Hogan Reviews

Time to catch up with the MCU and talk about “First Steps”, finally introducing an MCU version of The Fantastic Four… sort of. The film takes place in another universe entirely, presumably explaining why they haven’t appeared before now and due to the events of Doomsday/Secret Wars will be integrated into the MCU proper at that point. Due to this distance from the MCU though they decided to create a much more comic-accurate version of the super team and world they inhabit, which was really fun. Let’s take a look…

Thankfully the film skips over the origin story part by having an in-universe montage explaining and showing their origin that took only a few minutes before getting into the action. Mr. Fantastic Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), The Invisible Woman Susan Storm (Vanessa Kirby), The Human Torch Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn) and the ever-lovable blue-eyed Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) eventually announce that Sue is pregnant and they’ll soon be the Fantastic Five, before heading off to stop a suddenly emerging crisis: a mysterious silver woman (Julia Garner) has appeared and heralded the coming of Galactus (later played by Ralph Ineson), who will devour the planet. Johnny tries to stop her but fails as she flies off, leading to a panic. Don’t worry though, the Four are on it, and soon Reed manages to create a way to travel interstellar space and despite his self-loathing over what happened the last time they headed into space the Four head off on the trail of the Silver Surfer.

Check out those accurate costumes…. oh and ignore the fact this scene is from way later in the film (I just wanted a shot of the titular Four to kick off!)

They arrive in a new star system only to see a planet get devoured by Galactus’s ship, and then they’re taken to meet the man himself who thankfully actually looks like a man himself this time, complete with purple helmet and everything. Great stuff. Galactus says that he’ll spare Earth if they give him Sue’s unborn child as he has enough latent power to take his endless hunger and free him from his eons of wandering the universe eating worlds. Paternal instinct kicks in and the Four reject his offer of the entire population of Earth for their child and flee in their ship, during which Sue gives birth to Franklin. After shaking off the Silver Surfer with some timely hyperspace jumps they return to Earth but Reed does a rather stupid thing and at the press conference admits they gave up the Earth and all its people for their child, leading to a public outcry for them to sacrifice the child to save them.

It’s like she’s wearing nothing at all, nothing at- wait, she’s actually not wearing anything… Oh well, “Stupid sexy Silver Surfer” either way!

After some good family drama and comic-y sci-fi stuff Sue calms the people of Earth via a nice speech about family and how they’ll protect the Earth while Johnny deciphers Silver Surfer’s language via recordings (rare Johnny using his brains moment!) while Reed manages to come up with a plan to teleport the entire Earth to another solar system out of Galactus’s immediate reach. The coming of Galactus soon arrives, but their plan is stopped by the Surfer and all hope seems lost…

It’s a fun film, the Galactus storyline and the Fantastic Four in general have always been favourites of mine so it was nice seeing them done justice so well here, with the titular four all being played really well by their respective actors/actresses. That being said, it does feel very… inconsequential, given its in another universe away from the MCU, but I get it, they need to be established before they appear in the big multiversal crossover stuff.

Overall Thoughts:

“I know we’ve doomed the planet and I’ve admitted I don’t know if we can save you, but still… Go us!! Am I right?”

Fantastic Four: First Steps is a fun film, full of comic-accurate nonsense and retro-futuristic visuals mixed with a cast that all play their roles really well. Throw in a comic-accurate Galactus and I was happy, though due to its isolated nature it did lose some of its umph compared to other MCU projects.

Johnny manages to track down the Surfer and talk to her in her own native tongue, finding out she became a Herald to save her own people from destruction and then playing recordings of the last moments of several planets she helped destroy, ironically showing her that saving those you love at the expense of countless other lives is a bad choice. Galactus appears and a new plan is made to lure him to one of the last remaining teleporter pads (including Mole Man, played by Paul Walter Hauser, giving shelter to the people of New York in Subterrainia for that extra burst of classic Fantastic Four nonsense!) and send him across the universe but it’s not exactly an easy job given the whole “unstoppable planet-eating force of the universe” thing.

Galactus vs. the Statue of Liberty… FIGHT!

Sue gives up her life to give Reed and The Thing time to save Franklin while Johnny attempts to sacrifice himself to knock Galactus into the portal but the Silver Surfer takes his place instead. As everyone mourns Sue’s death Franklin shows some of his untapped potential and brings his mother back to life, much to the delight of everyone.The world celebrates the Fantastic Four at another anniversary show before they once again head out to the field to end the film. Then in a mid-credits scene set four years later we see Doctor Doom (from behind with his hood up) invade the Fantastic Four’s house and entertain Franklin, much to the shock of Sue…