Film / The Fantastic Four: First Steps

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Described in Fantastivision!

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is a 2025 superhero film, the 37th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the first entry of Phase Six. It is directed by WandaVision helmer Matt Shakman and is the fourth cinematic incarnation of the Marvel Comics superhero team created by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee. Michael Giacchino (who had previously composed for an animated franchise tribute to the Fantastic Four, The Incredibles) handled the soundtrack.

Set on Earth-828, a retrofuture 1960s universe separate from the Sacred Timeline^note Referred to in the greater Marvel Multiverse as Earth-199999, though the films insist on referring to it as Earth-616, the designation of the main comics' universe, when referring to it in the context of the corner of the Multiverse directly explored by live-action media, the film follows a team of scientists and astronauts-turned-superheroes who were altered by cosmic radiation during a mission in space— Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic (Pedro Pascal), Susan "Sue" Storm/The Invisible Woman (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm/The Human Torch (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm/The Thing (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). Rather than recounting the origin story of Marvel's First Family, however, the film has us join the team four years into their careers as the protectors of their Earth.

While preparing for the birth of Reed and Sue's first child, the Fantastic Four are warned by Shalla-Bal/The Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) that Earth has been "marked for death" and will be destroyed to feed a cosmic entity known as Galactus (Ralph Ineson). Determined to not let that happen, the Four start working to save the Earth from Galactus.

Filling out the rest of the cast is Natasha Lyonne as Rachel Rozman, Paul Walter Hauser as Harvey “Moleman” Elder, Mark Gatiss as Ted Gilbert, and Matthew Wood as the voice of the Fantastic Four's robotic assistant H.E.R.B.I.E.

The film was released July 25, 2025. Marvel also published a comic book prequel called The Fantastic Four: First Steps, written by Matt Fraction and with art by Mark Buckingham as an In-Universe retelling of the FF's adventures before the movie, which was released on July 2nd the same year. This was followed by Fantastic Four First Foes, a series written by Dan Slott, beginning March, 2026.

The Fantastic Four are set to return in Avengers: Doomsday in December 2026.

Previews: Trailer Tease, Teaser Trailer, Official Trailer, IMAX Trailer, Final Trailer, Fantastivision Trailer

It’s tropin’ time!

• Abled in the Adaptation: Mole Man in the comics is blind (how much varies sometimes from story to story, but he consistently has low vision and relies on his other senses). Here, while his sight seems to still be compromised, he can apparently see just fine if the lights around him are dimmed, seeing as he comments on the Baxter Building furniture and decoration in details that someone with low vision would not be able to notice.
• Accent Adaptation: Downplayed. Most incarnations of The Thing have a thick Brooklyn Rage New Yorker accent to compliment his burly, rock-like appearance. The film shows Ben Grimm speaking with New Yorker Ebon Moss-Bachrach's natural voice which, while certainly husky, isn't accented and isn't as deep as some of the other actors that have played him.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Ben (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) gives H.E.R.B.I.E. some very Richie style feedback on his cooking.
  • In addition to the essential similarities Reed Richards shares with Din Djarin, another alien-fighting Papa Wolf played by Pedro Pascal, Ben asks Reed during the flight to Galactus if they'll get to fight a space dragon. The protective baby basket that Reed builds for Franklin is also ellipsoidal with a retractable cover, like Grogu's hoverpram.
• Adaptational Angst Downgrade: Due to this version of Ben Grimm having been the Thing for four years, he's far more comfortable with his condition than previous cinematic versions.
• Adaptational Costume Change: While previous incarnations of the Fantastic Four have used their space suits as their superhero uniforms (often with a bit of Technobabble about how the cosmic rays made the molecules of said clothing unstable and therefore react to their power sets accordingly), the suits worn for the majority of the film are explicitly meant to be EVA suits first and foremost, and are worn during the mission to confront Galactus.
• Adaptational Heroism: While the Mole Man still hates the surface world, Sue has brokered a deal where they largely leave each other alone, and in the finale he agrees to let the people of New York shelter in Subterranea.
• Adaptational Intelligence: Johnny is usually something of a Brainless Beauty who’s at best quick-witted when things are really serious. Here, while still a Handsome Lech, Johnny displays numerous Hidden Depths in his desire to prove himself to Reed, and most impressively is able to translate Shalla's language through extensive study of recordings from space and a phrase she translated for him to trigger her Heel–Face Turn.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Galactus, though still considered Above Good and Evil like in the source material, demonstrates himself to be particularly cruel when he wants to be. In the comics, Galactus consistently treats his Heralds very well, particularly Silver Surfer whom he genuinely respects (even if Norrin hated being his Herald). Here, however, Galactus uses the Power Cosmic to abuse Shalla for questioning him for wanting Reed and Sue's baby, and later in the climax Galactus takes some noticeable pleasure out of stretching poor Reed like a rubber band, almost pulling him apart, in retaliation for Reed managing to pry open one of the vents on his back. At least some of his more antagonistic behavior seems to be out of sheer desperation after realizing he finally has someone he can pass his hunger on to that he went after far too quickly.
• Adaptational Modesty: Most versions of The Thing in comics and cartoons would often go on missions with the rest of the four in only his shorts. On Earth-828, Ben wears a full suit on most missions, with the one exception being the opening sequence, where he goes shirtless to assist a ship at sea.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: The kids of Yancy Street are shown to be huge fans of the Thing, seeing him as a local hero. In the comics, the Yancy Street Gang are constantly pulling cruel pranks on Ben because they think he's forgotten his roots.
• Adaptational Superpower Change: A minor example occurs with Reed Richards, whose famous shape-changing abilities are downplayed in this film, as his use of his powers are limited to stretching his arms or legs. This is especially noticeable in the battle with Galactus, where Reed is visibly pained when Galactus stretches him out to a length easily a third of what comics Reed can achieve normally before even beginning to feel pain.
• Adaptational Villainy: In the comic book storyline where custody of Franklin Richards was being threatened by world-destroyers from the early cosmos, Galactus was one of three and playing Devil's Advocate over why Franklin shouldn't be taken to Roma's good cop "for his own good" and Satunyne's "Gimme or I end universe" bad cop. Galactus was more a Fantastic Four villain than Roma and Saturnyne, who were guest-starring to make Franklin seem extra-special, but Galactus was at his most antagonistic before the birth of Franklin Richards and in the slow process of a Heel–Face Turn when Franklin came into the comics. That said, his antagonism here seems to be out of excited desperation to finally pass on his curse to someone else, albeit far too early in the universe's lifespan.
• Adaptation Deviation:
  • In most versions of the team's origin, Reed and Sue only get married after their career as heroes began. Here, they were married before their fateful trip into space.
  • In the comics, the machinery on Galactus' ship converts the planets it destroys into pure energy for him to absorb. Here, we see tubing attached to the giant space entity's back where the molten innards of a destroyed planet are delivered into his body. In the battle on Earth later, Reed forces one of these vents open to temporarily slow Galactus down as he is kidnapping Franklin.
• Adapted Out:
  • The film is largely a broad adaptation of the iconic Galactus Trilogy (Fantastic Four #48-50 by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee), but prominently devoid of the characters of Uatu the Watcher and Alicia Masters. Norrin Radd, the original Silver Surfer, is replaced by his wife Shalla-Bal while he himself is not shown or alluded to existing in that universe at all.
  • With the events of the movie shown to be the team's second space adventure, all their alien foes such as the Skrulls are absent from an otherwise near-complete Rogues Gallery.
  • The plot of a cosmic entity threatening to destroy the world if not given Franklin Richards was in Fantastic Four volume 3 #6-8, but rather than Galactus, it was usual Captain Britain\X-Men enemy-ally Saturnyne sending mercenary group Technet after Franklin, then the Captain Britain Corps themselves when the Four started giving Technet trouble. Technet ran into trouble before the Four, as the usual Excalibur foes and frequent Technet rivals the Warwolves of Mojo were also after Franklin. That would have been a lot for a standalone movie that was introducing the Fantastic Four team, so it's understandable why it went with a smaller number of characters and used antagonists more tied to the Four historically.
• Affectionate Gesture to the Head: Johnny likes to scratch the top of H.E.R.B.I.E.'s head.
• After-Adventure Restoration: After being the first beings to fight Galactus and win, lose Sue and get her back, losing the public's trust and regaining it, the Fantastic Four are once again world-beloved heroes and a close family who spend their days protecting their planet... only now they have a kid to watch out for.
• Alcubierre Drive: While referred to as a "wormhole" by the characters, the FTL drive on the team's rocketship is visually based on this, enclosing the vehicle in a bubble (and not really a tunnel, like the stereotypical wormhole would look) of curved space separate from the outside universe, which even light doesn't penetrate. Only some streaks to imply movement are there, nothing even similar to the view after exiting the bubble.
• Alien Space Bats: As a consequence of the Fantastic Four's existence, history takes a drastic change compared to our world. Due to Reed's genius, technology in The '60s is decades in advancement even compared to our modern time, especially in regards to space travel and robotics. Also, thanks to Sue and the Future Foundation, world peace has been established across the globe, with every national military sans Latveria's willingly disarming. Thus, all the wars and atrocities of not just The '60s, but the rest of the 20th and 21st centuries won't happen, or not the same way anyway.
• Allohistorical Allusion: Reed records messages from space on gold-plated records, recalling the Voyager Golden Record in our universe.
• Almost Out of Oxygen: Johnny's spacesuit is modified to allow him to use his powers, but even with an increased oxygen tank, he can only maintain his powers for ten minutes. He winds up burning through his supply in the fight with the Silver Surfer in Galactus's ship, forcing Ben to carry him back to their ship before he suffocates.
• Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: In spirit, this trope is in play ironically because Reed Richards and the Fantastic Four exist in Earth-828 rather than Earth-199999 (MCU Prime Earth). The Fantastic Four not only saved the world several times as superheroes, they completely changed the course of history with their scientific innovations and diplomacy, bringing about demilitarization and world peace to all nations (except Latveria) by the 1960s, making flying cars mundane, and expanding public transportation^note Manhattan is shown being criss-crossed by elevated monorail tracks. This is a lot more than how most versions of the Fantastic Four affected the Earth, as their worlds are akin to Earth-199999, a regular world still divided where advanced technologies and innovations such as flying cars are only made for a few (namely superheroes and supervillains).
