As Phase Four of the Marvel Cinematic Universe continues to trudge along, many fans are eager to see the long-awaited arrival of Marvel’s First Family in Fantastic Four. The film currently doesn’t have a release date and recently lost its director when John Watts stepped down. However, Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness shocked audiences when John Krasinski cameoed as Earth-838’s Mister Fantastic. Whether that means he will be playing the role in the main continuity on Earth-616 or it was a just a fun cameo, like his fellow Illuminati members, this reignited fans’ passion and interest in seeing the Fantastic Four soon, with some taking to Reddit to share their theories for how the team could be integrated and utilized.

The Spider-Man: Homecoming Approach

It’s important that introducing such important and storied characters as the Fantastic Four is done in a way that lets them feel authentic, yet new, in such a complex and intricate universe as the MCU. This Fantastic Four will be the third attempt at launching a Fantastic Four franchise in the past two decades, so some fans think it might not be necessary to do a traditional origin story – rather approaching the film like Spider-Man: Homecoming, in which Spider-Man already existed and the film just shared his story.

u/JingleJangleJin says, “Just open the movie in a cockpit. Ben is complaining that Reed didn’t put enough padding in his new bigger seat, Johnny lights his magazine on fire, and Sue puts a force-field between them. Then the countdown goes and we launch into the Negative Zone and fight Annihilus” Something like this would allow for the film to feel different than previous attempts. It’s not entirely necessary to see them get their powers.

Beware Of Incursions

As many people have surmised from the exploration of the multiverse thus far in Phase Four, it seems like the MCU is headed towards a Secret Wars storyline – in which multiple universes and alternate versions of characters clash as the multiverse resets – as its next major crossover event on par with Avengers: Infinity War. This was further confirmed with the introduction of incursions throughout Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.

u/HandlessTH thinks “things are being set up so the MCU can hit the reset button with an incursion event and if it goes how the comics went, we’ll end up with an MCU that has many new but familiar elements in it such as the X-Men and Fantastic Four alongside the Avengers.” This could mean that Fantastic Four is set up as an incursion plopping the Fantastic Four of another universe on Earth-616 where they become an important part of the MCU’s future.

Heroes Lost In Time

The Fantastic Four’s introduction and origins are incredibly important – whether the film operates like a traditional origin story or not – in establishing each character and the team as a whole as unique parts of the franchise. Fans don’t want to see the team feel or operate the same as any of the other heroes or teams. u/pzzaco came up with a potential solution.

They suggested that the Fantastic Four are “forgotten 60’s heroes who got lost and forgotten by the World. It would be an interesting angle for them to have a 60’s cultural mindset clash with modern sensibilities.” This would certainly make them stand out among the rest of the MCU, especially now that Steve Rodger has moved on.

A Cosmic Storm

They get their powers from exposure to cosmic energy and seeing that Phase Four is also expanding farther into the cosmos – such as with Kamala Khan’s power change in Ms. Marvel – perhaps it is best to keep the Fantastic Four’s origins close to the comics. While this could make the MCU film seem more similar to the previous Fantastic Four films, there are plenty of ways to make this cosmic energy look and feel different than those.

u/Tudorstreetrod goes further in also defining when we could see this in writing, “an end-credits scene at the end of guardians 3 of them in a spaceship getting caught in a cosmic storm.” Teasing the start of one team’s story at the end of another team’s seems like a clever way to introduce the characters’ origins ahead of their own film.

Stuck In The Negative Zone

At this point, the only thing fans know about the Fantastic Four film is that there is a Fantastic Four film. No casting announcements have been made public, though hopefully, that will change with San Diego Comic-Con coming up and D23 Expo in September. Nevertheless, that hasn’t stopped some fans from developing some creative theories and ideas for the film.

u/RichieTee says, “The 4 could be working with the 60’s version of SHIELD and Reed helps to design experimental technology to go into space to investigate “cosmic rays” this could lead them into some wormhole and into the negative zone.” Like other theories mentioned here, this could allow for the team to operate differently than others – and the negative zone would allow for Annihilus to serve as the first film’s main antagonist, instead of Doctor Doom, their archenemy.

From The Quantum Realm

Other fans have been looking at previous films to explain not only how the Fantastic Four got their powers, but also where they’ve been this whole time and why they are only now being introduced in the MCU. u/Background_Chance_47, like several other fans, are saying they could be in “the city that was ween in the quantum realm in Ant-Man and the Wasp,” saying they built it.

This would align with Janet van Dyne and Ava Starr gaining strange abilities from the quantum realm. It is one of the few options for becoming superpowers - being Wanda’s Hex in WandaVision; super-soldier serum or radioactivity; or interacting with cosmic energy. Alternatively, some believe that city could be the TVA from Loki and/or Chronopolis, Kang the Conqueror’s realm.

Old Friends of Hank

Many fans on Reddit believe that the Fantastic Four could be associated in some way with Ant-Man and Hank Pym. This would align with the comics since Scott Lang’s Ant-Man is a member of the team for some time. u/Probatsy thinks “they’ll introduce them in a similar style to Black Panther in Captain America: Civil War, maybe using Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania and the shenanigans within to do their origin.”

This could define the team as characters from the past like other theories – maybe having them, or at least Reed Richards, being colleagues of Hank Pym and/or Janet van Dyne. They could be sought out in the past to help combat Kang, one of their classic enemies in the comics, thus bringing them into the main continuity to set up Fantastic Four.

Wakanda, Atlantis, and the Fantastic Four?

Recently it was finally confirmed Namor is the next villain/anti-hero to be joining the MCU, being played by Tenoch Huerta in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. Not only is Namor important in Marvel as one of their oldest characters and a mutant, but also since he’s been both ally and villain to several other characters, including the Fantastic Four.

u/SaltifiedReddit thinks Black Panther: Wakanda Forever leads into Fantastic Four, saying following the former, “Namor will be dropped off in new york with no memory…Then the classic storyline happens where Namor gets his memory back and they fight him and his giant fish monster, and a post-credit scene happens where dr doom goes to talk to Namor.” This could mean that Namor could be an antagonist in multiple films – before taking on his own film to serve as the protagonist.

From The Future

While some fans have looked to the Fantastic four as characters from the past in the MCU, others say they could come from the future instead. u/EightBiscuit01 writes, “the MCU’s Fantastic Four come from the future in one of the nexus events created by Sylvie, and at some point, they are reinserted in the timeline into the present day.”

Seeing as Loki unexpectedly introduced Johnathan Majors as He Who Remains, a variant of Kang, it would make sense that Fantastic Four could be introduced in some way related to the show. Interestingly, having them travel back in time would make them more similar to Kang, and thus their eventual fight more compelling.

The Kang Of It All

Several fan theorists are also looking at Kang the Conqueror to explain why the Fantastic Four haven’t been in the MCU thus far. Whether as He Who Remains or Kang, u/ScratchMarston18 thinks “it’s possible that he pruned Reed and the rest of the F4 from timelines and placed them into a pocket dimension (Negative Zone) to keep them from interfering with his plans.”

This would mean that the Fantastic Four could be introduced in some way in Loki or, like others think, in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. If they were pruned, it would likely mean that they were sent to the Void to be destroyed by Alioth – though Kang would likely have to place them elsewhere to protect his own reality, since he is a descendant of Reed Richards.