THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS: A Fantastic First Step for Marvel’s First Family

My entry point to the Fantastic Four was Jonathan Hickman’s seminal run on the comics from issues 570 to 611 (and also Dark Reign and FF). I knew the Fantastic Four culturally, but had never read any of their comics before. It’s possible that I was still in my Batman-only comic book reading era. It’s possible I only had enough money for comics I definitely wanted to read. Either way, it was announced that in the newest run, a member of the team would die, and my curiosity got the better of me.

Flash forward to 2025 and I have read everything Fantastic Four and they are my favourite of favourites. So many incredible comic runs and still going strong, but no one seemed able to make a movie worth a damn about them (Away from the Hype: Fantastic Four). I’ve waited impatiently for the MCU to make a Fantastic Four movie since the cinematic universe began. It took 37 movies, but it’s finally here with a director, Matt Shakman, and a cast that I love, and though I’d been burned before I went into The Fantastic Four: First Steps with the optimism and hope that sent Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm into space in the first place to become Marvel’s First Family.

Cosmic Rays

First off, it’s instantly apparent this was written by people who know the source material. The whole movie is dotted with references to Fantastic Four runs, from name-dropping famous villains to plot points about The Bridge and The Future Foundation. During the entire movie, I was like a wide-eyed child. This was not fan service in the jingling of car keys way, this was what happens when fans make the adaptation.  

The filmmakers also realise that we’ve had enough origin stories for these superheroes, so like Spider-Man: Homecoming and The Batman, we jump in a few years into their careers. The Fantastic Four are famous as a mix of heroes and celebrities, so when they’re not saving the world, they’re hosting educational science programs, speaking to the UN, or appearing on billboards hocking suntan oil. 

It’s different and refreshing, not just because the movie is a 60s period piece, but also to see a group of heroes enjoy being heroic. Even Ben Grimm’s character is lighter than other portrayals, as we never see him in the woe-is-me characterisation that’s often popular with the character. In this movie, Ben is not treated like a monster, so he doesn’t need to spend precious running time staring at pictures of himself when he looked like Richie from The Bear. Instead, he’s a big brother figure who entertains kids, flirts with Natasha Lyonne’s school teacher character, and, in a possible nod to The Bear, is a whiz in the kitchen. 

The casting of the Fantastic Four themselves was a hotly contested subject of rumours and fan-casting. By all accounts, just the role of Reed Richards actors as varied as Adam Driver, Jake Gyllenhaal, Rahul Kohli, David Tennant, Milo Ventimiglia, Dev Patel and Matt Smith were considered. Jon Kransinki was such a popular fan-cast, they actually made him the character in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but in the end, that cameo was the end of his involvement. 

The final cast for Marvel’s first family: Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, were all fairly unexpected as they are all best known for TV roles and, other than Pascal, not really household names. Don’t get me wrong, they are all actors I love, but with the Fantastic Four, I expected Marvel to splash out on huge stars, and I worried that the actors they chose would be eclipsed by the spectacle. I’m a big enough man to admit I was completely wrong, though, as each one of the team is exceptional. 

Kirby is the standout as the team’s leader and the glue that is holding them together. Quinn and Moss-Bachrach perfectly capture their comic counterparts’ brotherly relationship of bickering and teaming up. Pascal also dials down a lot of his charm to be a more worried, nerdy character who is constantly in his own head thinking of catastrophes and how to solve them. The final member of the team, the robot Herbie, often steals scenes while only talking in R2D2-style beeps and whirs. 

So Speaks Galactus

A hero only being as good as their villains rings true here, as Ralph Ineson and Julia Garner are brilliant as Galactus and Silver Surfer Shalla-Bal. They are hidden behind armour and a CG silver body, but they never disappear behind their comic book accoutrements. Ineson’s rich, Yorkshire tones boom from the cinema speakers and the tragedy of Shalla-Bal is written in Garner’s expressive eyes. Both characters could become goofy, realised on screen, but the craftsmanship and performances make them legitimate characters instead of CG set decoration.   

The MVP, though, is Paul Walter Hauser, who only has a few scenes as Harvey Elder, aka The Moleman, but he threatens to steal the movie with every line. He completely exemplifies one of the main strengths of this movie, which is that each character feels unique and fully formed. Superhero movies have a habit of making their characters interchangeable, with each becoming simply a vehicle for Whedon-esque one-liners. With The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the screenplay has crafted a specific voice for each character, and the actors embody them completely.

The action sequences that take all the middle section of the movie are huge and portray Galactus as a genuinely terrifying threat. The gigantic armoured man as a character was obviously too rich for the tastes of 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, as in that movie, he is shown as a malevolent cloud that eats planets. 

Here we get the man who was once known as Galan in all of his titanic, purple glory, and it works. There is nothing goofy about him, and his presence and watching the movie in IMAX meant every time he spoke or put a foot on the ground, I was nearly thrown out of my seat. 

Solve Everything

A big kudos has to go out to the filmmakers for letting the audience realise the time period through costuming, sets, and technology. At no point do they feel the need to blast a Beatles song to hammer home it’s the 60s. From the opening scene in the Baxter Building bathroom, it’s clear from the decor and the colour palette we’re not in 2025, and the filmmakers trust us to understand that.

The retro-futuristic production design is perfect. Production designer Kasra Farahani, who previously did insanely detailed and beautiful work on Loki, strikes a balance between Mad Men and The Jetsons. It’s very clear that we’re seeing a world very much like our own, but where a super-genius like Reed Richards exists. This means we see baby monitors with little screens on them, skinny cars with bubble tops, sleek elevated trains, a skyline filled with weird-shaped buildings, and flying police drones, but it’s all still very clearly 60s-coded.

Sometimes, an issue with superhero movies is a feeling of uniformity in setting and design, and a common complaint is the lack of bright colours, and a feeling of intangibility with space makes it feel like the filmmakers are forgetting or completely ignoring the characters’ comic book origins. The Fantastic Four: First Steps feels, in the most complimentary sense of the phrase, comic book-y. There is no cynicism about its source material, and no attempts are made to shy away from the goofiness of its premise. Instead, the movie is colourful and fun and feels pulled from some of the best runs on the comic by Lee, Kirby, Waid, Hickman, North and others.  

Conclusion:

A wonderful addition to the MCU and the superhero canon, The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a breath of fresh air in the genre while also being unique in how much it enjoys being a superhero movie. There is no smirking at the concept or backhanded jokes because of comic book-y names. This is a movie for comic book fans, so it gets into the nerdy details while also being colourful and big.

I guess the biggest compliment I can give this movie is that there were moments that felt like they could have come straight from the pen of Jack Kirby himself, as he was an artist and writer who liked things big, bright, and quite a bit weird. And that’s exactly what this wonderful movie was.