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • The In-Universe Fantastic Four cartoon features depictions of several villains mentioned as real elsewhere in the film, but it also includes Dragon Man, who isn't acknowledged by dialogue anywhere, so it's unknown if he really exists.
  • Early in the film, Latveria and its leader are established (though they don't actually appear and Victor Von Doom isn't even named). This has some bearing on the Avengers: Doomsday prelude in the credits because Sue is obviously horrified by the presence of a masked and hooded stranger playing with Franklin in The Stinger, but it's also left unclear whether or not Sue recognizes that this is the Latverian monarch.
• And I Must Scream: The final fate of Galactus. A being driven by Horror Hunger who moves through the void in a massive spaceship that devours planets and feeds them to him through massive feeding tubes, he is transported into the unknown without his ship, left to drift slowly without it and struggle with his hunger on his own.
• Anti-True Sight: Worried about the consequences of having both parents genetically altered by a cosmic storm, Reed Richards uses every scan and test he can think of on his son Franklin, both before and after birth (and this being Reed Richards, those are more advanced than anything the 21st century can offer). All tests come back negative, showing Franklin to be an entirely normal human baby. Except no, he holds the Power Cosmic, and Galactus states that Franklin is deliberately hiding his powers.
• Apocalypse Cult: Shortly after the Silver Surfer brings the news that Earth has been marked to be consumed by Galactus, the TV news anchor announces the formation of a doomsday cult worshipping Galactus.
• Arc Number: Four, naturally. Four members of the Fantastic Four, the movie starts four years into their career, and the first stinger takes place four years after the events of the main film. Metatextually, this is also the fourth cinematic incarnation of Marvel's First Family, following the 1994, 2005/7, and 2015 films, as well as the fourth officially released film.
• Arc Words: While Johnny works to decipher the Silver Surfer's native language, when confronted with the monumental task, he quotes to Reed the ancient Greek physicist Archimedes: "Give me a lever and a place to stand, and I will move the earth." This becomes all the more important once the threat of Galactus comes into play, as the quote comes up again and is invoked both metaphorically, as the Fantastic Four rally the people of Earth to help them in their plan to thwart Galactus; and literally, as the plan is to use Reed's teleportation technology to physically relocate the Earth.
• The Artifact: The Stinger features the intro to the In-Universe Fantastic Four cartoon and features the Red Ghost depicted as a caricature of John Malkovich, who was originally going to play him in the film proper before his scenes were cut.
• Artistic License – Linguistics: Nobody can translate an entire language given only one sentence. Johnny name-drops the Rosetta Stone, but that had an entire page of text, and deciphering Ancient Egyptian also depended on comparing it to its known living descendant, the Coptic language. Granted, it's never outright stated that he translated the entire language, but still.
• Artistic License – Nuclear Physics: Reed's teleportation plan requires massive amounts of power, so he arranges brown-out periods to store up energy for its eventual implementation. In modern power grids, most of the world's power is used shortly after it's generated because energy storage on the scale of a large power grid doesn't yet exist. In fact, a major part of why green energy can't completely replace non-renewable sources is that there's no feasible method of storing enough energy from peak input times to cover for the low input times (day and night for solar, for example). Unless Reed has also revolutionized energy storage technology or his teleporters have massive batteries placed somewhere nearby (neither of which is demonstrated), shutting off the power would accomplish nothing.
• Artistic License – Physics: The Fantastic Four are shown to experience zero-g inside the Excelsior at all times regardless of how the ship itself is moving. In a space vessel under constant thrust without any stated Artificial Gravity or Inertial Dampening, anyone and anything inside would be pushed against the direction of thrust, in proportion to the level of thrust applied (thrust can be measured in g-forces, since that's basically what gravity is: acceleration towards a specific point; on Earth towards the core and stopped by the ground, on a ship, opposite the way the ship is moving). Anything inside the cabin would also move with every maneuver the ship makes; a "right turn" would throw everyone against the left wall, for instance.
• Artistic License – Space:
  • The heavily pregnant (anywhere between 5-7 months) Susan Storm is allowed to go up into space on the Excelsior. This has never been done in real life for a variety of reasons; it's unknown how the g-forces of exiting the atmosphere would affect the fetus, there's a serious risk of radiation affecting the unborn child, microgravity might affect the development of the child, and so on. This could potentially be hand-waved away by Reed Richards having already learned the answers to all these questions and developed countermeasures offscreen (he does explicitly mention that everything Sue does on their coming mission will be a first for pregnant women, so he's clearly at least considered some of them), but this is mostly side-stepped by Galactus accelerating the pregnancy and forcing Sue to give birth to Franklin right then and there.
  • The Four use a neutron star to escape from the Surfer, which Johnny describes as "basically a black hole." However, while neutron stars have many similarities to black holes, they do not have event horizons and are not black. The astronomical object depicted is clearly a black hole.
  • During the leadup to Galactus reaching Earth, there is mention of his ship passing both Jupiter and Mars. Given the nature of orbital mechanics, it is not guaranteed (and in fact is quite unlikely) for Earth, Mars, and Jupiter to be aligned in such a way that the shortest way to Earth from Jupiter passes by Mars. In fact, it's actually possible for Earth to be closer to Jupiter than it is to Mars if Earth and Jupiter are on the same side of the sun and Mars is not.
• Aspect Ratio Switch:
  • The trailer begins in a 4:3 ratio depicted through an old cathode ray television before switching to a more standard widescreen.
  • The IMAX trailer/version also expand to 1.90:1 for certain scenes.
• Awesome, but Impractical: Reed's teleportation device. While it accomplishes what it needs to do (get object from Point A to Point B very quickly), as he points out to Johnny, teleporting an egg 6 feet knocked out New York's power grid due to how much power it needs.
• Back from the Dead: Baby Franklin resurrects his mother after she dies from overusing her forcefield ability to push Galactus into the teleportation portal.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: As was typical of older men in the 1960s, Reed and Ben almost always wear suits and ties as their civilian outfits. (Johnny, being from the younger generation, never wears them.)
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Ben and Johnny are bored at the idea of only collecting data and hope what they find is a "big guy in a space ship" they can punch. They then meet Galactus who's so big and powerful there's no way to defeat him in a straight fight, along with the bonus that Galactus wants their nephew for himself and will stop at nothing to get him.
• Big Brother Instinct: When Galactus forces Sue to go into labor so he can take her son right then and there, Johnny goes on the attack and uses up the remainder of his oxygen to blast through Galactus's feeding tubes.
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: Reed's lecture on multiverse theory is met with a group of kids bored out of their minds, so he ditches the lesson for a fun, explosive experiment instead. This is likely a dig at the MCU's previous attempts to push The Multiverse into prominence being met with tepid audience reactions.
• Bittersweet Ending: Almost entirely sweet but for one single note of bitterness: the Four defeat Galactus (though only after Shalla-Bal sacrifices herself), Franklin's cosmic powers have been unlocked, and the Fantastic Four return to their position as beloved heroes and scientists. However, in unlocking Franklin's powers, the Four have attracted the attention of an old foe.
• Bookends: The movie begins and ends with an appearance on the Ted Gilbert Show.
• Boring, but Practical: Reed uses his Rubber Man powers to help him get to or reach things faster. While not anything fancy, he is shown to be fairly proficient at this as shown in the Galactus fight as he jumps across buildings and scales the behemoth with ease to get into position for an attack.
• Breakfast for Dinner: While waiting for Reed and Sue to join them for Sunday dinner, Johnny starts eating a box of Lucky Charms. Ben tells him he'll ruin his dinner, but Johnny justifies it by saying he's hungry. Also, he wanted the toy in the box, a talking Johnny Storm figurine.
• Breaking Old Trends:
  • While not the first MCU movie to center on characters set outside of the Sacred Timeline, this is the first MCU movie to not feature the Sacred Timeline at all.^note Even Deadpool & Wolverine still featured the Sacred Timeline for one scene.
  • This is the first Fantastic Four cinematic depiction to not include a full Superhero Origin. There's only a brief recap on TV showing the Four suiting up for their space launch and coming back down, now with powers. Similar to Spider-Man: Homecoming, the film takes a "You know this already" approach to the Four's backstory and dives right into their current lives.
  • This is the first Fantastic Four film not to have Doctor Doom as the Big Bad or have him be connected to or involved in the accident that gave them powers in any way. Doom only appears in The Stinger with four-year-old Franklin, as direct set-up for Avengers: Doomsday.
  • The previous Fox-produced Fantastic Four movies leaned heavily on the ostracization the team feels, especially Ben due to his rocky form and him being antagonistic with Reed over his predicament. Here the four are absolutely beloved like the Avengers were, and while it is strongly inferred Ben misses his human form, he has come to accept his appearance since he's idolized by children across the world and people cheer him on the street. At no point does Ben fight with Reed like the previous movies and he doesn't hold any resentment towards him. Reed is the one who feels immense guilt for permanently changing his best friend's, and the others', lives.
  • This is the first Fantastic Four film to have them be global superheroes who fight various supervillains such as the Mole Man, Red Ghost, the Wizard and Diablo. In the previous film adaptations their battles were only against Doctor Doom, Silver Surfer and Galactus.
• Break Them by Talking: Having learned her language, Johnny communicates with Shalla-Bal, playing the message from her own world that thanked her for her sacrifice. Then he plays all the messages of the worlds she chose for Galactus to consume in place of her own, crying for mercy, which drags her guilt to the surface. This gets her to sacrifice herself to push Galactus through the wormhole so he will be unable to consume another world again.
• Brick Joke: Reeds tells Ben and Johnny that if the threat happens to be "a big guy in a spaceship," they can punch him. Cut to Galactus being revealed as the "big guy in a spaceship" and Ben and Johnny getting to punch him.
• Call-Back: Reed is noted to have "baby-proofed the world" with his efforts to combat crime scientifically, similar to how Tony tried to build a suit of armor for the world in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
• The Cameo: Robert Downey Jr. as Doctor Doom in the mid-credits scene (although we don't actually see his face.)
