The Fantastic Four: A legacy of many ‘firsts’ for Marvel’s first family

SINGAPORE – The First Family of comics finally arrives in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) with The Fantastic Four: First Steps, which opens in Singapore cinemas on July 24. The Straits Times’ executive artist Billy Ker and correspondent Yamini Chinnuswamy venture into the many “firsts” of this ground-breaking superhero team.

First Marvel superhero team

Legendary American comic book creators Jack Kirby and Stan Lee introduced scientist Reed Richards (Mister Fantastic), pilot Ben Grimm (The Thing) and siblings Sue and Johnny Storm (Invisible Woman and Human Torch) in Fantastic Four #1, published in 1961. The Avengers and X-Men followed in 1963.

First superhero family

The Fantastic Four are not just a team, but also a family with strong interpersonal dynamics:

First superheroes with extraterrestrial powers

The Fantastic Four were the first superheroes to gain their powers directly from a cosmic event, during an experimental space mission gone wrong.

Mysterious cosmic rays penetrated their spacecraft’s shield, but instead of killing them, the radiation bestowed them with superpowers: extreme elasticity (Mister Fantastic), invisibility and force field generation (Invisible Woman), rock-like body armour (The Thing) and pyrokinesis (Human Torch). 

First Marvel wedding

The wedding between Reed and Sue, portrayed in Fantastic Four Annual #3 in 1965, is considered to be the first to appear in Marvel comics. Nearly every major Marvel hero of the time pops up in that comic – the Avengers, X-Men and Spider-Man, to name a few.

First introduction to the Marvel Cosmic Universe

The Fantastic Four were the first Marvel property to introduce the “cosmic universe” within the wider world of the comic book line. Seeds were planted with their space-based origin story, before expanding into full galactic mythology with the introduction of Galactus and the Silver Surfer in Fantastic Four #48 (1966).

First unreleased Marvel movie

In 1994, a low-budget film titled The Fantastic Four was completed on a shoestring budget of about US$1 million. It was allegedly never intended for public release. Instead, it was produced primarily to help German film producer Bernd Eichinger retain the film rights to the First Family, which he had optioned from Marvel in 1986. The rights eventually went to American movie studio 20th Century Fox, which was later bought by The Walt Disney Company in 2019.

First MCU film taking place in another universe

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is reportedly the first film in the MCU to be set primarily on Earth-828, rather than the franchise’s main continuity of Earth-616, where the preceding 36 MCU films have taken place.

First Marvel radio special 

Debuting in 1975, The Fantastic Four Radio Series was a dramatic adaptation of early storylines from the eponymous comic book series. The 13-episode production featured narration by Marvel icon Stan Lee and voice work by American actor Bill Murray. 

First superhero team to inspire an animated movie franchise

The concept behind Pixar’s hit film The Incredibles (2004) and its sequel The Incredibles 2 (2018) is an unofficial homage to The Fantastic Four. The Incredibles movies are also about a superpowered family whose members have super-strength, pyrokinesis, hyper-elasticity, invisibility and force field generation.

First appearances

The Fantastic Four comics introduced multiple Marvel heroes and villains who would later play big and small roles in both the comics and the MCU. Here are some of them.

Honorary Fantastic Four members

The Fantastic Four’s “core four” will always be family, but the team’s roster has seen personnel rotations over the years. Here are some of the quirkiest.