Obviously, It's All Part Of A Devious Ploy

I want to sort of go back to something I got into here.

When I was reading Amazing Spider-Man #535, I noticed that Reed's sporting some stubble, suggesting he's been really busy, and there's no one around to remind him to shave. Between that, his story about his uncle, and his mentions of Ben being on a 'leave of absence', it actually went a ways towards humanizing him, showing that what they're doing is starting to get to him, even if it's only because he's losing the people closest to him, as they do what they think is best, and it isn't in agreement with him.

Of course, after his story about his uncle, followed by his assertion that you need to obey the law, no matter how lousy it is, didn't help, portraying him as someone too gutless to do what he believes in, which doesn't jibe with his past history (as noted by an anonymous commenter on Wednesdays' post). So Reed clearly lacks a backbone in the metaphorical sense, and if he's anything like his Ultimate counterpart, in the literal sense as well.

And this lead me to wonder whether it's possible for Reed to grow a beard. If he does lack internal organs, then I think that his body is sort of locked into the state that it was in when he got hit with those cosmic rays. Honestly, I'm just not sure how he can function without any noticeable internal structures. He obviously has something to pass for a nervous system, reproductive system, respiratory, circulatory, etc., but what, and where?

Reed could actually be like Plastic Man, to the point where it would be nearly impossible to kill him. With the way his body can change size and shape, he must be able to go through millions of mitotic divisions at will. Or else he's stretching the same cells out to crazy sizes, which would give him low elasticity (since the cells would be stretched more thinly, and break easier), which isn't the case. To go through all those mitotic divisions, should be leading to a considerable amount of early cell death, and significantly shortening Reed's life, but there hasn't been any sign of that so far, right? To be fair, I'm not sure how old Reed was when he stole his own ship, but it's been ten years of stretching and changing since then, so he ought to be showing some signs. But no, which suggests his body has some sort of additional feature that corrects for that problem. What, I couldn't guess. Maybe when he goes back to his default size and shape, all those extra cells recombine and it's as if no divisions occurred at all.

I just really wonder if Reed's body works the same as your average, Joe Schmoe, human being. In fact, to heck with whether Reed can grow a beard or not, do you think he can grow one at will? Gasp! That dastardly fiend! He intentionally made his normal facial hair stretch to resemble a couple days' old stubble, so we'd think he was worn down and underestimate him. He was probably trying to make Peter think he'd found someone else with doubts he could confide in, to set Pete up.

Say it with Doctor Doom now people: Accursed Richards!