• Casting Gag: In the European French dub, Ben Grimm's voice actor Xavier Fagnon dubbed Ioan Gruffudd's Reed Richards in the 2000s duology.
• Casual Interstellar Travel: The Excelsior has a detachable FTL drive that the FF can use to zoom across the galaxy with little trouble or concern. Even the loss of the FTL drive doesn't present much of a hurdle, as the FF simply perform a slingshot maneuver and return to Earth within a month. Launching the Excelsior from Earth is also relatively trivial — Ben can singlehandedly get it prepped in less than 16 hours.^note In real life, it takes months for an army of specialists to prepare a vehicle for launch.
• Celebrity Superhero: The Fantastic Four are major celebrities in their universe, beloved by the public for their humanitarian efforts as much as their superheroics. Their reputation does take a hit after Reed admits they wouldn't hand over Franklin to stop Galactus, but Sue is able to win the public's favor again by presenting their son to the world and making a heartfelt speech promising to find a way to save everyone.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • Early in the movie, Johnny and Reed make note that Reed's equipment has been picking signals from Outer Space of what sounds like alien speech. After listening to them for a while and a later conversation with the Surfer (with Johnny explicitly asking her to translate what she said), Johnny figures out that it was her language from her home planet as well as from all the planets she visited before Galactus came to eat them.
  • The teleportation device is introduced early in the film as a little experiment Reed is working on in his spare time. Later, it becomes the key to saving Earth from Galactus. First, the Four organize a plan to teleport Earth to somewhere Galactus can't find it, and after that plan falls apart at the last second, Galactus himself is successfully pushed through a portal to a far corner of the universe away from his ship.
• Chummy Commies: The USSR is shown to exist in this universe in a monitor when the Four are activating the portals to teleport Earth away from Galactus, and it's presumed they are allies to the Four like most other countries.
• Claiming Via Flag: Used for Alternate History's sake. There's a shot of the Moon's surface during Galactus' arrival, and a Future Foundation flag is planted there instead of a US flag.
• Cliffhanger: The first stinger ends with Dr. Doom invading the Baxter Building to meet Sue and her son. The "Will Return" Caption indicates that this will pay off in Avengers: Doomsday.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Reed's lab is divided into three sections - blue, yellow, and red. The blue section contains the control console for communications and intelligence gathering, the yellow section has his chalkboard for theory and planning, and the red section is the workshop where he builds the team's equipment.
• Comic-Book Movies Don't Use Codenames: Zig-Zagged. Reed is referred to as Mr. Fantastic on an In-Universe TV Program and Harvey Elder is addressed as The Moleman a few times. A few other villains, such as Diablo and the Puppet Master, are namedropped early on in the film, but none of the other Four are addressed by their codenames, not even in the In-Universe cartoon they have. This also goes for Shalla-Bal, who is never called "The Silver Surfer."
• Company Cross-References:
  • The ABC TV network, also owned by Disney like Marvel, is shown multiple times as the main source of story-progressing broadcasts, as well as a headquarters building seen downtown at one point. To fit the '60s aesthetic, all appearances of the logo incorporate the color version from around that time period.
  • One broadcast utilizes the "Nation on Wheels" theme from Disneyland's defunct Peoplemover ride.
• Continuity Nod: A sign seen in New York is for "Westview Appliance Television." The town of Westview is the setting of WandaVision (which was also directed by Matt Shakman).
• Continuity Overlap: Downplayed. First Steps chronologically takes place prior to the Thunderbolts' second post-credits scene. More specifically, the Fantastic Four's conflict with Galactus takes place five years earlier, placing it chronologically in tandem with early Phase Four. But since Earth-828 is isolated and its heroes don't know about the larger Multiverse yet^note Reed has provided theoretical proof of the existence of other realities and even suggested there may be other Earths in them, but there is no notion of being able to travel to them, this overlap has no bearing on the plot. Indeed, First Steps doesn't jump ahead to the time-frame of Thunderbolts* until the mid-credits epilogue, but even there it still hasn't quite chronologically synced up. The Fantastic Four are still on Earth-828, so the audience is left to wait until Avengers: Doomsday for the full context and events leading up to their departure, arrival, and detection at Earth-199999.
• Conveniently Empty Building: New York is evacuated prior to the final battle, allowing Galactus and the heroes to freely knock down various buildings with no worry of civilians in harm's way.
• Conveniently Empty Roads: Invoked. Before the climax, the population of Manhattan is evacuated into Subterranea, leaving the streets empty of civilians during the final fight.
• Cool Car: The Fantasticar is a jet-powered car that's capable of flight and swiftly transforming between land and air vehicle forms.
• Cosmic Horror Story: The central antagonist is an Eldritch Abomination so titanic in might and scale that even Cthulhu himself would casually be flung aside by him like a pesky insect in his quest to gorge his ravenous hunger for worlds. The only thing stopping First Steps from becoming outright hopeless Lovecraftian horror is that this cosmically empowered villain is opposed by likewise-empowered heroes.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Averted during the climax when Reed attempts to use CPR on Sue after she collapses from the strain of using her powers on Galactus. The editing suggests he tried for several minutes, but it still doesn't work. Sue is only saved when baby Franklin is placed on her chest and uses his powers to bring her back to life.
• Crazy-Prepared: The FF have only been up to space once and haven't dealt with any space-based threats, but the Excelsior is armed with forward and rear-facing energy weapons just in case.
• Creator Cameo: Among the citizens witnessing the arrival of the Silver Surfer are the younger selves of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, complete with a studio full of classic '50s Marvel monster comic art.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: In both fights against Shalla-Bal and Galactus, the Four can do little more than hinder or slow them down, and they have to resort to tricking them both to defeat them. It works against the former as she gets close enough to the event horizon of a nearby singularity (black hole) which drags her in, but Galactus ultimately sees through the ruse before they can open up a wormhole around him. While Sue does shortly after fare better against Galactus and is able to push him into it, her exertions cost her life, and it only works thanks to Shalla sacrificing herself by ramming into Galactus just as the wormhole closes.
• Curb-Stomp Cushion: The attempts to deal with Shalla-Bal and Galactus with brute force are this. With Shalla-Bal, Johnny by himself does manage to reach her in space and learn some of her words before he is knocked off, then hit her once by firing his cannons in a clever way when she pursues the Four later. With Galactus, who takes no damage from most attacks, Reed does manage to remove one food tank, and Sue sacrifices herself to push him back. In both cases, it shows the Fantastic Four are strong, but their foes are still stronger, until trickery allows the former to win.
• Cursed with Awesome: Discussed in the trailers. Reed briefly expresses his guilt over the space mission giving his compatriots superpowers, noting Ben becoming a Rock Monster, Johnny's Playing with Fire, and Sue's invisibility powers. Sue playfully pokes fun at Ben and Johnny, but points out that she's perfectly capable of being seen when she wants to be as Reed can see her during the conversation, and it's clear her point is that the powers aren't really a curse. Ben in particular, while clearly missing his former attractiveness, is still universally adored, especially among children.
• Cute Machines: H.E.R.B.I.E., the Fantastic Four's cute little Robot Buddy. Among other things, he serves as the Four's chef, with Ben taste-testing a sauce he's cooking up.
• Cut the Juice: As part of the preparations for the worldwide teleportation, Reed has to organize a worldwide blackout to store enough power to move the entire planet. Poor Ben is cut off in the middle of shaving his rocky beard, so Johnny encourages him to grow it out.
• Declaration of Protection: Reed assures the people at the end of the trailer that The Fantastic Four will keep them safe.
• Decomposite Character: Alicia Masters, who is normally the Thing's love interest who convinces the Silver Surfer to betray Galactus, doesn't appear in this film. Her role as Ben's girlfriend is taken by an original character, and Johnny is the one to convince the Surfer to make a Heel–Face Turn.
• Delivery Guy: Sue ends up giving birth to Franklin aboard the Excelsior after Galactus induces her labor. Reed is too busy holding her in place due them being in zero gravity, so Ben delivers the baby for them.
• Didn't Think This Through: In a more comedic example of this trope, Reed decides to give a lecture on quantum mechanics and alternate dimensions, something that would bore and fly over the head of most adults, to a group of elementary school students.
• Disney Death: Sue perishes after overexerting herself to push Galactus into the portal. Thankfully, Franklin is able to use his Power Cosmic to return her to life.
• Distant Epilogue: The mid-credits scene jumps ahead another four years later.
• Doing Research:
  • After they have faced Galactus and collected samples thanks to H.E.R.B.I.E., Reed does a number of calculations to try to better understand how the Devourer of Worlds works, only to conclude he's way too ancient to comprehend and that it would take at least ten more years for that.
  • Meanwhile, Johnny is fixated on decyphering the Silver Surfer's language.
• Doorway Between Planets: The Four decide to deal with Galactus by stranding him in a distant part of the universe using their remaining teleporter to open a portal.
• Double-Meaning Title: "First Steps" references both the Fantastic Four's intergalactic travels (by paraphrasing Neil Armstrong), and the team having to learn how to raise a baby (which would include teaching them how to walk). On a meta level, it also references the team's first foray into the Marvel Cinematic Universe after decades of being in several seperate film continuities due to film rights issues.
• Dramatic Irony: It's established Reed has provided theoretical proof of the existence of other realities and even suggested there may be other Earths in them, but there is no notion of being able to travel to them. Not only does the audience know Reed is right on the money, but he and the Fantastic Four will end up crossing dimensions at some point soon as per the Thunderbolts* epilogue, though the chronology hasn't synced up yet by the end of this film.
• Drill Tank: The army of Harvey Elder/Mole Man uses drill tanks to commit crimes against the surface world, such as when they dig beneath the Pan Am Building to have it descend underground.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Musical variant in the post-credits. Alan Silvestri is credited for the "Doom?" music cue, meaning we get our first glimpse at the MCU Victor Von Doom's theme, as well as Doom himself, a year and half before they will debut in Avengers: Doomsday.
• Easygoing Expectant Mother: While Sue Storm is visibly thrilled to finally be pregnant (with Reed mentioning they tried for two years for a baby), she is fairly level-headed throughout her pregnancy. For example, when Reed is trying to build a scanner to check for mutations, Sue just turns her belly invisible to show him Franklin. And Reed, in contrast to Sue's calm, obsesses over making sure the baby's healthy while having H.E.R.B.I.E. go overboard with babyproofing the Baxter Building, and, to Ben Grimm's mild amusement, the whole planet.
