Gavin Jasper

Part of the novelty of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has been the franchise’s ability to throw out new developments and hooks, only to pick up on them again in a sequel, spinoff, or some other project. Whether it’s something as grand as name-dropping the Avengers as a concept or something more subtle, like questioning the cosmic reason for why Bruce Banner is still alive, seeing things through and paying things off has been the MCU’s strength.

The Fantastic Four is such a staple in Marvel, superhero fiction, and really just pop culture in general that it feels insane how much hope there was that the MCU’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps would be the one to do it justice. It feels so odd that these characters have seldom stood out in the modern mainstream like the X-Men did in the ‘90s or the Avengers in the 2010s. And it’s not for a lack of trying.

Starting with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania in theaters and ending with Ironheart on Disney+, the last two and a half years have given us Phase Five of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While Phase Four was about setting up the multiverse and introducing the next generation of heroes, Phase Give continued by alerting us to multiversal peril while all the remaining heroes gravitate into their own little cliques.