That’s not true. How do you think they made all that money? Patents and merchandising. The Baxter Building, the Four Freedoms Plaza - the good people of New York didn’t just give those to the FF for free.
That’s Planetary. We’re talking Fantastic Four. Otherwise, I should be able to say that Superman is the leader of a child pornography ring because I’ve read Top Ten.
That isn’t true, either. The Iron Man changed the world’s perception of a superhero. It wasn’t just about gaining powers via random radiation - (SMART) people could use technology to build things that would help them fight megalomaniacal supervillains and giant Chinese alien dragons named Fin Fang Foom.
The Iron Man armor tech is the most sophisticated weapon ever developed by mankind. You don’t think developing new and improved, hi-tech weapons can change the world? Even if we aren’t talking just about the armor, Stark Industries was built on weapon making. Landmines, bombs, rifles, all sorts of dangerous stuff.
Iron Man tech has even been used to affect other fields other than warfare. For example, the repulsor ray technology was used as a way to launch space shuttles.
And Clinty already mentioned how powerful people are always trying to steal Iron Man blueprints and stuff. I’ve never seen anyone try to steal Spidey’s web-shooters to launch a deadly plan of mass destruction.
Then there’s groups like SHIELD and the people who run the Vault - their agents and guards rely on Stark technology. The worldwide peacekeeping organization needs Stark tech. I’m pretty sure there have also been comics where Nick Fury mentions that Reed built something in the Helicarrier, too.
And while we’re at it, even Hank Pym’s used his Pym Particles to create a miniaturized, hi-security supervillain prison with miniaturized supervillains living under armed watch in there. The best Spider-Man can do is wrap up a normal mugger in some webs (which dissolve in an hour) and tie him to a lamp post until the cops get there.
Now how can you say that Tony Stark’s work doesn’t affect the world?
What are these alleged sources - wikipedia? People like SHIELD use Reed’s inventions. Just reading Mark Waid’s run, I think it’s pretty clear that you can infer that people in the Marvel Universe use things Reed invents. Sure, there’s lots of stuff he keeps to himself. But that’s only because he makes so much stuff in the first place, and he’s so smart that most of his inventions are afterthoughts anyway.
Spider-Man has his Spider-Signal - useful for striking fear into the hearts and souls of criminals, who are known to be a cowardly and superstitious lot. That’s about it.
From reading Fantastic Four comics, I’ve realized that Reed is not dumb at making money. They are not in want of money. Even when they pretty much lost it all, Reed still came up with a way to recover their fortune in spades. Reed is also a genius in terms of how to market his family to the public.
Spider-Man, however, did make some amazing advertisements where he used those tasty Hostess fruit pies to defeat the Green Goblin - I’ll give you that one for free.