• Enemy Scan: Galactus scans the Excelsior when it approaches his ship. The scanning beam passes over the entire ship... then it passes over Sue again... then it focuses directly on her womb.
• Epic Launch Sequence: The launch to space of the Excelsior with the Fantastic Four and H.E.R.B.I.E. onboard for the attempt to negotiate the fate of Earth with Galactus himself. Complete with an epic track as they ascend to space and the people of Earth cheer for them.
• Epigraph: Near the end of the closing credits, there is a quote from Jack Kirby: "If you look at my characters, you will find me. No matter what kind of character you create or assume, a little of yourself must remain there."
• "Eureka!" Moment:
  • When Sue gives an impassioned speech to the public about sacrificing Franklin to Galactus, she says she would "move Heaven and Earth" to prevent that. A few moments later Reed says that what Sue said triggered an idea in his head about how to deal with the situation even quoting Archimedes' Law of the Lever so the team can "find me some levers."
  "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I will move the world."
  • Darker example of this trope, after the Herald destroys all but one of teleporters, Reed sees Franklin on a monitor and realizes they can use him to lure Galactus to Earth and use the teleporter to send Galactus away. Though it's clear he's disgusted and ashamed of himself for being able to come up with the idea to use his own son in this manner.
• Evil Is Petty: During the final fight, after Reed causes Galactus some pain, Galactus seems to take a great deal of pleasure in very slowly stretching Reed to his limits rather than just killing the man.
• Exact Words: When Johnny accuses Reed and Sue of being late (to dinner), Sue has a mild freak out. This causes Ben to realize that Sue actually is "late."
• Expecting Excites Everyone: When Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm learn that Reed and Sue are expecting, they immediately are thrilled at the prospect of becoming the world's best uncles to their impending nephew, Franklin. And Reed goes out of his way to, as his best friend Ben Grimm puts it, "Baby-proof the planet". And media broadcasts speculate about the baby having powers and what they might be. For some reason, public betting is 4 out of 5 that it's going to be a girl.
• Experienced Protagonist: The movie begins with the Fantastic Four having already been heroes for four years, and having had plenty of experience saving the world by that point.
• Express Delivery: Downplayed in that Sue was already at least in the second trimester in her pregnancy, but when he realizes that her baby holds the Power Cosmic, Galactus speeds it up so she goes into labor now. The birth itself is also incredibly quick with her going from broken water to fully delivered in a matter of minutes. As Reed mentions "You need gravity to deliver the baby", and Ben supplies that with a lot of super-thrust from the ship escaping the neutron star's gravity well. Science is out on whether you can super-deliver a super-baby using super-gravity on a spaceship.
• Fair-Weather Friend: The beginning of the movie shows how the Fantastic Four are "loved" by the public on Earth, but the public turns against the heroes when they refuse to give Franklin to Galactus in exchange for him sparing Earth. Justified given the stakes and even Reed conceding that the option presented by Galactus makes the most sense pragmatically. Downplayed in that Sue wins them back with an impassioned speech that the Four still care about protecting everyone and aren't accepting a choice between themselves and everyone else. What follows is enough faith in them to organize the entire world into a plan to thwart Galactus.
• Famed in Story: As seen in the trailers, Ben is well known enough to have Halloween masks made of his face and to appear on T-shirts and as action figures. Ben's catchphrase of "It's clobberin' time!" is actually the creation of a cartoon series based on the team's adventures. Because of this, Ben is constantly on the receiving end of the catchphrase by fans and doesn't want to adapt it for himself.
• Fantasy Landmark Equivalent: Just as the Future Foundation seems to take the place of the United Nations in this incarnation, the Baxter Building is in the same location as the U.N. building is in Real Life New York City.
• Fastball Special: Galactus throws Ben into low-Earth orbit during the final battle. Johnny catches him just before he completely escapes the atmosphere, then uses his flames to turn Ben into a makeshift guided missile, slamming into Galactus's head.
  Johnny: Say it!
  Ben: No!
  Johnny: SAY IT!
  Ben: '''IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME!'''
• Faster-Than-Light Travel: After the Four's spaceship, the Excelsior, leaves Earth's atmosphere, it links up with a booster that allows it to reach FTL speeds. When the FTL engine is destroyed, it's shown that the Excelsior can still enter the wormhole that allows FTL travel, but it requires the ship to accelerate to close to the speed of light, a step which the engine presumably allows them to skip.
• Fearsome Foot: The official trailer ends with a close-up of Galactus' giant boots as he walks through New York.
• Finger-Twitching Revival: Towards the end, when Sue lies dead on the floor after straining her powers to push Galactus in the portal and Franklin is put on her, the first sign that she's been revived by Franklin is her right hand's fingers twitching.
• Flash Forward: The opening scene of the film, where Sue discovers she's pregnant, is this — it takes place after the Four's appearance on the Ted Gilbert Show, but immediately after her and Reed talk about it, we cut to Ted recapping the Four's origin story, and after that, family dinner.
• Flung Clothing: While flying in the ship, Sue kicks off the boots and pants of her spacesuit as she goes into labor and is about to give birth.
• Flying Car: The Fantasticar appears in this film as the Fantastic Four's primary vehicle, able to drive or fly whenever the situation calls for it. Additionally, flying cars are a commonality in Earth-828, reflecting the impact the Fantastic Four has upon the globe in the 1960s that is not otherwise seen in the main MCU's Earth-199999, where flying cars flopped after Howard Stark's failed demonstration in 1943 Stark Expo.
• Foreshadowing:
  • During the opening, it's established that the Fantastic Four were able to unite all of the world's governments into a utopia with one exception: Latveria, whose leader is conspicuously absent. Guess who shows up in The Stinger.
  • As they follow the Silver Surfer's trail to Galactus, Reed promises Ben that if Galactus is just "a big guy in a ship," then Ben can punch him. Galactus, it so happens, really is a big guy in a ship, so big in fact that fighting him is a virtual impossibility.
  • When Galactus demands that the Silver Surfer bring him Franklin, she briefly hesitates, protesting that he's only a baby. Her hesitation makes a lot more sense when it's revealed she's also a mother, and never saw her child again when she became Galactus' herald.
• Former Bigot: Harvey "The Mole Man" Elder is established has having been one of the Fantastic Four's earliest villains, who hated "surface dwellers" and wanted to destroy the world above his native Subterranea. Susan's established efforts as a mediator helps to mellow him out considerably by the time of the film's events. She calls upon him in the climax and convinces him to protect the citizens of New York by sheltering them in Subterranea during Galactus' attack.
• Four Is Death: The fourth year of the Fantastic Four happens to be the year when the Silver Surfer arrives to Earth and heralds the arrival of Galactus, who will consume the planet and kill all life on it in the process.
• The Ghost: Several members of the Fantastic Four's Rogues Gallery, specifically Red Ghost, Diablo, Wizard, Puppet Master and Mad Thinker, are mentioned by name, but none of them physically appear (though their likenesses are used for the In-Universe cartoon show, along with Dragon Man who isn't mentioned elsewhere). Red Ghost was originally meant to appear played by John Malkovich, but in the final cut only the Super-Apes briefly appear.
• Godzilla Threshold: Galactus is a massive, unstoppable threat that pushes the Fantastic Four to a mode of desperation where any idea, no matter how insane or dangerous, is on the table. Reed Richards comes upon with a plan to teleport the Earth to another star system far from Galactus' sight, which requires the world to cooperate and build massive teleportation devices across the globe and shut the world's power grid for several days just to conserve energy needed to power them. Johnny Storm is willing to give himself up to Galactus as his new herald to spare Earth, even if it means he's forced to damn other planets with sentient life to Galactus' hunger. Heck, Sue dies in the final battle due to unleashing the full power of her abilities to push Galactus in a gate to the end of times, and Johnny was willing to lock himself with the Devourer at the farthest corners of the universe, even if it means never seeing any of his family ever again. The one threshold they're not willing to cross is sacrificing Franklin Richards to become Galactus' successor, a decision that the world derides as a selfish act on the team's part. They ultimately have to use Franklin as bait to lure Galactus out of his ship, but the option was reluctantly brought up and was made because they were out of time and other options.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: Everything associated with the Fantastic Four is blue, but the Tractor Beam on Galactus' ship is the only purely red thing in the movie.
• Happily Married: Reed and Sue. The very first scene of the movie is the couple playfully bantering each other before Sue reveals she's pregnant with Reed's child. And while they do argue many times, it's only under stress about their child's fate as Galactus approaches Earth to end their world either by eating their home or cursing their child to be a monster.
• Harbinger of Impending Doom: The Silver Surfer appears in New York to warn humanity that Galactus is coming — not so they can fight back, but so they can enjoy the time they have remaining before their inevitable destruction.
  Shalla-Bal: Your world has been marked for death.
• Headbutt of Love: Before the fateful space trip that would result in the Four getting powers, Sue and Reed share a "kiss" by hitting each other's space suit helmets.
• Hero Ball: The Four briefly hold this by temporarily blinding Galactus and then swapping Franklin with an empty baby carriage before the Devourer has set foot into the portal meant to teleport him away, allowing him to sense that Franklin has been relocated to the Baxter Building. It quickly becomes apparent to him the intent of the decoy, and he compliments their ingenuity before moving away.
• Heroic RRoD: During the final push against Galactus, Sue holds him, then pushes him back with her force field powers, exerting them to a level she never has before. While this gets Galactus through the portal, the strain kills Sue. (She gets better, thanks to Fanklin's own cosmic powers.)
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • To save her daughter and the rest of her planet, Shalla-Ball offered her services to Galactus as his herald and became the Silver Surfer. Upon learning this, Johnny offers to make a similar deal with Galactus in order to save the Earth, but is rebuffed.
  • Sue overexerts her powers to push Galactus into the portal which ends up killing her. Only Franklin using his powers for the first time to restore her to life stops it from being a permanent sacrifice.
  • In the climax, Johnny tries to do this, planning to push Galactus into Reed's portal at the cost of his own life. Shalla-Bal beats him to it.
