SPOILERS for The Fantastic Four: First Steps are ahead!
Exactly four weeks ago, The Fantastic Four: First Steps was released onto the 2025 movies schedule, fulfilling the promise of introducing Marvel’s First Family to the MCU six years after Marvel Studios acquired the film rights to the team as part of the Disney/Fox merger. For the most part, the 37th MCU movie has been met with positive critical reception, and it’s also become the highest-grossing Fantastic Four movie. I’m certainly among its fans, but now that I’m a month separated from having seen First Steps, there’s something that’s still bothering me about Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards: the underwhelming utilization of his stretching power.
You can’t make a Fantastic Four movie without turning Reed, a.k.a. Mister Fantastic’s, body elastic, just like Sue Storm needs to be able to turn invisible and generate force fields, Ben Grimm needs to become a super-strong rock man, and Johnny Storm needs to be pyrokinetic. But while those latter three frequently use their abilities throughout The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Reed is rarely seen stretching. The only notable examples that come to mind are when he’s briefly seen fighting one of Red Ghost’s apes, and then extending those limbs a few times during the final conflict with Galactus, including when the World Devourer nearly ripped him in half.
Instead, First Steps prioritizes Reed Richards’ genius intellect, which I get to a degree. He’s responsible for the technological advancements on this 1960s-based Earth-828, and brains certainly stand a much better chance of thwarting Galactus than brawn. It was also a good idea to highlight Reed’s smarts and calculated way of thinking as a foil to Sue being more emotionally healthy, and I look forward to seeing more of this contrast when they, along with Ben and Johnny, return next year in Avengers: Doomsday.
Still, I wish The Fantastic Four: First Steps had not only shown Reed stretching more often, but also using that power in more unique ways. He’s capable of so much more than just throwing a punch at a farther distance or making himself taller. Let’s see him curl himself into a ball to hurl at opponents, or become a parachute so he can rescue someone mid-fall, or bend his legs together into a spring so he can bounce around.
I can understand why this would have been difficult to depict in the Fantastic Four movies from the 2000s, but I feel like visual effects have progressed enough that it would have been doable for First Steps. With a production budget of over $200 million, surely some of that money could have been spent showing Reed stretching and contorting his body in more creative ways. He was an exceptional scientist in the movie, but he was somewhat lacking in the superhero department.
Again, I enjoyed The Fantastic Four: First Steps overall, and I look forward to being able to stream it with my Disney+ subscription, if not just buy my own copy. But when we reunite with the Fantastic Four in Avengers: Doomsday, I just hope that Mister Fantastic can use that amazing stretching of his… well, more fantastically.
