Before I found out who Iron Man was or what a multiverse was, there were four blue spandex misfits saving the world and squabbling like your typical Indian joint family. The Fantastic Four members weren’t just Marvel’s first superhero team; they were my first superheroes. Having grown up in India during the ’90s and early 2000s, when American comics filtered in via second-hand shops and dog-eared copies changed hands among cousins like smuggled goods, to chance upon a Fantastic Four issue was to find treasure buried. I recall buying a worn, crumpled comic from a pavement vendor. I was hooked. The Fantastic Four movies may not have done justice to them, but that’s about to change (hopefully).
What struck me even then was how spectacularly bad they were at being superheroes. By that I mean, they didn’t even pretend to be cool. Reed would get distracted mid-battle trying to explain a quantum rift. Sue would be busy rolling her eyes at Johnny. Ben mostly just wanted to be left alone with his sandwich. It was chaos. Glorious, utter unfiltered, joint-family-at-peak-summer-vacation-level chaos. If the Avengers were the school prefects of the Marvel Universe (though they came later and the FF really was the First Family of Marvel), the Fantastic Four were the kids who forgot their homework but still somehow saved the day (and bickered with each other the whole time). I adored them for it.
While others obsessed over X-Men or Spider-Man, I was the oddball at school who wanted to tell everyone that Fantastic Four was the greatest Marvel ever produced. I even got my cousins to reenact comic scenes. I was always Reed Richards (because of course I was).
Now that The Fantastic Four: First Steps is nearing its MCU debut, I feel strangely vindicated. It’s a belated welcome home for Marvel’s founding idols. And for audiences who never got to grow up with them as I did, here is your cosmic crash course.
(Rejoice, for it appears early reviews of the movie are highly positive. At the time of writing, the movie holds a score of 86 per cent on review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes.)
Who are the Fantastic Four?
The Fantastic Four team members were created in 1961 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. Lee-Kirby duo responsible for pretty much every major Marvel hero you love today. But these four were different. They weren’t masked vigilantes. They didn’t have secret identities. They were a public, messy, wildly dysfunctional family of explorers who gained powers from a cosmic storm, and didn’t quite know what to do with them.
Reed Richards or Mister Fantastic
The brainy leader who can stretch his body like rubber. In college, I once tried to impress a date by explaining how Reed could theoretically expand his vocal cords to mimic any human voice. It didn’t go well. But that’s the kind of nerdy devotion this man inspires. The character is played by Pedro Pascal.
Sue Storm or Invisible Woman
Reed’s partner in science and life. She can turn invisible and project force fields strong enough to stop a meteor. Sue is the emotional backbone of the group, and also the most powerful, despite being routinely underestimated. She was my first comic book crush and it doesn’t help that Vanessa Kirby is essaying the role in First Steps. I once tried drawing her (Sue Storm, that is, not Kirby) using sketch pens and ruined my mum’s bedsheet. Worth it.
Johnny Storm or Human Torch
The hot-headed younger brother who can burst into flames and fly. Every group of cousins (or friends) has that one guy who thinks he’s too cool for everyone else: that was Johnny. He made being a superhero look fun, loud, and unapologetically flashy. Stranger Things star Joseph Quinn plays the role in First Steps.
Ben Grimm or The Thing
The gruff best friend-turned-rock monster. His strength is unmatched, but it’s his vulnerability that stuck with me. As a kid, I used to trace his orange craggy body onto blank pages, mesmerised by how he looked like a monster but felt as though he was the most human of them all. Ebon Moss-Bachrach plays the role in First Steps.
Bonus trivia: The team eventually has a kid. He is Franklin Richards, the so-called Fantastic Four baby, who grows up to be one of the most powerful beings in the Marvel Universe. But more on that later.
The Fantastic Four were doing more than just fighting villains and saving the world they were discovering lost civilisations under the ocean, travelling to alternate dimensions, and debating cosmic ethics with literal gods. They were Marvel’s gateway to sci-fi, to big ideas, to existential questions you don’t expect to find in comic books.
Why the Fantastic Four Mattered, then and now
As a teenager, I remember reading a story where Reed Richards debated Galactus about whether Earth deserved to be eaten (which makes it way into the First Steps too, I believe). It blew my mind. This was superhero storytelling at its most philosophical and weird. In many ways, the Fantastic Four team members built the Marvel Universe. And I mean not just its geography, but its spirit.
The Fantastic Four movies: A history of misfires
And then… there were the movies. Oh boy. Here’s the Fantastic Four all movies list in order. A cautionary tale if there ever was one.
Fantastic Four (1994): So bad it was never released, and somehow still apparently lives online in VHS-quality glory. The stars of this movie will play a cameo in First Steps.
Fantastic Four (2005) and Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007): Campy, colourful, and not entirely without charm. Chris Evans as Human Torch stole the show, years before he became Captain America.
Fantastic Four (2015): Grim, joyless, and a lesson in what happens when you remove heart from a story about family. This was a result of a cinematic atmosphere polluted by so-called dark and gritty tone in superhero movies around that time. Zack Snyder’s Superman movie Man of Steel is one major example.
None of these movies captured the wonder, dysfunction, and cosmic imagination that defines Fantastic Four comics.
Why Fantastic Four’s MCU debut is a big deal
This time, Marvel gets to tell it right.
In Fantastic Four: First Steps, the team is finally in the hands of storytellers who know what made them legendary. It’s not about powers. It’s about personalities. It’s about family dynamics, scientific curiosity, and human vulnerability placed against cosmic odds.
And above all, it’s about Marvel paying homage to its own heritage. Before the Infinity Gauntlet. Before Thanos. Before the multiverse. There were four adventurers in a rocket, charting a path straight into the unknown.
(Hero and Featured images: Courtesy of Marvel Studios)