• Hidden Depths: Johnny is an impulsive gung-ho flyboy who is often dismissive of Reed's scientific pursuits, so it's surprising when he not only takes it upon himself to decode an alien language, but succeeds well enough to speak to the Silver Surfer in her own language and learn her backstory.
• Homage:
  • One scene in the teaser trailer depicts the Fantastic Four standing on a platform surrounded by giant arrows, similar to the stage for The Beatles (a.k.a. the Fab Four)'s first performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The main trailer furthers the homage, with the Four appearing on the Ted Gilbert Show, with Gilbert being a talk show host in the vein of Sullivan.
  • The space action sequence is visually almost identical to Interstellar and even uses that film's plot point of slingshotting near a neutron star for some technobabble. There's also emphasis placed on docking to a circular crown-shaped structure for long space travel (containing supplies and cryosleep chambers in Interstellar and an FTL drive here) and the Speed Stripes when in warp mode are very similar to its depiction of curved space. Furthermore, both the Fantasti-Car and space scenes use a special effect popularised by Interstellar that makes it look like the camera is attached to the vehicle.
• Hope Spot: Reed's plan to teleport the Earth away from Galactus starts and appears to be working, as the warp field begins to envelop the Earth, only for one of the towers to suddenly fail, followed by another and another, with it quickly being revealed that Galactus had realized what they were up to and had sent the Silver Surfer to destroy the towers. While Johnny is eventually able to make her stop, the only tower left is in New York, and any hope of teleporting the entire planet is gone.
• How Much More Can He Take?: When Sue uses her powers to push Galactus into the portal, it's unclear just how much strain she's enduring, which leaves some members of the audience wondering just how worried they're supposed to be.
• Hyperspeed Escape: During the Four's first encounter with Galactus, Grimm puts the Excelsior into FTL just in time to prevent Shalla-Bal from phasing into Sue's womb and taking Franklin by force. Then subsequently suberted when it turns out that Shalla-Bal can fly at FTL speed too, causing a Chase Scene.
• Indo-European Alien Language: The Zenn-Lavian language has several features clearly derived from Latin. Shalla-Bal translates "Morha abiro ami" as "Die with yours," so mor- certainly looks like the root for "die." "Sapia menas tu vos" means "I know about you," which is way too obvious.
• I Just Want to Be Normal:
  • Galactus of all beings. He hates being the Devourer of Worlds and wants to be free of the hunger that is never satisfied.
  • This happens in a roundabout way with Franklin. Reed fears possible complications from Franklin's parents both having their genetics altered by the cosmic storm that gave them their powers, even though by all appearances, Franklin seems to be a perfectly normal child. Galactus, however, can detect the Power Cosmic within him, and states that Franklin is deliberately hiding his powers. Later, Reed holds Franklin and assures him his parents will love him no matter what.
• Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Earth is (initially) just another in a long line of planets marked for destruction by the Silver Surfer and subsequently consumed by Galactus, no more or less interesting than any other.
• Instant Birth: Just Add Labor!: Franklin's birth takes about 15 minutes from start to finish, thanks to Galactus speeding up Sue's pregnancy to get to Franklin.
• Internal Reveal: During Sunday dinner Johnny accuses Sue and Reed of being late. Sue is startled and asks him what he means by that, and he clarifies late for dinner. Ben picks up on Sue's reaction and correctly guesses aloud that her period was late and that she's pregnant.
• In the End, You Are on Your Own: The Fantastic Four are the only superhero team on Earth-828. Because there are no hints at all about others, they are considered the first and last line of defense. As such, they are the only ones who can stand up to an all-powerful being like Galactus and that is already a tall order in their first encounter.
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople): Oddly enough, despite the Four establishing world peace, East and West Berlin are still shown to exist in the list of cities where teleporter towers got built.
• Ironic Echo: A pre-transformation Ben Grimm quips that he's the handsomest pilot among the four. After their rocket crashed, Ben became a rocky monster.
• Jump Scare:
  • Played for Laughs; while Ben and Johnny childishly argue about which of them will check to see if Reed and Sue have yet returned, Sue suddenly makes herself visible right next to Ben, giving him and Johnny a fright. Their reaction implies Sue has a habit of doing this.
  • When Galactus arrives at the Baxter Building for Franklin, H.E.R.B.I.E. attempts to keep him at bay by activating the security shield. Then Galactus's gargantuan hand crashes through the wall and grabs the baby.
• Know When to Fold 'Em: With Galactus' Tractor Beam being too strong, Reed tells Ben to stop fighting and save the engines.
• Law of Inverse Fertility: When Sue reveals her positive pregnancy test, Reed mentions that they spent two years trying unsuccessfully for a baby. They'd apparently made their peace with the notion of children not being in the cards for them, making Sue's pregnancy that much more of a surprise.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In the official trailer, Ted Gilbert offhandedly remarks to his studio audience that they all know the story of how the Fantastic Four came to be before quickly describing how they became Celebrity Superheroes. This of course is done in-universe to remind the television viewers who the subjects of the interview are, but also works on a meta level given that real-life general audiences are mostly familiar with the Four's origin story thanks to it being adapted for popular media multiple times over the years.
• Leitmotif: Michael Giacchino has composed a soaring, stirring theme for the Fantastic Four that represents the Four as heroes and explorers. It made its formal debut during the 2024 D23 Convention and has been part of the pre-release marketing campaign.
• Lighter and Softer: Unlike the 2015 film with its gloomy and gritty feeling, the teaser trailer is more upbeat and hopeful, and showcases an adventurous, whimsical, and lighthearted atmosphere.
• Like You Were Dying: On a global scale. In announcing the coming of Galactus, the Silver Surfer tells all of mankind to hold their loved ones close and celebrate with what little time remained.
• Logo Joke: The Marvel Studios logo in the trailer has a distinctly 1960s redesign, forgoing the usual montage of MCU clips and instead has a minimalist logo.
• Loved by All: This version of the F4 are regarded as beloved celebrities, judging by the crowds of people showing off merchandise, holding signs of support and admiration, and cheering for them. Public opinion turns on them, however, when the team revealed that they refused to give Franklin to Galactus in exchange for sparing Earth, but Sue wins them back by giving a heartfelt speech that makes it clear that although the Fantastic Four will not give up Franklin for Earth, they will also not give up Earth for him either.
• Lovecraft Lite: Just like The Call of Cthulhu and At the Mountains of Madness, First Steps on its surface is also a Cosmic Horror Story about the seeming insignificance of humanity in the face of unimaginably ancient uncaring invincible gods; seeming being the key word here, for just like Dragon Ball Super, these gods are opposed by equally cosmic-empowered heroes driven on by the indomitable spirit of human courage.
• Lyrical Dissonance: The song "Let Us Be Devoured" by Andrea Datzman, presumably recorded by a Cult of Galactus member in-universe, is a gentle, wistful folk song about how the entire planet being consumed by a space-god sounds like a really keen idea.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Rather than having every linguist on the planet working on decoding the fragments of Shalla-Bal's language, Johnny works on it completely alone without even any help from the rest of his family.
• Making Room for Baby: The Baxter Building is big enough already when Sue is pregnant with Franklin, so it's simply a matter of babyproofing the place, which is handled by H.E.R.B.I.E. (which doesn't go without causing some slapstick when Ben trips into what H.E.R.B.I.E. set up for the incoming baby).
• Mama Bear: Don't mess with the child of a heroine that can weaponize energy.
  • When the Silver Surfer is pursuing the Four's ship in pursuit of her unborn child, Sue growls, "Kill her!" to Johnny to get him to man the ship's guns.
  • When Galactus scoops up baby Franklin, Susan goes to town on him at the cost of her life, almost singlehandedly pushing him into the portal all on her own.
  • Likewise when she discovers that Victor Von Doom managed to sneak inside the Baxter Building and is kneeling in front of Franklin, Sue starts to prepare her powers if she has to fight Victor right there and then.
• Marquee Alter Ego:
  • The drawing accompanying the casting announcement showed the Thing sitting underneath a portrait taken back when the rocky hero resembled Ebon Moss-Bacharach. Later advertisements depict Ben as both a human and the Thing, but the SDCC teaser only showed the latter as a silhouette. The completed movie only shows Ben's human form in footage of the not-yet-Fantastic Four preparing for the outer space mission that gave them their powers, and in the upper-right corner of Moss-Bacharach's end titles card.
  • Julia Garner makes a non-silvery appearance in a flashback to Shalla-Bal becoming Galactus' herald.
• Mass "Oh, Crap!": When the Fantastic Four chase the Surfer into space, they arrive just in time to be left in awe as Galactus' ship easily devour a planet even bigger than Earth, proving that Shalla-Bal wasn't bluffing or exaggerating on how powerful her master is.
• Maternity Crisis: When Galactus induces Sue's labor and they have to subsequently run away from Galactus and the Silver Surfer and Sue has to give birth in zero gravity.
• Monumental Damage: Subverted: Galactus lands in New York Harbor and briefly glares at the Statue of Liberty, but just turns and makes his way onto Manhattan island.
• More Hero than Thou: Johnny Storm was going to sacrifice himself to drive away Galactus, but the Silver Surfer knocks him out of the way and takes his place.
• Mundane Utility:
  • Reed is a Rubber Man so he just has to stretch his arms to grab things without moving there or write on the impossible-to-reach-for-normals parts of big chalkboards.
  • After the power goes out, Reed asks Johnny to flame on for some light.
  • Sue uses her powers to render her stomach and womb invisible so Reed can see their baby. And also to avoid being seen by economic lobbies who she doesn't like when leaving the Future Foundation assemblies.
• Musical Nod: The main theme subtly incorporates the first theme from Fantastic Four: The Animated Series, including a chorus singing "Fantastic Four!" over the title.
• Mythology Gag:
  • This alternate universe is numbered Earth-828 for Jack Kirby's birthday (August 28, so 8/28).
  • The Fantastic Four introduced themselves to the world when Mole Man dropped the PanAm building into Subterranea. In the Sacred Timeline, that building (which was renamed the MetLife building in 1981 after an ownership change) would be purchased by Tony Stark and used as the base of Avengers Tower, as seen in The Avengers.
