November 1st, 1961: Artist Jack Kirby and writer Stan Lee release the first issue of their new series, The Fantastic Four, introducing the world to Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, Johnny Storm/Human Torch, and Ben Grimm/The Thing. Later dubbed “The First Family of Marvel,” they would become a cornerstone, if not the entire foundation, for the industry titan Marvel Comics would become. Now, The Fantastic Four joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe as their 37th film and its subtitle, First Steps, seems less a moniker for the family of heroes and more a harbinger for what’s to come in the Avengers: Doomsday, slated for December 2026. Now available on home video, The Fantastic Four: First Steps brings with it over 40 minutes of bonus materials which include behind-the-scenes peeks at the making of the feature and feature-length commentary from director Matt Shakman (WandaVision) and production designer Kasra Farahani (Loki), each piece inviting audiences to delve just a little deeper into the marvelous world introduced here before it all falls apart.
L-R: Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm/The Thing, Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman, and Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios’ THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS. Photo Credit: Jay Maidment. © 2025 20th Century Studios / © and ™ 2025 MARVEL.
Four years after a cosmic storm transformed regular scientists Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn), and Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) into beings with super powers which helped them subdue a series of villains from hurting the populace of the world, Reed and Sue find themselves beginning a new adventure with the discovery of Sue’s pregnancy. Their joy is short-lived as, soon after, a silver herald riding a surfboard (Julia Garner) appears in Times Square to announce the upcoming arrival of Galactus (Ralph Ineson), the Destroyer of Worlds. Boarding their spacecraft Execelsior, the four head into space to gain information on Galactus in order to develop a plan to protect the Earth only to discover they are profoundly out of their depth and that the cost of saving Earth may be more than these superheroes can bear.
The following home release review is based on a 4K UHD digital edition provided by Walt Disney Home Entertainment.
It’s a strange experience watching First Steps as the pacing perfectly moves the audience from stake-setting in the cold open to the initial meeting of the characters to introduction of this world to escalating stakes as the Silver Surfer (Garner) enters the picture creating a sense of a lived-in universe despite this being our first exploration of it. However, on the flip side, one also feels short-shrifted because we don’t learn much about the characters outside of who they are within the foursome, a choice which rewards comic readers and limits MCU-only audiences. For instance, there’s a ferocity to Sue (played excellently by Kirby (Mission: Impossible – Fallout)) which comic readers will recognize as one of the traits that not only make her formidable as a member of The Fantastic Four, but are also how she’s able to handle Reed, why she’s respected by Doctor Doom, and why Namor is enamored with her. Within the scope of the film, Kirby’s Sue is the anchor for the family, but that seems to stem more from her position as soon-to-be-mother with a tragic backstory of the loss of her own. While the comics explore Sue existing as both a hero and a mother, the film, by failing to explore her more deeply, leaves Sue often feeling as a character reduced to one narrative cylinder despite her great significance to the other characters and to the narrative’s arc. Conversely, for those used to seeing depictions of Johnny being the ladies’ man and a source of levity, First Steps presents him as more capable as both a pilot and a member of the team with his combative relationship with Ben portrayed more like close siblings than tussling divided generations. Thanks to the performances from the four, there are moments within the narrative that feel like pieces of gold, nuggets that convey so much about each of them, their character, their perspective, their compass, which make the characters less thin than they could be as their individual exploration is traded for group focus as they tackle the Galactus problem.
Perhaps because audiences are quite familiar with The Fantastic Four and less so with Silver Surfer and Galactus, more time is spent in the Josh Friedman (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes), Eric Pearson (Thunderbolts*), Jeff Kaplan (The Last of the Great Romantics), and Ian Springer (The Last of the Great Romantics) script to clearly identify who they are and their motivations. Before one gets angry, the character Garner plays, Shalla-Bal, was introduced in Silver Surfer #1 in 1968 and, though not as popularly known or depicted in popular culture as Norrin Radd, Shalla-Bal has been a Herald of Galactus in the comics and it appears that this Earth, Earth 828, is the one in which she takes up the mantle. Considering that 828 will somehow collide with 616 (or 199999, if you’re feeling feisty) through an incursion (setup in Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness (2022)), the appearance of Shalla-Bal feels both fun and shallow as we know that anything of this Earth is impermanent. That said, Garner gives the character a soulfulness that helps support the undercurrent themes of sacrifice that course throughout the film. The Four sacrifice their regular lives as scientists and explorers to protect Earth (no Avengers or other heroes seem present), Shalla-Bal sacrifices her autonomy to save her people, and Galactus is, himself, a sacrifice to whatever cosmic power keeps him woefully alive. This is, by far, the most interesting thing about the script, its subtle positioning of Galactus as an equally tragic figure who is eons old, capable of incredible feats of strength and size manipulation, operator of and wearer of advanced technology whose entire waking existence is painful in the search of sating his unending hunger, a hunger he longs to pass on as it was passed on to him. This portion is what shifts Galactus from a force of nature, an entity outside of good and evil who just *is*, to someone who, long ago, was an innocent stripped of choice and made a slave so that someone else could rest. There’s a profound center within First Steps and, often, one wishes that the script would stop focusing on the as-expected MCU action and delve more into this so that the culmination of conflict carries more weight; however, doing so is like asking a dog not to be a dog as the rule is to keep things peppy.
