The Baxter Building is a 35-story building located at 42nd Street and Madison Avenue, Manhattan, New York City in the United States of America just a few blocks from the United Nations Headquarters. It has been home to many individuals and organizations. The most famous being the Fantastic Four.
The building was originally constructed in 1949 by the Leland Baxter Paper Company. The building's steel frame construction utilized the first application of "K bracing" in the world and is one of the strongest structures of its kind. Originally designed to accommodate pulp recycling machinery to serve the mid-Manhattan area, each floor was given a ceiling height of 24 feet. Leland Baxter and his brother Noah jointly owned the building and Noah had been one of its key designers.
It first became a headquarters to superheroes in the late 1940s. In September of 1946, when the original headquarters of the All-Winners Squad was destroyed in a battle against Madame Death, their leader Captain America set his eyes on relocating the groups base of operations to the future site of the Baxter Building.[6] The group finally moved into the partially completed building in until April of 1948.[7] They remained tenants of the building until the group disbanded later in February of 1950.
At some point, the Baxter brothers sold the Baxter Building to a corporation. The building then passed through various corporate hands until it was eventually bought by opportunistic entrepreneur Walter Collins.
In the late 20th century, the super-villain known as Nocturne attempted to unleash a alchemtechno virus upon New York City, using the Baxter Building as ground zero for his attack. This attempt was thwarted by the hero group known as the First Line. Although they stopped the virus, the top seven floors of the Baxter Building were destroyed and needed to be rebuilt.
In recent years the Baxter Building had become world famous as home to the super-heroes known as the Fantastic Four. When the Fantastic Four's military liaison suggested the building as their new headquarters, team leader Mister Fantastic agreed that it fit the needs of his group. Reed had purchased the building outright, Reed tapped his former professor Noah Baxter, a former part owner of the building, to assist him in reconstructing the top five floors of the Baxter Building to suit their needs. Much of the equipment originally installed in the Fantastic Four's headquarters was a collaborative project between the two men. The group moved in shortly after reconstruction began.
Initially, Reed bought that section of the building outright, though the Fantastic Four continued to pay monthly service fees. When the they were in a tight financial situation a year later, Reed sold the Fantastic Four's floors back to the Baxter Paper Company. As tenants, the Fantastic Four had many problems with Walter Collins, the building manager. Whereas Mr. Collins had originally been delighted that a real superhero team was moving into his building, he soon began to see the problems in such a situation. When Doctor Doom lifted the entire building into deep space, relations cooled between the manager and his tenants. Other tenants worried that their offices might become battlegrounds and, as their leases ended, many of the building's original tenants did not renew. Nor did new tenants appear to fill the vacancies. In desperation, Mr. Collins offered all tenants ironclad, 99-year leases with significant discounts in their rents.
Still, problems continued. Occasionally either the Thing or a foe would be driven downward through the building, tearing a shaft through floor after floor. Battles occurred on the outer walls of the building. Explosions were a common occurrence. No insurance company would write a policy on any organization maintaining offices in the Baxter Building.
Collins also discovered that losing the Fantastic Four as tenants would not solve his problems. During a period when the Fantastic Four had split up and vacated their headquarters, Collins discovered that no one would rent their former headquarters. There was too great a fear that supervillains would attack those floors regardless of who now lived there. When the Fantastic Four later reunited. Collins was forced to accept the FF back as tenants, and grudgingly agreed to charging them a lower rent as well.
Then one day, Terrax the Tamer disintegrated everything above the 32nd floor. Collins was fed up. He stormed into the remains of the headquarters and announced he was evicting the Fantastic Four. Reed suddenly exercised a lease option and bought the entire building outright. That was the last that was seen of Collins. As landlords, the Fantastic Four tried to be considerate of their tenants, but their sudden foray into land ownership proved to be a challenge. They wished most of the tenants would voluntarily leave, but they realized they were required to honor Collins’ special leases. The final act in the Baxter Building's history came when Kristoff Vernard, Doctor Doom's adopted son, sent the entire building once again into orbit, this time blowing it up.
Fortunately, no one was in the building except for the Fantastic Four. Still, when the Fantastic Four returned to the empty foundation, they found angry tenants demanding action. Reed announced that he would establish an insurance pool to cover the tenants' losses and to help them find new offices. Then he set about designing a new headquarters to be erected on the same site. Reed eventually constructed the Four Freedoms Plaza to replace the destroyed Baxter Building. It served as the FF's headquarters until they were seemingly slain by the psychic entity known as Onslaught. The Four Freedoms was later co-opted by the Thunderbolts as their new headquarters. It remained their headquarters part of the building was dumped into the Negative Zone.
Meanwhile, the Fantastic Four turned up alive and well and were returned to Earth from a pocket dimension. They took up residence in a new headquarters dubbed Pier Four, because the Four Freedoms was uninhabitable. Ultimately the rest of the building was teleported to the Blue Area of the Moon by Ronan the Accuser during a battle against the Fantastic Four. This left a vacant lot in the place where the Four Freedoms used to stand. The Fantastic Four continued to use Pier 4 as their headquarters until it was destroyed in an attack by their long time foe Diablo. By that time, Reed and Noah Baxter had reunited to build a new Baxter Building, which was being secretly constructed in Earth orbit on Baxter's Alexandria space station. When the building was completed, and activated by the Fantastic Four it was lowered into the empty lot where the original Baxter building, and Four Freedoms Plaza previously resided.
The Baxter Building remained the Fantastic Four's headquarters for some time, until they hit more financial troubles. Forced to pay for the damages they caused to New York City over the years, Reed was forced to turn over the property to the City of New York, and the FF were promptly evicted from the premises. Eventually, the Fantastic Four were able to obtain a windfall of money and reclaim their former headquarters. Most recently the Baxter Building was shattered by an attack by creatures from a pocket dimension. The building was later ordered closed down by S.H.I.E.L.D.. Although the Fantastic Four ultimately defeated the Quiet Man, who masterminded recent events to take them down, the Fantastic Four decided to disband for the time being.
Over a year after this, and following the apparent demise of Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, the Baxter Building came up for sale. Roxxon, Alchemax, and other corporations attempted to claim it, but it was purchased by Parker Industries not only to be the New York headquarters of the company, but to keep it safe for when the Fantastic Four reunited at long last. At first, Johnny was angry at Peter for buying their home, but upon learning why and seeing the statue of the family in the lobby, Johnny gave his blessing to Peter. A few months later, Parker Industries dissolved, and with its end, the Baxter Building had to be sold.
The Building was eventually bought by the new superhero team modelled after the Fantastic Four called the Fantastix, who made it their headquarters. After Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman returned from repairing the Multiverse and the Fantastic Four were reformed, Mister Fantastic decided to let the Fantastix keep the Baxter Building while the Fantastic Four moved to 4 Yancy Street. A few months later, the Baxter Building was destroyed in its entirety by the alien Cormorant when he targeted Container Zero, a lockbox hidden beneath the building by Mister Fantastic almost a decade earlier. The destruction of Container Zero saw the creation of the Forever Gate, a doorway to every point in space and time. Seeing that this creation would be extremely sought-after, Mister Fantastic decided to reclaim what was left of the Baxter Building in order to guard it. Not long after this, the Baxter Building began being rebuilt, and the Fantastic Four moved back to the building when most of the floors had been completed.
