and the unnatural body positions then?

Jesus. Really? You're really going to tell me that Adams made the webbing unique because he had "5 ft extra webbing behind where his hand is at?" Any schlub can look at how the webbing is drawn and see the two are alike. Are you that big a Art Adams fan that you just can't accept that someone else did it first?