Director Matt Shakman on the set of 20th Century Studios/Marvel Studios’ THE FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST STEPS. Photo by Jay Maidment. © 2025 20th Century Studios / © and ™ 2025 MARVEL.
With this being a home release review, be advised that what follows was screened via a digital edition accessed through Apple TV. Before getting into the bonus features, I can’t say that I recommend it. The film itself looks fantastic and the creation of things like traveling through a wormhole or battling it out near a black hole are, well, marvelous. The dynamic range of color enables the little pieces of light to more significantly stand out against the varying shades of darkness which is important when inside Galactus’s ship to help differentiate between what’s ship and what’s the aged and worn being. That said, with it being a streaming edition, I’ve no way to track the bitrate to determine consistency of the visual elements; however, by virtue of being a streaming edition, it will still be lesser than the physical one due to the compression the video and audio elements receive via streaming services. Additionally, and more importantly, the whole of the experience was spoiled by vocal fry that jumped from one character to another without any kind of consistency. It first appeared with Mark Gatiss’s Ted Gilbert, which I thought might be a result of digital manipulation to make the character’s dialogue seem more archival when showing the anniversary footage, except it persisted throughout the film. Post-watch, I put on portions of TRON (1982) and TRON: Legacy (2010), both of which recently received 4K UHD remasters from Walt Disney Home Entertainment (full home review coming soon) to see if it was the surround stereo or the digital file and no vocal fry was present. Additionally, as the digital edition is also accessible with linked MoviesAnywhere accounts, the vocal fry is absent there, too. The fact that the digital edition is inconsistent is frustrating and the primary reason that I cannot recommend it.
In terms of the bonus features, this is where fans of the film will come away feeling rewarded. There are three distinct featurettes (“Meet the First Family,” “Fantastic Futurism,” and “From Beyond and Below”) which take audiences through everything from the history of The Fantastic Four to the adaptation to Earth 828 to the differences between this alt-Earth and what we know of the MCU to the production/set design that helped make the cinematic experience more concrete to a dive into the three figures who play a key role that audiences may not know: Paul Walter Hauser’s Mole Man, Silver Surfer, and Galactus. In each of these featurettes, we listen to cast and crew discuss the process of creation and their reactions to their specific portions, all while giving us a behind-the-scenes look at the making of the film cut against final footage. These three run around 35 minutes, plus a three-minute gag reel, six minutes of deleted scenes, and feature-length commentary,s providing several ways for hungry audiences to learn more.
Knowing that The Fantastic Four: First Steps is more introduction to these characters so as to introduce Franklin Richards, the child of Sue and Reed, ahead of Doomsday is the greatest frustration of the whole film, but it doesn’t stop the film itself from being enjoyable. There’s a lightness to it, even amid the dark questions it asks about life, death, and sacrifice on the micro and macro scale. Even as one finds themselves struggling to believe that Franklin can move the way he does for a child his age (I’ve got two and each developed in their own time, but come on), one can still find the joy and even the hope that First Steps seeks to inspire. Granted, we audience members know what would actually happen if a Galactus-type figure were to threaten our existence and our leaders would ask us all to make sacrifices in our current-COVID-19 society (big ole “you can’t tell me what to do” energy), but movies are meant to make us dream. And, on that, First Steps absolutely does succeed. Small favors to be sure, but it’ll all be worth it if this means Feige greenlights a Power Pack story. ::fingers-crossed::
The Fantastic Four: First Steps Digital Special Features*
- Audio Commentary – Watch the film with audio commentary by director Matt Shakman and production designer Kasra Farahani. (1:54:35)
- Meet The First Family – The creation of the Fantastic Four saved Marvel Comics in 1961 and has only flourished as years have passed. Matt Shakman and the cast explain how they found themselves gravitating toward each role and creating the ultimate family unit. (9:08)
- Fantastic Futurism – The filmmakers discuss the process of immersing the cast and crew in the film’s retro-futuristic aesthetic. Join Matt Shakman and crew as they discuss the experience of shooting in gigantic mid-century New York sets and stepping into an otherworldly era. (13:05)
- From Beyond and Below – The team explores bringing complex characters from the page to the screen, including a larger-than-life Galactus, grounded Harvey Elder/Mole Man, and an emotionally rich Silver Surfer. (9:37)
- Gag Reel – Enjoy fun outtakes on set with the cast and crew of The Fantastic Four: First Steps. (2:57)
- Five (5) Deleted Scenes – Check out the scenes that didn’t make the final cut. (6:26)
*Bonus features vary by product and retailer
Available on digital September 23rd, 2025.
Available on 4K UHD, Blu-ray, and DVD October 14th, 2025.
Available on Disney+ November 5th, 2025.
For more information, head to the official Marvel Studios The Fantastic Four: First Steps webpage.
Final Score: 3.5 out of 5.
Share this:
Categories: Home Release, Home Video, Recommendation, Reviews, streaming
Leave a Reply