“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” sold itself as a stand-alone picture — an increasingly rare quality six phases into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. MCU architect Kevin Feige himself called the movie a “no-homework-required” adventure, having no ties to any past Marvel entries. While this is true, “Fantastic Four” does set up the future of the MCU in a significant way.
It also establishes a potentially massive problem for Marvel’s upcoming “Avengers” event films.
Read on to discover how “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” leads into the next MCU films, and how it potentially wrong-foots one of Marvel’s greatest characters. Obviously, this article contains major spoilers, so you might want to check out the movie before you continue. Come back once you’ve had a chance to meet the family.
How does “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” end?
When the Fantastic Four — including a then-pregnant Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby) — meet Galactus (Ralph Ineson), the cosmic devourer makes the quartet a deal: he will spare the Earth in exchange for Sue and Reed Richards’ (Pedro Pascal) child, Franklin Richards. Galactus senses the power cosmic within Franklin, thus allowing the child to replace him in his eternal quest to sate his hunger. Galactus triggers Franklin’s birth as the Fantastic Four escape from his ship and his herald, the Silver Surfer (Julia Garner).
When the Fantastic Four return to Earth, they devise a plan to escape the planet’s annihilation at Galactus’ hands. Using baby Franklin as bait, the four — with the aid of the Silver Surfer — manage to send the cosmic being to the other side of the cosmos. After Sue overextends her powers, she briefly dies before being resurrected by her infant’s cosmic powers.
In a mid-credits tease, Sue and Franklin appear in the Baxter Building four years after the primary events of “First Steps.” When Sue goes to fetch a book for her now-four-year-old child, she returns to a disturbing sight: Doctor Doom (played by an unseen Robert Downey Jr.) kneeling in front of her child, with Franklin reaching for his face. Doom, hidden by a green cloak, holds his iconic mask in his hand for the audience to see.
And therein lies the issue.
Does Marvel have a Doctor Doom problem already?
When Marvel Studios announced at San Diego Comic-Con 2024 that Robert Downey Jr. would return to the MCU to portray Doctor Doom, it caught fans by complete surprise. Many thought Iron Man’s dramatic conclusion in “Avengers: Endgame” closed the door for a Downey return — at least, for some time.
Just months before the announcement, Downey won Best Supporting Actor at the Oscars for his supporting role in “Oppenheimer,” seen by many as a post-MCU push toward “serious” acting. Seeing him return to Marvel just five years after Iron Man’s death felt like whiplash.
The choice of character made the announcement all the more surprising. While many fans hoped that an MCU adaptation of Doctor Doom would involve the character’s Romani origins, Downey’s casting marked a clear pivot from that.
And that’s not the only element Doctor Doom fans feared they would lose. Robert Downey Jr. is, to put it mildly, the single most expensive thing you can put in an MCU movie. According to Variety, Downey’s return required Joe and Anthony Russo to also come back to the directors’ chair for the fifth and sixth “Avengers” movies. The Russo Brothers are reportedly set to earn $80 million for “Avengers: Doomsday” and “Avengers: Secret Wars,” with Downey being paid “significantly more.”
With this kind of price tag on the table, one has to assume that Marvel Studios has a very pointed reason for putting this actor in that role. For this reason, it’s hard to imagine that Downey’s Doctor Doom will be entirely unrelated to his portrayal of Tony Stark — two characters that, though certainly not strangers, don’t have the most significant relationship in Marvel Comics.
This brings us to the mask.
An immediate concern for the MCU’s portrayal of Doctor Doom arose with Downey’s casting: if Marvel Studios shelled out this much money, if they cast someone who played the MCU’s most recognizable character, would they really hide him behind a mask? If they did, it would create an eternal elephant in the room, with casual audiences wondering why Downey’s presence went unseen and unacknowledged.
But if they didn’t, they would sacrifice a key characteristic of one of Marvel Comics’ biggest characters. This always felt more likely.
With the mid-credits scene of “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” things are off to a maskless start. Though it’s only a brief cameo (one where Downey’s face can’t even be seen), the image of Doom holding his mask in his hand teases that audiences will indeed see the man beneath the hood. This isn’t a mask seared onto his face, nor one he avoids removing at any cost. This Doctor Doom takes his mask off himself while kneeling before Franklin Richards.
Is this a brief, contextless scene? Absolutely. Is it a good start for the character? Probably not.
Does the mask really matter that much?
Doctor Doom’s mask is not just a mask.
The harsh, menacing metal that adorns Victor von Doom’s face provides a window into the villain’s foibles and insecurities. The mask signifies his vanity, covering up the evidence of an egotistical mistake that left him permanently scarred. It highlights his coldness, refusing to ever again let anyone or anything pierce his personhood. It’s all of the character’s shame, menace and personality wrapped up in a single image.
And it never comes off.
The very first look at Downey’s rendition of Doctor Doom, brief though it may be, appears to show him voluntarily removing his mask before Franklin Richards. This immediately signals yet another significant departure for the character, one where the iconography of Downey battles the iconography of Doom.
Doctor Doom is one of Marvel’s most significant characters to never receive a proper adaptation. Prior portrayals of Doom, while not all bad, fail to capture essential elements of his character. In neither Tim Story’s “Fantastic Four” nor Josh Trank’s “Fant4stic” does Doom employ magic.
In casting Downey, the MCU has forgone the character’s Romani heritage — an element that plays deeply into his origin and arc. Ahead of “Avengers: Doomsday,” the MCU failed to build a relationship between Doom and Reed Richards. Now, it looks as if what fans long suspected is confirmed: Downey’s portrayal of the character will be, at the very least, less reliant on his mask than any traditional take on the character.
These traits — Doom’s relationships, his heritage, his mask — aren’t just aesthetic decisions. They are core to the popularity and poignancy of the character. You could probably do the character without them, but at that point, is it really the same guy?
It’s fair to say, “Of course they’ll want to show Downey’s face” or “This is a new interpretation.” This is the deal that’s been cut with the MCU. It’s possible, and even likely, that Downey will give a strong performance as Doctor Doom — in the MCU, he’s never done any less. Yet it feels increasingly likely that the actor will overshadow the role he’s playing.
Fans waiting for their dream adaptation Doctor Doom will likely have to wait a bit longer.