  • The promotional material references the Future Foundation, which was, in the comics, an auxiliary team formed by Reed Richards alongside the Fantastic Four, presumably, in this case, as the Four's collective corporate identity.
  • Descriptions of the characters released say that in this version, Susan is the Future Foundation's founder and CEO, which calls back to the Heroes Reborn version of the character.
  • The cereal box Johnny holds recreates a Human Torch pin-up page from Fantastic Four #3.
  • During a newsreel montage, we get snippets of the times the F4 faced various threats. One of these snippets is a recreation of the iconic cover of Fantastic Four #1.
  • A background sign for Timely Comics, the first name of the company that would become Marvel Comics, can be seen in the background during a shot of the NYC streets.
    • Later, we see the (apparent) inside of Timely Comics when the Surfer first arrives and the walls are covered in Jack Kirby art. There are even two workers who bear a striking resemblance to a young Stan Lee and Kirby.
  • Supervillains Red Ghost (and his Super-Apes), The Mad Thinker, Diablo, Wizard and Puppet Master are all name-dropped throughout.
  • There is a brief mention of a "Cult of Galactus" taking form among the citizenry of Earth. Humans worshipping Galactus and forming a cult to his might was the backbone of the plot in Stan Lee and Moebius's Eisner-winning miniseries Silver Surfer: Parable.
  • Once again, Johnny pursues the Silver Surfer only to fail when the Surfer leaves the atmosphere.
    • It also evokes an earlier scene of the comics, when Johnny pursues a female herald of Galactus (Frankie Raye, in her first moments as Nova) out of the atmosphere, with the same results. Additionally, Frankie is Johnny's ex-girlfriend and, in the film, he shows some interest in the Surfer.
    • From the same movie, this also isn't the first time Susan dies in the climax only to be resurrected by someone with the Power Cosmic. Or that Silver Surfer performs an Heroic Sacrifice to stop Galactus.
    • Another element lifted from Rise of the Silver Surfer is how Reed follows the Surfer's trail by tracing her cosmic energy to planets destroyed by Galactus.
  • Ben Grimm hates one specific line that's been attributed to him for, in real life, decades... "It's clobberin' time!" More specifically, the idea that the catchphrase was created for merchandising in-universe rather than by Ben himself recalls the 2005 film. And much like that film, he finally says it during the climax.
  • Johnny plays with an action figure of himself, only for an annoyed Ben to crush it with one hand. This also happened in the 2005 film, but with a figure of The Thing.
  • The end of the intro for the Fantastic Four's cartoon is very similar to the Hanna-Barbera cartoon's opening.
  • The Fantastic Four's ship is named the Excelsior, after Stan Lee's catchphrase. This is actually a double Mythology Gag, as that was also the name of their rocket in the short-lived Heroes Reborn Continuity Reboot from the '90s.
  • It's stated at the beginning of the film that the team has been active for four years when the Galactus threat emerges. In real life, approximately four years elapsed between the debut of the Fantastic Four (November 1961) and the debut of Galactus (March 1966).
  • When Galactus figures out the team's effort to trap him, he compliments their ingenuity by calling them "clever little bugs." This is not the first time that Galactus has compared lesser beings to insects.
  • At the end of the film, Ted Gilbert wants Franklin to wear a onesie that looks like the FF uniform but with a "5", and Sue says it's too early for that. Comic book Franklin has worn T-shirts and actual costumes with a similar logo, but only once he was older.
  • Much like in the two-part premiere of the '90s animated series, the Fantastic Four's origin story is conveyed to the audience by having it be recapped during their appearance on a talk show, with Ted Gilbert in place of an appearance by Dick Clark As Himself. Perhaps not coincidentally, both continuities are also rare examples of Reed and Susan already being married prior to the mission.
  • The climax has Galactus being taken through a portal to the far reaches of space by the Fantastic Four. This has echoes of the series finale for The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, where the Avengers and their allies—the Fantastic Four included—use a portal to take Galactus to the Negative Zone. Galactus even manages to pull back briefly before being pushed back in both occasions. Also done in LEGO Marvel Super Heroes.
• The Needs of the Many: Deconstructed; the emotional toll that sacrificing one person to save many others is thoroughly examined:
  • After Reed admits that Galactus offered to spare Earth in exchange for Franklin, the assembled press are horrified that the Fantastic Four refused to do so, and many of the populace quickly follow suit, protesting outside the Baxter Building and demanding that Reed and Sue give up their newborn to save the world. Reed even admits that, from an objective standpoint, giving Franklin up is more or less the "ethical" thing to do (though he makes it clear to Sue that he'd never actually do so), and crowds of people yell that Sue is "selfish" for refusing to do so. None of this detracts from the fact that Sue is a mother being asked to sacrifice her firstborn child, and she shames the protesters into dispersing by showing them Franklin and swearing that, while she wouldn't sacrifice him to save Earth, she also won't sacrifice Earth to save her son.
  • The Silver Surfer sacrificed her own freedom to save Zenn-La from Galactus' hunger, saving her own people and her daughter... while simultaneously condemning countless billions of others to the same death she averted for her own world. The guilt weighs heavily upon her, and is demonstrated in dramatic fashion when Johnny plays the recordings he's decoded from deep space: the ones from Zenn-La praise Shalla-Bal for her sacrifice, while many others are just screams of terror and pleas for mercy from her and Galactus' victims. The horrifying reminder drives Shalla-Bal to flee Earth and eventually return to help the Fantastic Four exile Galactus.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: Subverted. During the climax, Johnny attempts a Heroic Sacrifice, only for Shalla-Bal to push him aside and sacrifice herself instead to stop Galactus. However, Johnny was still important for Galactus to be stopped, because he instigated Shalla's face-turn in the first place.
• Negative Space Wedgie: Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben were astronauts who gained their powers when they got irradiated by a cosmic storm on a space mission that went awry (without further elaboration, there's only footage of their return to Earth).
• Never Trust a Trailer: Many of the scenes shown in the trailers do not appear in the final film.
  • One trailer scene had Sue and Reed give a brief tour of the Baxter Building to a guest, and explain that they have a weekly dinner together.
  • Reed's lament that he "stretched the bounds of space, and they heard" is never used.
  • One trailer scene has Johnny Storm flying to low Earth orbit, whereupon his flame cuts out and he falls. A similar-but-different shot appears in the movie.
  • The clip where the Fantastic Four run out of the Ted Gilbert show and Johnny immediately flies off does not appear.
  • The nighttime chat between Sue and Ben is also cut.
  • The scene where Reed and Sue talk to each other on the bed (when Reed discusses making Sue's costume larger to accommodate her pregnancy) appears in the movie, but it omits their exchange where Reed talks about how their previous flight gave them superpowers.
  • Some TV spots show Ben sitting at the dock after parking the boat, while petting a dog and asking about their day.
• Numerological Motif: Jack Kirby's quote at the end of the credits highlights why Earth-828 is named as such — Jack Kirby's birth date of August 28, 1917.
• Oddly Small Organization: Galactus has only himself and the Silver Surfer, and no army of any kind otherwise (his worlds-devouring ship is automated). That's enough to terrify and eat entire worlds.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: The Fantastic Four stopping Mole Man's Pan Am building heist during the montage. There's a cut going straight from the Pan Am building falling underground and Ben handling a handcuffed Mole Man.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • H.E.R.B.I.E. panicking and closing the metal armor plates of the Baxter Building when Galactus directly comes for Franklin.
  • Galactus himself has a brief shocked expression in his face when Shalla-Bal charges at him to shove him in the portal for good.
• OOC Is Serious Business: Reed is always viewed as incredibly intelligent person that can solve any problem. His hesitant admission more than once that he is initially unable to find a suitable solution against Galactus shows how dire the situation is, at least as far as the people are concerned.
• Overly Long Gag: The longest gag in the film by far is Reed, Ben and Johnny struggling to attach Franklin's high tech baby car seat in the Fantasticar at the end.
• Painful Transformation: The transformation of the Four when exposed to cosmic radiations isn't seen onscreen, only heard, but judging by Sue's screaming, it was painful.
• Le Parkour: Reed does a lot of this, aided by his super flexibility and the fact that his reach is as long as he needs it to be.
• Planetary Relocation: Reed plans to save Earth from Galactus by teleporting it to some other part of the universe, but the Silver Surfer destroys most of the teleporters seconds before they form a complete field over the planet.
• Power Incontinence: Sue briefly turns invisible while giving birth, though she recovers as soon as the event is over.
• Power-Strain Blackout: At the climax of the movie, Sue Storm, in full Mama Bear mode, uses the full brunt of her energy-manipulating powers to push back Galactus himself into the teleporter that will banish him from Earth. And she succeeds... except the strain is so intense that she burns her reserves completely and stop breathing. Despite all his efforts with CPR, Reed Richards cannot revive her. All seems lost until her crying baby son Franklin is put on her chest... and his Power Cosmic resurrects her.
• Pragmatic Adaptation:
  • The Fantastic Four in the comics are celebrity heroes who have faced down cosmic threats like Galactus, Skrulls, and Kree alone as a team, long before any of the Avengers assembled. They also gained superpowers during a pioneering space launch that didn't foresee a cosmic storm. Such backstory and reputation doesn't mesh well with the main MCU Earth, where space travel has become commonplace and superheroes are everywhere. As such, to keep the unique identity and tropes of Marvel's First Family, the MCU's Fantastic Four are placed on an Alternate Timeline where they changed the very history of Earth in the 1960s with their scientific innovations.
  • invoked Super-elasticity powers are something that has been notoriously difficult to depict in live-action without delving into the Unintentional Uncanny Valley, particularly in previous Fantastic Four adaptations, and even the MCU decided to give Kamala Kahn an Adaptational Superpower Change rather than attempting to make her own stretching powers look good onscreen. While Reed's powers are largely unchanged in functionality, the film for the most part attempts to downplay his usage of them as much as possible compared to the rest of the team, to the point that the first trailer contained no footage of him using them. It also seems as if this version has a much lower limit to how far he can stretch without hurting, as shown in the climax when Galactus tortures him by stretching him roughly three times his normal length.
