10 Unrevealed Secrets About The Baxter Building

One of the Fantastic Four’s earliest and most annoying foes was their opportunistic landlord Walter Collins. Reed Richards initially owned the building but fell on hard times financially and was forced to sell the property and lease the upper floors from Collins. In the beginning, the greedy building manager believed it would add prestige to his property to have a world-famous superhero team as a tenant. However, the attacks from supervillains and the volatile nature of the Thing and the Human Torch’s arguments quickly made Walter regret his decision.

Created by Stan Lee and John Buscema, the tenacious Collins went right up to Reed Richards in Fantastic Four #111 and threatened to evict the team, but the ever-distracted Mister Fantastic simply “shooed” the man out of the door. This angered the landlord and spurred him to action, so when the team was away fighting the Overmind, Collins padlocked the door. Of course, Ben Grimm simply broke that padlock off. When Johnny returned and Walter attempted to have him arrested, the Thing hung Collins from a flagpole.

The team briefly broke up, but Walter found that the upper echelons of the Baxter Building were so identified with the Fantastic Four, no one else would lease space there. He had no choice but to rent it back to the team, at a reduced rate. Financially solvent again, Reed Richards was eventually able to buy the entire building back from Collins and send him away.