The Fantastic Four: First Steps is finally here, and now seems as good a time as any to take a deep dive into the movie's final act. As the trailers have laid out, the Silver Surfer comes to Earth to warn its heroes that Galactus will soon devour the planet.
The team manages to track the villain down to his ship and learn that he'll spare Earth in exchange for Franklin Richards, a baby imbued with the Power Cosmic. Galactus believes the child will take his place, finally freeing him from his endless hunger.
They refuse and, after trapping the Silver Surfer in a wormhole, they return to Earth, where Mister Fantastic comes up with a plan. By using his bridge technology, he'll move the Earth to a similar solar system across the Galaxy, buying humanity millions of years before Galactus finds them again.
Unfortunately, Shalla-Bal arrives and races across the planet, destroying them one after the other. Before she can get to Franklin, Johnny uses pleading messages from the other planets she's chosen for the Devourer of Worlds to appeal to her humanity, and she leaves.
That still leaves Marvel's First Family with the Galactus problem, so with one remaining teleporter in New York, it's decided that they'll have to use Franklin as bait. When Galactus steps into that teleporter, they'll send him to the edge of the universe, leaving him stranded without a ship and unable to return.
When the villain arrives in the Big Apple, he heads straight for the trap, but sees through the Fantastic Four's plan, calling them "clever ants." On his way to the Baxter Building, he effortlessly dispatches of the Human Torch and The Thing (who is thrown into space), and stretches Reed to his breaking point before snatching the baby.
The Invisible Woman, who was piloting the Fantasticar before Galactus caused her to crash, wakes up and sees him taking off with her child. With an immense display of power, Sue manages to use her force fields to push the Eater of Worlds towards the teleporter, and while Reed pleads with her to stop, she insists he, Ben, and Johnny rescue their child.
Reed manages to get his son back, and Galactus is forced through the portal. However, he reemerges, prompting the Torch to make a heroic sacrifice...only for the Silver Surfer to return, hurling herself and her master into the unknown.
Tragically, the strain of overpowering Galactus has killed Sue, and despite attempting to revive her, there's no hope. The Invisible Woman is dead.
The baby Franklin struggles to see his mother, and placed on her chest, his hands glow and she's revived (her eyes briefly glow with the Power Cosmic). It's a happy ending, and in the movie's closing moments, the "Fantastic Five" are once again set to appear on Ted Gilbert's show. However, they're alerted to a new threat and leave just as the curtain opens.
Outside, Reed, Ben, and Johnny struggle to fit Franklin's car seat in the Fantasticar, and he team eventually takes off to continue protecting their world. If you'd like to know what happens in the post-credits scenes, you can learn more here.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps is now playing in theaters.