• Practical Voice-Over: The audience is given a quick introduction to the Fantastic Four's origins and how they've impacted their Earth in an opening segment where a talk show host is likewise doing so for his program.
• Pregnancy Test Plot: The movie opens with Sue taking a test that confirms she's finally pregnant. In keeping with the retro-futuristic aesthetic of this universe, the test has a little LED on it that blinks to show the result.
• Product Placement:
  • The movie has quite a few nods to numerous products in the form of signs across New York City. The most blatant is the 7 Up advertisement that nearly crushes some citizens before Susan uses her powers to stop it at the start of the film.
  • Also subverted on several occasions: there are a few signs of brands which no longer exist, like Pan Am, placed to emphasise the movie's Retro Universe
• Raygun Gothic: The Excelsior, the Fantastic Four's spaceship, has a sleeker and more advanced design that evokes 1950s and '60s-era science fiction.
• Rebuilt Pedestal: The world turns against the Fantastic Four when they return to Earth and reveal in a press conference that they turned down a chance for Earth to be spared by Galactus in exchange for their newly born son, everyone believes that they care more about themselves than saving the world and begin protesting against the Fantastic Four. However, once Sue gives a Rousing Speech about the importance of family and she will not sacrifice her son or the planet to Galactus, it convinces the world that the Fantastic Four are truly selfless and begin to trust them again.
• Reconstruction: On top of being Truer to the Text, the film is arguably a reconstruction for the modern superhero genre, especially in contrast to the grim and gritty 2015 attempt.
  • Rather than being ostracized for their powers or appearances, the Fantastic Four quickly became beloved for their superheroics in the four years since their debut, showing that people can look past the weirdness given enough time and admire the heroism of those using their abilities for good.
  • Reed Richards Is Useless is averted hard as the Fantastic Four quickly revolutionize science and technology merely by existing, their superpowers and the brilliance of those like Reed allowing insights that enable Humanity to make leaps and bounds in all fields. They also smartly use their clout as beloved heroes and genius scientists to broker world peace, further ensuring their world become a better place.
  • Rather than mocked or subverted, the All-Loving Hero trope ends up saving the day on at least two occasions. Sue's kindness managed to get through to Mole Man and turned him and Subterranea into allies who ended up helping to evacuate New York ahead of the Final Battle. Johnny's heartfelt efforts to reach out to the Silver Surfer also ends up invoking a Heel–Face Turn on her that saved the day.
  • Beware the Superman is thoroughly averted. Despite their superpowers, the Fantastic Four instead used their abilities and clout as heroes to meaningfully make the world a better place. There are fears of this trope given what Galactus implied about Franklin Richard’s potential, but the very first thing he used his powers for was to resurrect his mother, showing the fears are perhaps overblown. Reed implies they will actively work to avert this for Franklin by raising him well so he would grow up choosing to use their powers for good.
• Reduced to Dust: When Johnny finds a figurine of himself in a cereal box and shows it to Ben, Ben grabs it and crushes it into dust.
• Remake Cameo: The four actors of Roger Corman's The Fantastic Four have a cameo in this film:
  • Alex Hyde-White (Reed) as ABC Newscaster William Russell.
  • Rebecca Staab (Sue) as Channel 9 Newscaster Carolyn Haynes.
  • Jay Underwood (Johnny) as a power plant worker.
  • Michael Bailey Smith (Ben) as another power plant worker.
• Retraux: The trailer tease presents a city with a 1960s aesthetic but the televisions on display in the shop have a footage of a Raygun Gothic space shuttle launch.
• Retro Universe: Earth-828 is set in approximately 1965 and has a retro-futuristic aesthetic to it, with domestic robots that run on cassette tapes, sleek monorails, flying cars and space travel technology that's decades in advance of our own. All of this exists alongside the typical cars, fashion and attitudes of the era.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: When the universal transporter Reed sets up is finally demonstrated to the rest of the Four, Johnny expresses concern about its operation window being a measly 37 seconds, which Reed admits isn't a whole lot of time to get Galactus into the portal, but it's the only chance they have. The climax shows that Johnny was right to be concerned about the portal's limited window, but it's because it's too long a time limit as Galactus nearly escapes the portal to get back to Earth 11 seconds into the portal's operation, and it's only because of Sue and Shalla-Bal's Heroic Sacrifices that they manage to get Galactus back through the other side before it's too late.
• Robot Buddy: H.E.R.B.I.E., true to form, is the Four's live-in robot butler.
• Rousseau Was Right: Although there are protests against the Four refusing to hand over Franklin to Galactus, when Sue stands in front of the crowd and gives her "we are family" speech, humanity is quick to line up behind the Four and back their plans to save Earth from Galactus.
• Run or Die: It's quickly determined that fighting Galactus is a Hopeless Boss Fight, so the plan is to pull a Screw This, I'm Outta Here on a planetary scale and teleport Earth somewhere Galactus will never find them. When that fails, thanks to the Surfer, they then attempt to do the inverse; lure Galactus out of his ship and use the last teleporter to send him somewhere he can never return from.
• Sacrificial Planet: Like in Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Reed can track Shalla-Bal's energy signature to other solar systems to see the remains of planets that Galactus recently destroyed. When the team follows the signature to another planet, they arrive just in time to bear witness to its annihilation at Galactus' hands.
• Sadistic Choice: Reed announces to the public that they attempted to negotiate with Galactus to spare Earth from destruction. However, Galactus presented them with an impossible decision: He'll only leave Earth alone if Reed and Sue give him their infant son.
• Saying Too Much: In the news conference post the team returning from confronting Galactus, a physically and mentally exhausted Reed lets slip that Galactus vowed to spare Earth if Reed and Sue gave up their infant son, and they rejected his offer. His excessive honesty ends up turning most of the world against the team, as they consider their choice extremely selfish when compared to the billions of lives they're putting at risk.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale: A news report saying Galactus has passed Mars is used to indicate that he will arrive on Earth soon, with mere days remaining. Given that he was able to travel a distance that required Faster-Than-Light Travel in at most a few months Galactus should be able to cross our solar system in no time at all.
• Scotty Time: When Ben says it'll take twenty hours to prep Excalibur for launch, Reed tells him he's got sixteen.
• Sequel Hook: Dr. Doom makes his grand MCU debut in The Stinger, setting up his pivotal role in the next Avengers films.
• Shadow of Impending Doom: Galactus's distinct shadow looms over Manhattan as he prepares to consume the city.
• Shaming the Mob: With a crowd of protesters outside the Baxter Building demanding that she surrender Franklin to save Earth, Sue comes out holding the child to put a human face on what they're asking of her, while also giving a speech about family and a promise that, while she won't sacrifice her son for the Earth, she also won't sacrifice Earth for her son, vowing to find another way to stop Galactus.
• Shirtless Scene: Inevitably, the Thing briefly appears bare-chested during the opening sequence, while pulling a boat through the sea.
• Shoot the Television: After the public turns on the Fantastic Four for refusing to sacrifice Franklin to Galactus, the team watches a television broadcast where a news show demands they give the baby to Galactus. A livid Sue uses her powers to destroy the TV in response.
• Shout-Out: Because it's set in a 1960s Retro Universe, this movie makes several references to '60s pop culture.
  • The retro Marvel Studios logo is based on that of Cinerama.
  • The knit turtleneck design of the Fantastic Four's uniforms seems to be based on the Starfleet uniforms from Star Trek: The Original Series' two pilot episodes, "The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before."
  • Futuristic buildings added to the New York skyline look like ones from The Jetsons.
  • Reed's TV show, Fantastic Science with Mr. Fantastic, resembles Watch Mr. Wizard.
  • "Let Us Be Devoured" is an Affectionate Parody of "We Shall Overcome," the protest song originating in the 1940s that became popularized by the Civil Rights movement.
  • In a separate nod back to The Incredibles, themsleves partial Expies of the Fantastic Four, two of the fights shown in the introductory montage are Mole Man's drilling machine attack (as did The Underminer) and the destruction of an elevated train track (as did Buddy / Syndrome).
• Simple Solution Won't Work: The team tries to spitball some initial plans to deal with Galactus, but come up with nothing that would be effective.
  • Ben suggests just blasting the Devourer with conventional weaponry, but Reed's initial analysis can tell nothing Earth has in its arsenal will make a dent in Galactus or his ship.
  • Johnny thinks they should try to lure Galactus away from Earth, reasoning that his ship couldn't catch up to them. It's then pointed out that even if his theory is true, they know from personal experience that his Herald can, and they're no more capable of stopping her than Galactus himself. All it would do is delay the inevitable.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Very much on the idealistic side, even for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Thanks to the efforts of the Fantastic Four, world peace has effectively been achieved, technology as a whole is miles ahead of the main "Sacred Timeline" universe, and mutated heroes like the Thing are not seen with shock and revulsion over their looks but are beloved and accepted for their actions. While the world does go into disarray after the Silver Surfer heralds the arrival of Galactus, it's quickly pacified and the Fantastic Four are soon able to convince every nation in the world to collaborate with them in their plan to stop Galactus without any internal squabbles or snags.
• Space Is Cold: When he's thrown with enough force to leave the Earth's atmosphere by Galactus, Ben starts freezing. He gets rescued right away by Johnny.
• Spaceship Slingshot Stunt: To escape the Silver Surfer, the Fantastic Four have to sacrifice the FTL booster to trick her into flying into the black hole. Without it, they have to engage in a slingshot around the black hole to get the ship moving fast enough to jump into FTL and get back to Earth.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To 2015's Fantastic Four movie. Whereas that film was a Darker and Edgier, Bloodier and Gorier Cronenbergian take on the Fantastic Four based more on the Ultimate Fantastic Four, this film is a much Lighter and Softer and fantastical affair that owes much more to the original iterations of the characters from the '60s, complete with a '60s aesthetic, the Four getting their powers in space and a much more stylized and alien-looking Thing.
• Standalone Episode: The film happens in the Alternate Universe of Earth-828 with no connection to Earth-199999 (the Sacred Timeline/main universe) at all, not a single viewing from any previous MCU installment is required to get into the film.
• Stating the Simple Solution: More than a few people, including a newscaster, believe, for the greater good, the Four should take the deal, hand over Franklin, so the Earth could be spared.
