THE FANTASTIC FOUR Director Matt Shakman Reveals How Jonathan Hickman's Comic Book Run Inspired FIRST STEPS

THE FANTASTIC FOUR Director Matt Shakman Reveals How Jonathan Hickman's Comic Book Run Inspired FIRST STEPS

The Fantastic Four: First Steps director Matt Shakman has penned a foreword for a new release of Fantastic Four: Solve Everything, and reveals how Jonathan Hickman's work has inspired the next MCU movie.

By JoshWilding - Jun 03, 2025 05:06 AM EST
Filed Under: Fantastic Four
Source: Variety

After helming WandaVision, a TV series still widely considered one of Marvel Studios' best, filmmaker Matt Shakman moved on to The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

Spider-Man: No Way Home helmer Jon Watts was originally attached to direct, but Shakman wasn't a last-minute hire and made the movie his own. While Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's early Fantastic Four comic books were an obvious inspiration, so too was Jonathan Hickman's game-changing run.

Variety has shared Shakman's foreword for the new Marvel Premiere Collection release, Fantastic Four: Solve Everything. That collects issues #570 - #588, written by Hickman with art from Dale Eaglesham, Neil Edwards and Steve Epting.

We're sure some of you will comb through these remarks for clues, and Shakman's mention of The Bridge, for example, stands out as a concept he's potentially adapted for the MCU. 

The Fantastic Four: First Steps' trailers have confirmed that Mister Fantastic is investigating the Multiverse, while Thunderbolts* showed the team arriving on Earth-616. Many fans hope the Council of Reeds, also mentioned by Shakman, factor into Avengers: Doomsday

You can read Shakman's foreword in full below. 

I fell in love with the Fantastic Four when I was a kid growing up in Ventura, California. Encountering a family of super heroes that felt so familiar blew my mind: the humor, the heart, the sniping and griping, the messiness. At the same time, I was taken by the optimism and wonder of their world. With their roots in the ’60s space race, the F4 have always been about exploration — whether it is to the cosmos or the Negative Zone or deep into the human mind. Reed, Sue, Ben and Johnny may have incredible powers, but they are family first, scientists and explorers second and super heroes only when absolutely necessary.

Every Marvel filmmaker attempts to build on what has come before in publishing while simultaneously reinventing the characters for the current moment. The same is true with comic creators. What Lee and Kirby launched in the ’60s changed Marvel forever. Their bold gamble to center a realistic family turned into the biggest hit of the early Silver Age. Every artist and writer since has attempted to build on that legacy while finding something in the characters that made them sparkle anew.

In preparation for Marvel Studios’ 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps,' I delved into the 60-plus years of comics history. Marvel’s First Family has been continuously cared for by the best and brightest the company had to offer. None shone so bright as Jonathan Hickman. The humor and heart I loved as a kid? It’s there and better than ever. The messy family dynamics? Made even more interesting as Val and Franklin take center stage. And that sense of optimism and wonder? I don’t think the Fantastic Four have been quite as fantastic as they are in the pages of this book.

As we developed the script for the film, I returned again and again to this epic run — thrilled by brain-bending innovations like the Council of Reeds and riveted by heroic standoffs against the likes of Annihilus. But it was Hickman’s deep insight into the specific family dynamics of the Four that affected me the most.

His Reed Richards is part Steve Jobs and part Oppenheimer, always on the edge of saving the world or destroying it. The author runs right at Mister Fantastic’s weakness: believing that he can and should do it all on his own. Reed is determined to “Solve Everything” — but he learns that the cost of solving everything is… everything. Ultimate knowledge risks ultimate sacrifice: the loss of his family.

Sue has come a long way from the 'Invisible Girl' of the early ’60s. In these pages, she is part United Nations Secretary General and part Field Marshal, backing up diplomacy with force when necessary. Hickman’s Sue may be the most powerful member of the Four — she’s the glue that holds the world together while Reed experiments in the lab with things that could destroy it. She brokers deals as the world’s finest diplomat, ending up as the Queen of the Sea. In one of my favorite F4 moments, she declares to Namor, 'I am a Queen that bows before no King.' Damn right.

How do these two very different people make up the greatest marriage in comics history? We see, page after page, that the secret is their unique balance of heart and mind. Before Jerry Maguire, these two completed each other.

