The Brothers Four claim to have been created and taught their magical powers by the wizard posing as Merlin for the purposes of seeking out and destroying Modred the Mystic. Their numbers included the earth elemental Mud, the fire elemental known as Fire, the water elemental known as Hydro, and the air elemental Aero. They were placed in stasis within a chest that eventually ended up beneath British Parliament. The brothers were inadvertently freed by two thieves seeking to recover stolen Nazi loot hidden in Parliament during World War II. Materializing in a cavern below Stonehenge, they began capturing tourists to drain them of the energies they needed to pull Modred back in time and return him to their master. Their arrival drew the visiting heroes Spider-Woman, the Fantastic Four's Thing, and the Thing's girlfriend Alicia Masters. The Thing and Spider-Woman battled the creatures until Modred -- sensing the elementals' arrival came. Modred then used his superior magics to turn each elemental against their opposite, the powers of one cancelling out the other, destroying the Four Brothers before they could complete their mission.