Fans have finally met Marvel’s First Family. The Fantastic Four: First Steps hit theaters and there is one scene in the Matt Shakman film that really hits and stays with you. It is this movie’s “What is grief if not love persevering?”
**Spoilers for The Fantastic Four: First Steps lie ahead**
When tensions are high in Baxter Tower, there are things that are said in the heat of the moment that hurt the team. Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) says as much to Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) when he begins to think a little too analytically about Galactus (Ralph Ineson). The Silver Surfer (Julia Garner) comes to Earth-828 to tell the Fantastic Four that Galactus is coming. “I herald his beginning, I herald your end. I herald…Galactus,” she says and it weighs on the team.
But after they went to space to try to appeal to Galactus, it led to them putting a target on Earth-828 all because the team refused to give Franklin, Sue and Reed’s son, to Galactus. There are moments, however, when Reed clearly thinks about the logic behind not giving their son up to the being trying to eat their home planet. It leads to Reed and Sue fighting about the situation.
Reed Richards is very much a problem solver and so when it comes to his own family, it doesn’t instantly rule out keeping them completely out of danger because he has to analyze every scenario. Including one that would put Franklin right in the line of fire.
A perfect look at their relationship
Sue finally yells at Reed about the way he’s acting. ”Mathematical? Ethical? Available? It was so easy for you to say that,” she said as Reed revealed that he invites “the worst possible thing in my head to figure out how to hurt them before they hurt anybody else.” But as the wife of one of the smartest beings in the entire galaxy, it comes with a cost.
It is clear in their back and forth that Sue Storm just wanted her husband, in that one moment, to not be Mr. Fantastic and to be Reed, a husband and father who is willing to just be present and protect their son without thinking through every possible option, including the one where Franklin is on the table. “And you know what? Sometimes you being you, hurts me.”
It is such a simple line but when you look at their dynamic throughout the movie, Sue does let Reed get away with a lot because she knows that he’s trying to keep everyone safe. But when she needed him to be her husband and not a problem solver, he was still stuck in going through every single horrible scenario. And that line is one that I think many of us can relate to. Whether we are the one thinking of every bad thing that can happen or the ones who has to deal with us, it is a very relatable situation, Galactus, magical baby and all.
(featured image: Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
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