The Fantastic Four: First Steps – I’ve got a lever for you!

The famous quartet of superheroes find themselves facing new challenges in their lives with the advent of childbirth, and an invasion of a planet-eating supervillain and his enigmatic silver surfing herald.

We are all pretty familiar with the Fantastic Four by now – stretchy genius Mr. Fantastic also known as Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), his beautiful and strong lady partner Invisible Woman aka Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), her fiery flying brother Human Torch aka Johnny (Joseph Quinn), and their longtime friend Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) aka well, yes, the Thing.
We’ve suffered through a few efforts at making Fantastic Four movies, and while some had merits and a devoted following, others flopped and were buried with shame. This new take is a very different spin on a familiar family story, so make sure your H.E.R.B.I.E.-bot is fully charged and let’s get into this!

When we meet up with our quartet here on Earth 828 (a touching tribute to creator Jack Kirby’s real-life birthday), they’ve been outed as astronauts turned superheroes for four years running now. The world absolutely loves them, their individual and group efforts have brought peace and hope to countless lives, they have endorsements and a cartoon show and are iconic like you would not believe. The style of the outside world is very late-60’s Kennedy-era hopeful vibe, while inside the Fantastic Four tower where they all work, it’s basically The Jetsons come to life. They’ve even got a bot that does all sorts of maid-butler kind of work, he’s called H.E.R.B.I.E. (Matthew Wood) and he’s adorable. And all that’s about to change, because Sue has discovered that she’s pregnant.

Everyone is overjoyed at the news – Johnny and Ben are gonna make the best uncles ever, Sue and Reed have both been trying for a baby for two years, and the whole world of fandom outside 4 Tower are thrilled that a fifth is being added to their beloved superheroes. Reed is of course overcompensating for his nervousness about impending fatherhood and the possibilities of a child born of both superpowered parents, but none of that really matters anymore, for a silver-skinned female on a surfboard has just shown up to inform the Earth that she is the herald of the entire planets’ destruction, the bringer of the gigantic being known as Galactus (Ralph Ineson), Devourer of Worlds. And it has been decided that the ripe, juicy Earth is his next buffet feast for his insatiable hunger.

The only one who can fly fast enough to keep up with the Herald is Johnny, and when she speaks a strange language directly to him, Johnny has a newfound obsession along with, you know, helping the rest of the team figure out how to save the Earth. Ben finds himself wanting desperately to talk to the lovely little synagogue teacher in his old neighborhood he coined a fancy for, Rachel Rozman (Natasha Lyonne), but his usual reluctance surrounding his

appearance makes it hard for him to do so. And of course, Reed and Sue are a bit terrified at the idea of a this-far-along pregnant woman going back into space, but hey, what choice do they have?

Why are our heroes going back into space, you ask? They’re going to beard the lion in his den, that is, go find Galactus’ spaceship and communicate, negotiate perhaps, with him directly. And though Sue may have managed to negotiate a truce between the underground people led by Moleman Harvey Elder (Paul Walter Hauser) and the above-ground folk back on Earth, this is something literally on a far, far bigger and more dangerous scale. And with the sheer terror given the size and scope of the threat Galactus presents, it seems only Johnny really remembers and tries to understand the Herald, Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner), believing she can be made into an ally and help subvert Galactus somehow.

After a whole bunch of life-threatening events, our heroes manage to make it back to Earth with a fifth little one cradled in Sue’s arms, and Reed, devastated by everything that happened, makes the seriously unwise decision to inform all of Earth of Galactus’ bargain – give him the newborn child, Franklin Richards, and he will not eat the Earth whole. Of course the Richards refused, but this sends humanity into a spiral of selfishness, with many claiming their superheroes should have, and still could, give up the baby to a bigger-than-Kaiju-sized monstrous maw in order to save everyone else. Which is honestly neither a human nor humane mindset, but people have a tendency to demonstrate the worst of themselves first during a crisis. We go on.

Reeds Archimedes-based plan for saving the Earth requires a hell of a lot of cooperation globally, but impending doom has a tendency to make a person put in extra effort, and soon construction on a never-before-seen worldwide scale is happening. Of course, Sue ends up bringing in her old friend Moleman to help move things along, and after her rousing speech, proceeds to “mother” the world leaders into cooperating, right freaking now already. In this iteration of the Fantastic Four franchise, Johnny Storm is of course a tad bit woman-crazy, but also, clearly demonstrates that he is far from a dummy, willing to put in the work, and certainly qualified to do things like go into space as an astronaut, or you know, translate most of an entire alien species language. And our dear pal Ben, now sporting a rock beard in an effort to help with the world energy conservation mandate, has summoned up his courage to speak shyly but charmingly with Rachel, for who knows if he’ll ever get the chance again. Ben has always been the soft-hearted rock-covered lodestone of our quartet, giving kind advice with all the best intentions, and also quite able to let loose by throwing an entire firetruck like a Tonka truck and the like at the bad guys.

Yes there is an easter egg after the credits, this is a Marvel movie after all, and yes the entire theater did stay for it and yes they did go absolutely bonkers upon seeing it. There is another tiny easter egg of sorts after the entire credits run, but it’s more for the folk who grew up on OG Fantastic Four comics and Hanna-Barbera-style cartoons.

Cheer on your favorite newest and likely best version of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, in theaters now!