Marvel’s First Family finally joined the Marvel Cinematic Universe in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and the 2025 reboot has given us confidence that another previous 20th Century Fox property, the X-Men, will also be done justice. Marvel Studios gained the film rights to the Fantastic Four and the X-Men back in 2019, when Disney’s acquisition of Fox was finalized. New projects following rebooted Fantastic Four and X-Men teams were quickly put into development to be set firmly in the MCU, and Marvel Studios has already proven itself to be the best home for these iconic superhero teams.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Over the years, the Fantastic Four and the X-Men have proven to be two of the hardest properties to adapt from Marvel Comics for the big-screen. The sheer size of X-Men backstory, lore, characters, and relationships have made it hard to faithfully bring them into live-action, but, notoriously, the Fantastic Four have been even harder. Where Fox failed to capture the magic of Marvel’s First Family, however, Marvel Studios and Matt Shakman excelled, which gives us confidence in Jake Schreier’s upcoming MCU X-Men reboot, too.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the Best Fantastic Four Movie Ever
After low-budget specialist Roger Corman and Constantin Film president Bernd Eichinger developed the unreleased 1994 The Fantastic Four movie, 20th Century Fox joined Eichinger to co-produce bigger-budget adaptations of Marvel’s First Family. Tim Story’s Fantastic Four and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer are seriously dated by today’s standards, however, and Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four reboot from 2015 has been lauded as one of the worst movies ever made, so Fox never quite managed to get the Fantastic Four right. Marvel Studios has not had this problem.
Developed by WandaVision director Matt Shakman, The Fantastic Four: First Steps introduced a brand-new version of the team from the 1960s-inspired retro-futuristic world of Earth 828. Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach play the titular team to perfection, delivering humor, heart, entertainment and emotion in the face of the epic threat posed by Galactus (Ralph Ineson) and the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). First Steps’ visuals, score, uncomplicated narrative, character dynamics, and connection to the wider MCU make it the best adaptation of the legendary superhero team to date.
Fox Succeeded With the X-Men Where It Failed the Fantastic Four (Twice)
Fox failed to produce a single good movie featuring the Fantastic Four, which made one of Marvel Comics’ most-celebrated teams one of the biggest jokes in live-action. Conversely, Fox had more success when developing its film series focused on mutant characters from Marvel Comics, including the titular X-Men team. Fox’s X-Men franchise, now known to have been set on Earth 10005, ran for two decades and comprised 13 feature films and two non-canon TV shows, and while not all of these were well-received, some received huge acclaim.
The likes of X2: X-Men United, X-Men: First Class, X-Men: Days of Future Past, Logan, and the Deadpool duology were huge successes for Fox’s X-Men franchise. Of course, projects including X-Men: The Last Stand, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Dark Phoenix, and The New Mutants soured these successes, but there’s no denying that Fox was better at producing X-Men movies than those following the Fantastic Four. Even though Fox had some success with the X-Men, there was still a lot of room for improvement, so we’re glad these iconic characters are now in Marvel Studios’ hands.
First Steps Makes Us Sure Marvel Studios Will Produce the Best X-Men Movies Yet
Since the Fantastic Four are generally harder to bring to the screen, and Marvel Studios excelled at producing a solid adaptation in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, the X-Men should be a walk in the park. We’ve already seen glimpses of what this could look like — Professor X had his yellow chair on Earth 838 in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, Deadpool & Wolverine gave many X-Men characters comic-accurate personalities and costume upgrades, and The Marvels showed off a fantastic-looking Beast who we can’t wait to see return. The MCU’s actual X-Men reboot will continue this trend.
With Thunderbolts*’ Jake Schreier on board as director, we have a lot of hope for the MCU’s X-Men reboot. The project is expected to feature a younger iteration of the X-Men team, which gives them plenty of room to grow in the MCU’s future. The Fantastic Four: First Steps marked a very strong debut for Marvel’s First Family in the MCU, and has made us very excited for their return in Avengers: Doomsday, Avengers: Secret Wars, and beyond. The same will likely occur for the X-Men when the team are reenergized and revitalized in Phase 7.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
Most Viewed
-
Image via THQ Nordic -
image courtesy of 20th Century Studios