• The Stinger:
  • The mid-credits scene shows Susan Storm taking care of a toddler Franklin, only to be confronted by the sight of her son closely interacting with a man who is shown with a familiar green hood and iron mask. At long last, Doctor Doom has arrived.
  • The post-credits scene is an animated title sequence of the in-universe Fantastic Four cartoon.
• Stock Sound Effects: A stock vocal effect of children giggling can be heard in the trailer tease as children react to the television display.
• Storefront Television Display:
  • The trailer tease sees a group of children crowing around a TV store window to watch something on the display models.
  • Ben sees himself as he looked before his transformation, with a clearly sad facial expression.
• Subverted Catchphrase: Throughout the film, various characters unsuccessfully ask Ben to shout, "It's clobberin' time!," which annoys him since it only happens in the In-Universe cartoon. He finally says it during the climax as he and Johnny attack Galactus, saving Reed from being pulled apart.
  Johnny: Hey, what time is it?
  Ben: ...it's dinnertime. Get inside.
• Superman Stays Out of Gotham: Justified. It's established that one of the key differences between Earth-828 and Earth-199999 is that the Fantastic Four are their world's only heroes. There are no other equivalent factions like Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D., or the Avengers. So when Galactus comes a calling, Reed and company are their Earth's first, last, and only line of defense. Furthermore, while Reed theorizes the existence of parallel realities and Earths, actual multiversal travel isn't even on Reed's drawing board yet. So the Fantastic Four have no idea of the existence of the Avengers, the Guardians, or even the X-Men and thus can't put out an SOS.
• Take a Third Option: The team isn't going to stand by for Galactus to come devour Earth and they outright refuse to surrender baby Franklin, but they stand little to no chance against the closest thing to a god. After a lot of brainstorming, Reed comes up with a solution: Have the world build a network of teleportation devices to move Earth millions of light-years away from Galactus. When the Silver Surfer intervenes and destroys most of them, Reed develops a last-minute Plan B: Use the last remaining teleportation device and move Galactus himself away from Earth.
• Tears of Joy: Reed cries of joy when Sue is resurrected by Franklin after she strained herself to death pushing Galactus in the portal with her powers.
• Teleportation: Reed is experimenting with this early in the film, which later gives him the idea to teleport the entire Earth to a distant star system where Galactus cannot find it. When that fails due to the intervention of the Silver Surfer, Plan B is to then use the last remaining teleporter to strand Galactus in deep space, which succeeds.
• Tempting Fate: The footage Ben watches of himself back when he still looked normal has him playfully snark that he's the "best-looking pilot in the world," at which the trailer then cuts to the TV shutting off and Ben being faced with his current rocky self.
• Time Abyss: Reed's analysis shows that Galactus is older than the Universe itself, alluding to his backstory in the comics when he was the last surviving being in the Universe that collapsed before the current one formed.
• Time Dilation: Reed hatches a plan to trap the Silver Surfer in a neutron star (which acts more like a black hole here), noting that while it won't hold her forever, the time dilation field will make it a month of real time before she gets free.
• Time-Shifted Actor: When not CGI, Franklin was portrayed by baby actress Ada Scott, and in The Stinger that takes place 4 years later it's an older (and so far uncredited) child actor.
• Time Skip: Following Galactus' defeat, the movie skips ahead a year, and then another four years for the Mid Credits Scene.
• Tin-Can Robot: That's what H.E.R.B.I.E. is, complete with hovering.
• Title-Only Chorus: The sung portions of the film’s theme literally consist of a male tenor-alto chorus repeating the lyrics ”Humm… Fantastic Four… Fantastic Four… Fsntastic Four…” and slight variations thereof looped ad-infinitum.
• Tractor Beam: When the Excelsior approaches the planet that's being destroyed by Galactus' gigantic ship/machine to be consumed by him, a force pulls it inside without the Fantastic Four being able to do anything about it.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Johnny is seen eating cereal throughout the film, even reaching for it as a Comfort Food when a meeting with Reed doesn't go well. He seems to be especially fond of Lucky Charms.
• Trailers Always Spoil: The trailer shows Galactus setting foot in a city, which spoils that Plan A of teleporting the Earth away from Galactus will fail since he hasn’t been seen off of his ship at this point in the film.
• Triumphant Reprise: The end credits that follow the victory against Galactus use "Fantastic Four to Be Reckoned With," a rousing reprise of the (already quite triumphant) leitmotif of the Fantastic Four in the film. It is noticeably more choral.
• Truer to the Text:
  • Galactus's previous cinematic incarnation was (controversially) a giant cloud. This Galactus is much truer to his roots from the comic, being a colossal man wearing a purple pronged space helmet.
  • The casting of the Four skews closer to the comics compared to the 2015 movie, since Sue and Johnny are both Caucasian and biological siblings. The earlier film justified Johnny's Race Lift from white to black by having Sue be adopted.
  • Whereas both previous cinematic incarnations of The Thing were still humanoid rock men, this version of Ben is more stylized and alien with big rock eyebrows, similar to Jack Kirby's original depiction of the character.
  • The prologue shows Sue gaining her powers while visiting outer space along with the men, returning to a tradition the 2015 movie broke when Sue stayed behind on Earth.
  • Except for one scene where he's operating underwater, Ben wears a full uniform rather than just pants or trunks. When the Four got their very first uniforms in the comics, Ben also wore the full suit but found it too restrictive as the unstable molecules that would stretch with his movements didn't exist yet, stripping to just the trunks over the course of a few stories. The film's climax likewise confirms the lack of unstable molecules in this continuity, as Galactus tortures Reed by stretching him in his hands, and the suit's elasticity starts to fail as Reed reaches the limits of his abilities.
  • Previous cinematic versions of Sue underplay her powers, making her mainly a defensive Barrier Warrior. This version of Sue is closer to the comics as possibly the most powerful member of the team, being able to manhandle Galactus long enough to force him into the portal, although it took a fatal strain on her body.
• A True Story in My Universe: The Four have an in-universe cartoon series based on their adventures that's clearly based on Hanna-Barbera's The Fantastic Four.
• Uncertain Doom:
  • Shalla-Bal is last seen falling into the portal with Galactus. Whether she survived or not has yet to be revealed.
  • Galactus himself is stranded lightyears away from the ship that allows him to devour worlds. What this means for him has also yet to be revealed.
• Underground City: Subterranea, a city/country founded underground by Harvey Elder/Mole Man, who doesn't like the people of the surface but makes an exception for Sue. It comes into play in the climax when New York has to be evacuated since Galactus is expected to plow through the city in search of baby Franklin. Sue's good diplomatic relation with Mole Man allows the inhabitants of New York to find refuge down there.
• Ungrateful Townsfolk: The people of Earth turn against the Four after Reed reveals that they refused Galactus' request to be given Franklin in exchange for him leaving Earth alone, and they demand that the Fantastic Four give Franklin to Galactus.
• The Unintelligible: H.E.R.B.I.E. only communicates in electronic warbles. Nevertheless, Ben can still understand him (or at least get the gist of what the robot's trying to say based on his tone).
• United Heroes, Divided Villains: Galactus' only ally in the film is his herald, the Silver Surfer. As Johnny eventually finds out, though, she became his slave after she sacrificed herself to spare her family and world, and she has no true loyalty to him (which isn't surprising since he is willing to hurt her if she displeases him). The Four, in sharp contrast, are a family who talk through their problems, have unshakable trust in one another, and have the ability to work as a team.
• United Nations Is a Superpower: The Future Foundation is this setting's equivalent to the United Nations, and seems to have brokered world peace to such a degree that nobody bats an eye when Sue asks for materials such as plutonium to build the portals that are intended to move the Earth away from Galactus. Not everybody is on board, however — we see twice throughout the film that Latveria, despite having a seat at the Future Foundation, seemingly does not send representatives there.
• Unrealistic Black Hole: The black hole the Fantastic Four arrives to is fairly realistic, complete with a dangerous spinning disk of debris and time dilation that spaghettifies anything caught in the event horizon. The only unrealistic part is that the Silver Surfer escapes the event horizon within a month despite being spaghettified, but it's justified in that she is empowered by Galactus and is shown to travel faster than the speed of light beforehand. The only real issue is that they call it a neutron star.
• Walk, Don't Swim: During a montage of the Fantastic Four's heroics, Ben jumps into the water to grab a ship by its anchor and pull it to shore, his weight allowing him to sink to the bottom and walk back.
• Was Once a Man:
  • Galactus claims that he was born mortal before the mantle of "the Devourer" was thrust upon him. Once he discovers that Franklin Richards possesses the Cosmic Power, he is determined to pass the mantle on to the child so that he may finally rest.
  • Shalla-Bal herself used to be a normal human-like being before becoming Galactus' herald in exchange for her planet's safety.
• Wham Shot: The final shot of the mid-credits sequence. Someone has materialized inside the Baxter Building and is playing with Franklin. Someone wearing an all-too familiar green hood and iron mask...
• What Happened to the Mouse?: In the closing minutes of the film and The Stinger that takes place four years later, there is no mention of Galactus's ship which would presumably be stuck in Earth's orbit without Galactus.
• What You Are in the Dark: Considering that he and his family were the only witnesses to their meeting, Reed could have easily withheld the truth about the deal Galactus offered — give him Franklin to spare Earth. Instead, he tells the truth at a televised press conference, even though it temporarily costs him and the others their reputation with the people of New York.
• You Can't Thwart Stage One:
  • Reed's plan to teleport Earth to a different galaxy and millions of light-years away from Galactus ends in failure when Shalla-Bal destroys every teleporter except for the New York one, forcing them to resort to the far riskier plan of using Franklin as bait to lure Galactus himself into the last teleporter.
  • As part of the plan to lure Galactus into range of the teleporter, Sue and Johnny use their powers to temporarily blind Galactus so they can move Franklin out of harm's way once the teleporter is turned on. Unfortunately, Galactus realizes the trick at the last moment and side-steps the trap, giving way to the last desperate struggle to save Franklin from Galactus's grasp.
• You Leave Him Alone!: Sue roars, "PUT DOWN MY SON!" as she unleashes the full righteous might of her maternal fury upon the World-Eating God Galactus.