The time to speculate about who will play the Fantastic Four in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has ended… but fans are now open to speculate about every other aspect of the developing blockbuster centering on Marvel’s First Family. Reading articles and social media with that in mind, one of the most popular details that folks have latched on to is the upcoming film’s setting. When Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, and Joseph Quinn were announced as the stars of The Fantastic Four, people were quick to point out that the new logo and style of the Valentine’s Day-themed artwork have a distinct 1960s aesthetic.
If this hypothesizing turns out to be true, a 1960s setting would certainly be an appropriate choice for the movie (it was the decade when the team was created and a key period in the space race), but it would open up a big question about the heroes’ MCU future: if the Fantastic Four have been around since the mid-20th century, where have they been?
It’s a fair question when looked at within the boundaries of the laws that govern the universe as we know it. But that’s not what the Marvel Cinematic Universe is. The MCU is a wild, physics-bending reality where the fantastical occurs regularly. Through a science-fiction lens, there are a number of things that could explain the absence of the Fantastic Four, and we’ve put this feature together to break a few of them down.
Trapped In Time
People are so concerned about how the Fantastic Four will eventually move forward in time… but what if the problem is that one of their adventures accidentally and irreparably sent them back in time? It’s possible that the team will be left in a circumstance that sees traveling to the past as their only option, and it may take another hero traveling back in time to find and save them. Time travel is already on the table in the MCU thanks to Avengers: Endgame, so it exists as a viable option.
Lost In The Multiverse
While Avengers: The Kang Dynasty may be a project that is up in the air, this is still The Multiverse Saga, right? Crossing into parallel dimensions can be tricky business, and it’s possible that Reed Richards and his team will cross into an alternate reality and either not be able to get back (a la the characters in the TV series Sliders) or find themselves doing damage control (a la the Marvel comic Exiles). The biggest problem with this idea is that fans just saw a character get lost in the multiverse at the end of The Marvels, so doing something similar with the Fantastic Four might feel like a repeat of the same idea.
Stuck In A Pocket Dimension
This is similar to the “lost in the multiverse” idea, but a tad bit different. In addition to there being alternate realities in the vast multiverse, there are also pocket dimensions that exist within realities – and it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the Fantastic Four has been lost in one of them. Again, however, the big problem with this concept is “been there, done that.” If you go back and watch the Marvel movies in order, you'll notice that it was all the way back in Ant-Man that pocket dimensions were first established in the MCU with the Quantum Realm, and one of its defining qualities was that it was where Janet van Dyne got lost after shrinking to subatomic levels. If Marvel was going to go with this approach, they should have had family of superheroes make their canon debut in Ant-Man And The Wasp: Quantumania.
Kept In Some Kind Of Stasis
So far, these ideas have all involved the Fantastic Four being active somewhere away from 21st century Earth, but what if they haven’t been active at all? It would perhaps be riffing a bit on Captain America spending decades being frozen in a chunk of ice, but it’s possible that the team has spent years trapped in some kind of stasis. This could be explained as being part of an experiment that has gone wrong, or…
Imprisoned By A Super Villain
Either kept in stasis or not, there’s valid reason to worry that the Fantastic Four has spent years in the clutches of a supervillain (I’m not going to specifically say Doctor Doom, but know that I’m thinking it). It may be that a foe has decided that a life imprisoned is worse than death, and they have secretly been keeping Reed, Sue, Johnny and Ben captive.
Traversing The Cosmos
All of the scenarios mentioned above would be perilous circumstances for the Fantastic Four, but let’s look at it from a different angle – which could be called the Captain Marvel Angle. It’s very possible that the reason we haven’t seen the team on Earth is because they are busy elsewhere in the vast universe. Let’s not forget that these heroes are astronauts who are given their powers while exploring outer space, so the idea that they have been planet hopping away from Earth is a totally reasonable explanation for their absence for the last half-century.
They’ve Been Living Quiet Lives
This one is a long shot, if not especially because one of the Fantastic Four team members is a giant rock monster. That being said, I can’t rule out the possibility that these heroes spent many years secretly saving the world from catastrophes, and after multiple decades, they have hung up their blue costumes and are happy to let the Avengers take center stage. Obviously they won’t be able to stay in retirement once we see them in action, but perhaps they have enjoyed a nice stretch of peace.
After years and years of waiting, Matt Shakman’s The Fantastic Four is scheduled to arrive in theaters on July 25, 2025. Be sure to stay tuned here on CinemaBlend for more about the exciting upcoming blockbuster, and remain on top of everything coming down the pike from Marvel Studios with our Upcoming Marvel Movies and Upcoming Marvel TV guides.
