Fantastic Four: A Cosmic Surprise that Restored a Bit of Faith in the Marvel Universe

Aug 14
3 min read

Updated: Oct 16

Darkmeter 7 ⚫

There’s something I didn’t expect to say in 2025:

Marvel surprised me… in a good way.

Let’s talk about Fantastic Four, directed by Matt Shakman (WandaVision), starring Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm, Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm, Ebon Moss-Bachrachas The Thing, Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards y Ralph Ineson as the voice of Galactus. Big names, yes, but what matters here is that the film isn’t just riding on an A-list cast. There’s story. There’s heart. And, for a moment, there’s hope.

Broken expectations

I’ll admit it: I had lost faith in the MCU.

After so many autopilot stories, lacking love, care, or characters you truly care about, I was ready to tune out. But Fantastic Four… is different. Ironically, it feels far more human than most recent Marvel films.

Family at the core

How much “fantastic” does Fantastic Four really have? All of it.

It’s the story of a family defending its ideals, protecting those they love, and refusing to give in to cynicism. They don’t seek power for the sake of power or empty glory. They just want to do the right thing… and when a threat emerges that could consume the entire world, their drive isn’t ego or revenge—it’s the simple will to protect life.

In the middle of it all, the movie offers something I haven’t seen in Marvel in years: A fierce motherhood. Sue Storm isn’t just “the Invisible Woman,” she’s a mother ready to fight to the ends of the universe for her child. There’s an honesty in that portrayal that resonates even if you’ve never read a Fantastic Four comic.

The villain that isn’t

Galactus isn’t framed as the cliché “I want to destroy the world because I can” villain.

No. Here, he’s something bigger, more cosmic, more inevitable. A force that understands life and death from a perspective humanity can barely comprehend. This isn’t a punch-and-laser fight. It’s an encounter with the incomprehensible.

As the light that bring the light Julia Garner as Silver Surfer, It's exquisite, to say the least. You feel like she's a being who has transcended emotions, not out of power or indifference, but rather to avoid feeling the guilt of her actions, manipulated by a being that mere mortals can't understand, only try to stop. I hope to see much more of her in future installments.

Moments that land

Some scenes made me cry, others made me laugh, and quite a few reminded me why I fell in love with comics in the first place.

It doesn’t reach the emotional heights of James Gunn’s Superman (review here, inside this very discrete link), but it has something special: a closeness I didn’t expect from Marvel at this point in its history.

The good, the bad and what matters

It’s not flawless. Some actors don’t get enough time to shine, and the powers aren’t the focus (which might be a sin for some fans). Plus, their introduction into the MCU feels a bit rushed.

But there’s one valuable thing: you don’t need to watch anything beforehand or prep with ten previous shows to understand it. In today’s oversaturated Marvel era, that’s almost a miracle.

My hope is that they know how to use the fantasy family in the future and that they don't depend entirely on what happens in the rest of the stories to come.

What it says about us

If Superman is what we aspire to be, Fantastic Four is what we are.

It shows our flaws as individuals and as a society, but also our virtues. It speaks about empathy, care, and those small gestures that shaped us when we were kids: a hug, a word, an act of protection. Not always from a biological mother—sometimes from a grandmother, an uncle, a friend, or a teacher. But they form us. And this film gets it.

Conclusion

Go see it. Don’t expect it to change your life or reinvent the genre, but do expect it to remind you why, despite everything, we still go to the movies to watch superheroes. Because sometimes, they can still surprise us.