Marvel’s First Family Barges Into the MCU

Before Peter Parker slung webs, before Hulk smashed, before there was Deadpool and Wolverine and Wakanda and mutants and infinity stones and cinematic universes — there was the core Four. You can separate the history of superhero comics into Before and After eras regarding Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s creation of the Fantastic Four, and the November 1961 publication of the quartet’s first issue represents the Marvel Age’s big bang. The story was simple: Four astronauts travel to space. They return with respective superpowers. Given that they share a solid moral center, they fight evil together. Given that they’re a family, they bicker and snipe and apologize and have dinner together in a way that most supergroups didn’t. A revolution was born.

Despite being the company’s cornerstone, however, Marvel’s first family has a history of being a third-tier property in the movies. And because of a rights-issue saga so complicated it makes the MCU’s confusing multiverse narrative feel like a comic strip, the Fantastic Four have seen their adventures become the basis for several failed and/or stillborn franchise attempts. There have been three (technically four) previous screen iterations of the FF, and none of them truly delivered.

To say that the version we get in Fantastic Four: First Steps is the best screen adaptation to date of the group — roll call: Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and the Thing — means that a low bar has been cleared, though the world-building around them is truly an achievement. Whether or not you’re a die-hard, you’ll walk away wowed by the ring-a-ding NYC they live in, the Kirby-esque cosmic environments they travel, and the way that director Matt Shakman and his collaborators channel the title’s first five years’ worth of issues with such uncanny fidelity. Yes, we finally have a Four deserving of the blockbuster-spectacle treatment. No, this semi-induction of the team into the Marvel Cinematic Universe has not fully shaken the curse that’s dogged them when it comes to the moving pictures.

For starters, the decision to set this inaugural FF romp in a 1960s straight outta the panels of the original Kirby-Lee run is inspired for a variety of reasons. Longtime readers will thrill to recreations of the game changing first issue’s cover and the overall Silver Age vibe of the visuals. TCM subscribers will dig the fact that the space-age-bachelor-pad production design would make Juan Esquivel weep with joy. Viewers who increasingly feel a nagging sense of MCU déjà vu will simply appreciate the fact that First Steps looks and feels different from the jump. Shakman was responsible for WandaVision, the Disney+ series that remains the high point of Marvel Studios’ TV output, and his ability to replicate any number of past sitcom eras in that show makes him the perfect choice for bringing this retro-deco take to life.

It also helps that, though we know Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) will eventually meet up with whomever is still currently active in Kevin Feige‘s overall soap opera, First Steps takes place in an alternate world where the Fantastic Four are the only superheroes on the block. After dispensing with their origin story via clips designed to resemble the Apollo 11 prelaunch, all of which are set to the sounds of the quartet suffering through the radioactive storm that will transform them, we are whisked through a talk-show intro that doubles as a capsule history of their greatest hits. There they are, stopping the Mole Man (Paul Walker Hauser) from taking over the surface world! And watch them beat back the mutated ape minions of the Red Ghost, conspicuous in his absence (sorry, John Malkovich)! These and other quick callbacks to some of the very first bad guys the team took on may be strictly for the heads, but the scenes of ecstatic, Kennedy-era crowds whooping their gratitude establish that the Four are already beloved public figures. They are all that stand between salvation and destruction. Pin that thought.

The group is already four years into a good run saving the world when it gets hit with a double whammy. First, Reed and Sue are going to have a baby. That’s the good news. Then, a mysterious figure appears out of the sky. She is Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner). You probably know her better as the Silver Surfer. In the comics, the character was a soulful alien with a totally rad interstellar surfboard and a lot of existential ennui. Here, the Surfer comes off more like the galaxy’s hottest hood ornament, but the gig remains the same. She’s a herald who’s come to inform Earth that it will soon be gone. Specifically, it’s on course to be the main course for her boss, Galactus (Ralph Ineson), a massive celestial being who consumes planets for sustenance. That’s the bad news.

Reed and Co. would prefer that they, along with the rest of the occupants that call our big blue marble home, not be reduced to collateral damage just because some huge being with an amazing, multipronged helmet is hungry. They manage to get some face time with the big guy. He makes them an offer: He will spare Earth if he can have Reed and Sue’s unborn baby, who he declares is “a being of infinite power.” Longtime Fantastic Four readers know what he’s talking about; the rest of us will simply need to take his word. This is not a deal that the team cares to accept. Suffice to say, the Four’s decision to prize the one over the many does not make them particularly popular back home.

Kicking things off with a beloved narrative arc known as “the Galactus Trilogy” is a smart move, given that it highlights what the FF comics did best — combine cosmic and epic scope with emotional and humanistic storytelling — as well as allowing for the movie to indulge in some of Kirby’s more fanciful, out-there visual flourishes. It also helps introduce not one but two fan favorites into the mix, both of whom play a large part in both the Four’s history and the overall Marvel universe. The decision to combine it with a separate tale involving the Richards-Storm son, who’ll eventually be named Franklin and also become an oversized presence, is a curious one, and feels a little bit like the creators are trying to get a lot of housekeeping out of the way at once. It does turn the end of the world into something personal, of course, and ups the already cataclysmic stakes. Yet it weighs down a First Steps that already feels plot-heavy by the movie’s midpoint, and will only get more dense as the six credited writers try to honor a rich legacy, establish a future franchise pillar, and bring the bang-pow-zap.

None of which matters when you’ve got such fantastic characters on which to build a foundation, right? And here’s where the main problem comes into play. You could not ask for a better cast to play this legendary group of familial, occasionally dysfunctional heroes, even if the dramatic distribution of weight is off; Vanessa Kirby gets the lion’s share of big moments as the resident peacekeeper who goes full Momma Grizzly when her baby is in danger, and thankfully she’s more than up to the task. That familiar swirl of irony (the stretchy brainiac Reed is the most inflexible member in all other respects, the rocky Ben is really a softy at heart) and on-the-nose caricaturing (the invisible Sue is a powerhouse hiding in plain sight, the hotheaded Johnny is a literal hothead) is all there up on screen.

What’s largely MIA is the dynamic between these four that’s so prevalent in the books, and the sense of who they are as individuals, which comes perilously close to being a deal-breaker in First Steps. Part of this is the fact that the 1960s aesthetic takes up a lot of oxygen even as it helps distinguish the movie from its peers; so much focus is put on the extraordinary worldbuilding that the heroes running around in it become just another part of the retro-a-go-go scenery at best, and are totally eclipsed by it at worst. You won’t remember what everyone does in the action sequences, but you will remember how nifty and cool the decor and vintage Gotham streets looked. And part of it is that everything feels so breathless and rushed that there’s little time for actually developing the Four themselves. They’re too busy saving the world and protecting their offspring, and barely have time to talk to one another outside of plot exposition and planning. Even their interactions at home are constantly interrupted by a cute robot named Herbie.

Once again, you’re left with the sense that you’re watching a Fantastic Four movie, albeit one of much higher quality than usual, that mistakes their powers for the sum of their personalities, and emphasizes the former accordingly. Once again, you’re left feeling like the FF have somehow been reduced to playing supporting characters in their own story; despite the star power, they’re the least interesting part of the movie. And once again, you get the sinking sensation that so much of this is merely a setup for the next big chapter of the next big interconnected team-up. You can probably guess what the more serious and substantial of the two post-credits scenes are up to, and who’s in them. There’s undoubtedly better adventures on the way for the Four in future endeavors, and this should truly be viewed as a first step to making them a major deal in the MCU. But to say their introduction is fantastic would be pushing it.