Bill Murray Was Once the Voice of a Marvel Character

Ghostbusters star Bill Murray is set to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, but when the iconic actor makes that debut, it won't be the first time he's played a Marvel character. Murray was once the voice of a Marvel hero—and a pretty significant one at that. On Twitter Monday, comic book writer Dan Slott noted that both "Reed Richards" and "Bill Murray" were trending topics on the social media site and took the opportunity to offer a little footnote about Murray: the actor was once the voice of Johnny Storm, The Human Torch on the Fantastic Four radio show. Slott even shared a link to where you can listen to some of Murray's work in that series and you can check that tweet out for yourself below.

This isn't exactly the first time that Murray's Marvel past has made its way to Twitter. Last February, Ant-Man director Peyton Reed also shared the interesting tidbit. On Groundhog Day 2021, Reed shared an autographed photo of Murray from the 1993 film Groundhog Day that Murray had signed not with his name but with "Flame On! The Human Torch". Reed explained in the caption about how Murray had played the character in a radio show before his Saturday Night Live breakthrough.

The Fantastic Four Radio Show was a short-lived 13-episode audio program released in 1975 and was narrated by Stan Lee. In addition to Murray, the series starred Bob Maxwell as Reed Richards, Cynthia Adler as Sue Storm, Jim Pappas as Ben Grimm, and Jerry Terheyden as Doctor Doom. The series also featured a variety of other Marvel characters, including Ant-Man, Namor, Nick Fury, and more. Each episode of the series took on an issue of the early Fantastic Four comic book by Lee and Jack Kirby nearly verbatim.

As for Murray's next Marvel role, earlier this month the actor revealed during an appearance on The Eli Manning Show that he will be playing "a bad guy" in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, though he didn't reveal exactly what character he'd be playing. Fans will have to wait until 2023 for that.

The first two Ant-Man movies are now streaming on Disney+. If you haven't signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out hereAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is now due out July 28, 2023.

Did you know that Murray was the voice of The Human Torch? Let us know in the comment section!

Photo: Kate Green/Getty Images

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