Fantastic Four: First Steps is arguably the most highly-anticipated Marvel Cinematic Universe project of 2025. Fans finally got their first look at the teaser trailer for Fantastic Four: First Steps, which showed off the film’s retro aesthetic and brilliant character designs. The Fantastic Four has proven to be a rather difficult sell for modern audiences — both in comics and cinema — so even though the teaser trailer looks great, many long-time Fantastic Four fans are still nervous about whether First Steps is going to be able to stick the landing. The Fantastic Four can be a tough nut to crack, but if the movie gets these five things right, fans will get the F4 movie they’ve always craved.
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Here are the things that Fantastic Four: First Steps needs to do to be a success.
That F4 Family Feel
The Fantastic Four is a different kind of superhero team than most moviegoing fans are used to. The Avengers are a big league sports team, combining the talents of the best of the best; the Guardians of the Galaxy are the misfits, brought together by circumstance and forming their own odd family; the X-Men are school friends, brought together by shared traumas. The Fantastic Four, though, is a family, first and foremost. While most superteams eventually take on something of a family dynamic, the Fantastic Four is a family from the very beginning.
The teaser trailer for First Steps definitely shows that Marvel Studios is working the family dynamic into things — putting a lot of emphasis on the weekly family dinners of the team — but it has to keep that sort of thing up throughout the movie. Reed and Sue Richards are the parents of the team; Ben Grimm is the grumpy older brother/uncle, and Johnny Storm is the cool, mouthy younger brother. This interplay is extremely important and if the movie can sell it to the audience, Fantastic Four: First Steps will be a hit with fans.
That Wild Sci-Fi Feel
Beyond the family dynamic, another difference between the Fantastic Four and Marvel’s other teams is the way that they handle science fiction. Sci-fi is an integral part of all superhero stories, but the Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, and the X-Men use it differently than the Fantastic Four. Those other teams use more of the trappings of sci-fi — the aliens, the big space battles, and superpowers — than they do the scientific side of sci-fi. The Fantastic Four is as much about science as they are about anything else.
The F4 is a team of explorers. Mister Fantastic is a super genius, the Thing was a pilot who graduated to flying rockets, and Invisible Woman and Human Torch grew up with a scientist father, with Invisible Woman being quite a scientific mind in her own right. Science is the center of the team and Fantastic Four: First Steps needs to remember that. Seeing H.E.R.B.I.E. in the teaser trailer was great, but we need more. Mister Fantastic needs to constantly be tinkering, the team’s headquarters needs to be as high-tech as possible for its era, and fans should get teases of sci-fi concepts like the Negative Zone. The Fantastic Four isn’t a normal superteam, and Fantastic Four: First Steps needs to put that on display by playing up the science-fiction feel of the team.
Mister Fantastic’s Powers Have to Look Fantastic
One thing that was conspicuously missing from the Fantastic Four: First Steps trailer was the use of Mister Fantastic’s powers. We got to see the Thing in all his rocky glory, Invisible Woman using her powers to turn invisible and using her invisible force fields, and Human Torch flaming on. Stretching is one of the harder powers to make work on the big screen, so much so that Marvel Studios decided to completely change Ms. Marvel’s powers rather than give her comic-accurate abilities. The fact that there was no stretching in the teaser is a bit scary for fans.
The MCU’s CGI hasn’t exactly been the best in the post-Avengers: Endgame era, and that could be a problem for stretching. Now, the reason there is no Mister Fantastic stretching in this trailer could be because Marvel Studios is doing everything they can to make sure the stretching effects look good. This is hopefully the case. Mister Fantastic stretches constantly in the comic; the movie needs to show this and it needs to look amazing. If the stretching is subpar or not used as much as it should be, then Fantastic Four: First Steps won’t feel right.
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The Relationship Between Silver Surfer & Galactus
Many fans were surprised that Fantastic Four: First Steps was going to go with Galactus as the villain right off the bat because the old MCU would have made him the new Thanos. The teaser gave fans a great look at Galactus, reassuring them that the villain is going to be comic-accurate. The movie will also include a female version of Silver Surfer, played by Julia Garner. These two characters are very particular, with a very particular relationship, and Fantastic Four: First Steps needs to nail their interplay.
The two beings met when Galactus came to destroy Silver Surfer’s planet Zenn-La in the comics. Norrin Radd offered himself to become Galactus’s servant, helping him find planets to devour, in exchange for allowing his home to survive. Marvel Studios is going to probably have Shalla-Bal, Radd’s girlfriend from the comics, take his place while otherwise replicating that origin. Silver Surfer is an extremely philosophical character and understands how monstrous being Galactus’s Herald is. The Surfer hates Galactus while also being slavishly loyal to him to save his homeworld, but is moved by the actions of the Fantastic Four to save their own. The movie needs to take the time to set up this dynamic correctly because it’s integral to the story of the Fantastic Four and Galactus.
The Tragedy of the Thing
For many Fantastic Four fans, the Thing is the best character on the team. Ben Grimm made friends with Reed Richards in college and the two served in the military together. They became the best of friends — basically brothers — and Grimm piloted the rocket that took Richards, Sue, and Johnny Storm through the cosmic radiation that made them the Fantastic Four. The other three’s powers are basically a blessing, but Grimm was made into a rocky monster, losing all of his humanity. That is the tragedy of the Thing. He may be one of the most popular people on the planet, surrounded by friends and family and save the world regularly, but he’ll never have a normal life.
The Thing’s best stories revolve around this tragedy. While he’s come to terms with it over the years, even finding love with the blind sculptress Alicia Masters in the comics, the Thing of Fantastic Four: First Steps would be in the middle of dealing with the changes to his life. The movie needs to sell the tragedy of the Thing perfectly for it all to work. The MCU can mess up pathos at times, and they can’t do that with the Thing. Fans have to feel and understand the pain of the character. It’s an integral part of the Fantastic Four.
Fantastic Four: First Steps has a release date of July 25th.
