Today is April 4, written out in both Europe and the Americas as 4-4-2024. Marvel Studios has a very vested interest in the number 4, since the mega-studio’s biggest and most interesting project on the docket right now is next summer’s Fantastic Four. This is a perfect recipe for a Fake Holiday: 4-4 Day, when the Marvel Studios account tweets out some (very neat) looking art and a link for “celebration.” And while its too early for said festivities to include any footage, that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of teases here.
First, there’s that art, which is very much in line with the teaser art that announced the Fantastic Four cast. Two things of note here:
- The Human Torch’s design, which seems to be heavily inspired by artist Alex Ross’s take on the Torch from his series Marvels. Technically that story’s about a different fire guy, but the important thing is that it’s a visual interpretation we’ve not yet seen before in the previous Fantastic Four films.
- That skyline! All signs point to this movie being a period piece, but the retro-future cityscape behind Torchy seems to hint at something a little different than that. Another timeline? An alternate universe? Something that was in the MCU and then was wiped from everyone’s mind, Men In Black style? Who knows!? That’s what Reddit’s for.
Then there’s that link, which leads to a cute 404 page with HERBIE the robot suggesting you look around for a not-very-hard-to-find QR code.
Image: Marvel.com
That code leads to a page from the Future Foundation, which includes a small bundle of free comics: Fantastic Four #1, #48-50, and Fantastic Four: Life Story #1. These are, respectively, the group’s ’60s origin story and the revered Galactus trilogy by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, and then a modern reinterpretation of those stories by Mark Russell and Sean Izaakse. This, taken in conjunction with the period setting and Julia Garner’s recently-announced casting as a version of the Silver Surfer named Shalla-Bal, strongly suggests that Fantastic Four will attempt to be a definitive take on the Galactus epic, where a world-eating alien arrives on Earth and Marvel’s First Family is the only thing standing in his way.
This was previously done poorly in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, with Matrix star Laurence Fishburne voicing the Surfer and the towering Galactus portrayed as a… CG cloud? It was very disappointing.
Regardless, this is the most fun Marvel has made its movie marketing in some time, a nice, stylish low-key rollout, with a hint of the personality that’s been missing from the studio output for a while. Is it a prelude to a bigger tease or announcement, perhaps during next week’s CinemaCon in Las Vegas? Or will we have to wait until another 4-themed holiday? Maybe during the PGA championship in May? Because “fore” sounds like “4?” I’m sorry.