What Fantastic Four's Herbie The Robot And Fantasticar Almost Looked Like

While they wound up not being included in the final cut of the film, Josh Trank’s Fantastic Four was originally going to feature two notable elements of the franchise’s mythos: H.E.R.B.I.E., the superhero family’s robot friend, and the flying vehicle known as the Fantasticar. The two inventions found their way to the cutting room floor before the movie hit theaters – but now we have an idea of what they both may have looked like.

On his personal Facebook, artist Fausto De Martini has revealed that he did some concept art work for Fantastic Four, and has revealed a few designs that he came up with for the feature. To start with the H.E.R.B.I.E.s, you’ll notice that there is a very homemade design to Martini’s approach. Rather being constructed as a result of a military-funded project, this little guy appears to be made of LEGOs, a webcam, and some spare parts.

The artist’s second design for H.E.R.B.I.E. is similar to his first – particularly the very bottom – but there are some key differences. For example, it looks like there’s some inspiration from WALL-E in the binocular-esque eyes. It’s also a bit smaller in the midsection:

Let’s move on the Fantasticars, shall we? To start with my favorite one, this design is really the most practical of the bunch. It looks like it was made out of one of the junked sports cars from Ben Grimm’s lot, but at the same time is outfitted with all the right kinds of Reed Richards tech. I will say that the giant spikes on the front are a bit much.

Remember what I was saying about appreciating the "junked car" look of the first version? Well, Fausto De Martini chucked that concept out the window for this next design. This time around it seems that Reed and Ben got their hands on a super flashy muscle car and turned it into a flying vehicle:

But that’s not all! It seems that the artist thought the studio might appreciate a semi-nod to the Transformers movies by making the Fantasticar, well, transform:

Finally, we have the silliest of them all. Serving as a kind of halfway point between the two previous designs, this version of the Fantasticar has pretty much all of the same gizmos and gadgets, but is mostly just a Winnebago:

Do you have a favorite? Do you wish at least one of these could have made it into the final cut of Fantastic Four? Hit the comments with your thoughts.