Sue and Reed are relatable not just as partners, but also as parents. We understand their anxiety, fretting over the destiny of Val and Franklin just as I fret over my 9-year-old daughter’s future. I cherish the family intimacy of scenes in the Baxter Building and never doubt that these parents love their children and would do anything to protect their future. I know that Johnny and Ben would do the same.

And we know that, as super heroes, they will fight just as hard to protect our world.

Having absorbed six decades of F4 publishing, many of Hickman’s magical moments and unique character dynamics stick with me. And they made it into our film in small and large ways. From Sue as a diplomat to Reed trying to solve everything even at the risk of imperiling his family. Johnny’s need to be taken seriously. Ben’s gentle nature, forever at odds with his appearance. The Future Foundation. The Bridge. The mystery of children and the anxiety we have as parents about their future.

Hickman is a poet, of both the everyday and the extraordinary. His work beats with a heart as big as Sue Storm’s, rendering an emotional journey that culminates in a scene that makes me tear up every time I read it. (I won’t ruin it… just wait for 'Uncles.') His writing is thrilling, thought-provoking and tender…and, like the characters he writes about, fantastic.

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Pictilli
Pictilli - 6/3/2025, 5:57 AM
Damn.... he understands all that and really seems to get it and have a great handle on the characters from what he says here...

And yet....

....despite all of that...

...the best he can give us is female Silver Surfer, Pedro refusing to shave for Reed, awful Ben Grimm casting & Thing voice?

Sad.
ProfessorWhy
ProfessorWhy - 6/3/2025, 6:07 AM
@Pictilli - none of us have seen this yet. From what I've seen, FF appears to be more comic accurate than Superman..... yet you have put a saddle on James gunns genitalia and are riding off into the sunset. Sad
SuperCat
SuperCat - 6/3/2025, 6:00 AM
User Comment Image
AgentofSH1ELD
AgentofSH1ELD - 6/3/2025, 6:27 AM
Heres the thing I like.. and maybe its a case of "justification".. Reed isnt a super hero. He is a nerd. A Geek. He has extraordinary abilities and is able to use those to solve problems and if absolutely necessary, fight.
This is why I liked Ioan Gruffards Reed. He needs to be Sheldon but with more control. For some reason, I think Pedro is going to smash it. Even with that God-awful mustache.
dragon316
dragon316 - 6/3/2025, 6:45 AM
Like short sleeve look reed have in comic panel for this news
KennKathleen
KennKathleen - 6/3/2025, 6:59 AM
"None shone so bright as Jonathan Hickman. The humor and heart I loved as a kid? It’s there and better than ever. The messy family dynamics? Made even more interesting as Val and Franklin take center stage. And that sense of optimism and wonder? I don’t think the Fantastic Four have been quite as fantastic as they are in the pages of this book."

User Comment Image

I'm ready to see where this goes. I do want it to win. The words are on point.
KingZero
KingZero - 6/3/2025, 7:05 AM
It must be hard to be a creative within a big studio, and working with big talent too. Pedro probably mandated not shaving his moustache (though it fits nicely with the retrofuturist aesthetic), the studio went with his star power/brand, and Shalla Bal was probably a studio mandate as well (I'm sure this will be justified narratively, and Norrin Radd will show up down the line- where he's not a supporting player in a busy ensemble with a lot of work to do). Trying to create something you're happy with while negotiating studio mandates, actor contracts, an aggressive fanbase and 60 years of source material and then fit that within an existing framework of near 20 years of onscreen mythology AND alongside concurrent projects in development sounds like really hard work. A privileged position to be in, no doubt, but hard work nonetheless. I hope it's great.
TheVisionary25
TheVisionary25 - 6/3/2025, 7:15 AM
@KingZero - I feel Shalla Bal and Pedro’s casting were both a creative decisions since the latter has known Shakman for a long time…

Obviously though , his popularity will help the film which likely the studio doesn’t object to
DocSpock
DocSpock - 6/3/2025, 7:13 AM

If you elect Pedro, all your wildest dreams will come true.

WEAPONXOXOXO
WEAPONXOXOXO - 6/3/2025, 8:20 AM
@DocSpock - "I will build her a cake."
DocSpock
DocSpock - 6/3/2025, 9:05 AM
@WEAPONXOXOXO -

And I will draw her portrait. I hope I get the shading right on her nose.
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