It’s been a long time coming, but the Fantastic Four are finally back in the spotlight. Between the team making their Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in The Fantastic Four: First Steps this July, the One World Under Doom event shaking up the mainline comic universe as Ryan North continues his acclaimed run on the property, and NetEase’s hero shooter Marvel Rivals making the F4 the focus of Eternal Night Falls (the first post-launch season), 2025 is shaping up to be the year that Marvel’s First Family reclaims their position as one of the Marvel universe’s core pillars.
Yet the fact that they were ever not is a crime in itself. The 2010s saw the Fantastic Four lose a lot of their luster between their comic series being cancelled from 2015 to 2018, Josh Trank’s 2015 reboot becoming one of the worst-received comic book movies of all time, and supporting cast members being removed from cartoons and video games, such as Doctor Doom not appearing in Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite despite being a series mainstay. That’s all set to change in 2025, with all the new media featuring the Fantastic Four being a much-needed correction. Let’s take a look at how we got here and why 2025 is the year of the Fantastic Four.
The 2010s: Less Than Fantastic
The 2010s were a pivotal decade for Marvel’s ascension to the top of the pop culture pyramid because of the rise of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Avengers were one of Marvel’s longest-running brands going as far back as 1963, but they weren’t household names in the same way Spider-Man or the X-Men were until Marvel Studios turned the likes of Iron Man, Captain America and Thor into superstars. Now, we’re happy that those long-standing Marvel heroes are as beloved by the general public today as they are by us nerds. But the rise of the MCU also had a dark side in how it dealt with the franchises Marvel Studios didn’t have access to on the movies side, where competitors they needed to outshine controlled certain characters. In particular, we're talking about the Fantastic Four and X-Men licenses once held by 20th Century Fox.
At the height of MCU mania in the mid-2010s, Marvel moved away from Fantastic Four and X-Men merchandise in favor of boosting properties they’d produced or were developing into films. That would be one thing, but the Fantastic Four also suffered the indignity of having their comic cancelled over the situation. Longtime Marvel writer Jonathan Hickman, who wrote the Fantastic Four book from 2009 to 2012 and is currently working on Ultimate Spider-Man, confirmed that Marvel stopped publishing Fantastic Four “because of their disagreement with Fox.” That Marvel resumed publishing the main F4 book when Disney was in the process of purchasing 20th Century Fox is most likely not a coincidence. Not to valorize corporate consolidation, but Disney reacquiring the Fantastic Four film license seems to have opened the gates for the characters to make their return to prominence in both comics and adaptations.
It’s important to remember that despite no longer being at the height of their popularity, we wouldn’t have a Marvel universe without the Fantastic Four. Their debut in 1961 was the genesis from which Stan Lee and Jack Kirby launched nearly all of the Marvel characters we’ve come to know and love in the time since, and their book featured the first appearances of many Marvel icons such as Doctor Doom, Silver Surfer, Galactus, the Watcher, Black Panther, Adam Warlock, Agatha Harkness, the Skrulls, the Kree, the Inhumans and more. That pedigree alone should permanently guarantee them a spot in Marvel’s main pantheon, but you’d be hard-pressed to find any media about the Fantastic Four beyond their own comic from the past decade or so. Luckily, we now know things are about to turn around.
2025: The Return of the Fantastic Four
It’s crazy to realize that the Fantastic Four will finally join the MCU a mere 17 years (!) after it began, but better late than never, we suppose. The Fantastic Four: First Steps is the second reboot of the Fantastic Four film franchise (third if you count the unreleased 1994 film), and will bring the F4 back to the big screen. The excitement for First Steps is a far cry from where we were 10 years ago, when Fox’s last attempt at an F4 film left fans worried that we’d never see the First Family in live-action ever again. It’s hard to overstate just how doomed (ha) the Fantastic Four felt when Fant4stic (as the title was stylized) bombed in theaters back in 2015. But now that they’re back in Marvel’s hands, we know that we’re not just getting a new take on the Fantastic Four, but that they’re also set to be major players in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, where the team will confront Robert Downey, Jr’s Doctor Doom.
But it’s not just the movies. Ryan North has been penning the main Fantastic Four comic for the past couple of years, and will also be writing Marvel’s big 2025 crossover event One World Under Doom. This series will feature the Avengers and Fantastic Four dealing with a world where Doctor Doom has not just taken up the mantle of Sorcerer Supreme, but is also the self-declared Emperor of Earth. It’s not the first time Doom has conquered the planet (see David Michelinie and Bob Hall’s Marvel Graphic Novel #27: Emperor Doom from 1987 and Jonathan Hickman and Esad Ribić’s 2015 Secret Wars for his previous successes), but placing the Fantastic Four’s greatest nemesis at the center of their publishing year is surely a calculated effort on Marvel’s part to push the Fantastic Four franchise into the limelight as they prepare to make Doom their new Thanos for the Multiverse Saga.
And most pressingly, the Fantastic Four are set to join Marvel Rivals as the first batch of post-launch playable characters in Season 1: Eternal Night Falls, where the F4 and the rest of the hero roster must confront Dracula and his legions in New York City. Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman will join the battlefield on January 10 as the game’s newest Duelist and Strategist respectively, with the Thing and the Human Torch making their debut later in the season. The team’s robot companion HERBIE will also appear as a map item, with heroes needing to escort the little guy through the vampire-infested NYC. Making the Fantastic Four the focus of the first full chapter of Rivals’ overarching narrative shows how important they should be to every version of the Marvel universe.
It took some time, but with the Fantastic Four now back in movies, comics and games, hopefully we never again have to go through an extended period without Marvel’s First Family.
Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Bluesky.
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