FANTASTIC FOUR: FIRST FOES Brings the Frightful Four Into the FIRST STEPS Universe

Marvel’s Fantastic Four: First Steps universe is not done cooking, and this December the First Family is getting the kind of headache longtime comic readers know can turn a normal afternoon at the Baxter Building into complete madness. Fantastic Four: First Foes – The Wizard #1 brings Bentley Wittman into the movie continuity, and he is not arriving alone. The Frightful Four are coming with him.

The one-shot comes from writer Fabian Nicieza and artist Mark Buckingham, with Buckingham returning after drawing the full run of First Foes specials tied to the film universe. Marvel has been using these books to fill in adventures from before the Fantastic Four’s confrontation with Galactus, essentially giving the movie’s retro-futuristic world a comic-book backstory without forcing every idea into a two-hour film.

Bentley Wittman has one of those beautifully comic-book motivations that never really goes out of style: he is brilliant, he knows he is brilliant and it drives him absolutely nuts that Reed Richards gets the applause. So what does a totally reasonable genius do about that? Apparently he tries to steal the Baxter Building. Comics, fam. You have to love this stuff.

To pull it off, the Wizard creates his own sinister answer to Marvel’s First Family, the Frightful Four. For longtime readers, that is a much bigger addition than simply dropping another villain into the First Steps universe. The Frightful Four work because they twist the Fantastic Four’s family dynamic into something competitive, unstable and dangerous. They are not just four bad guys standing together for a team photo.

That makes them a great fit for this particular version of the FF. First Steps built an entire aesthetic around celebrity, science, optimism and a public fascinated by its superheroes. A villain obsessed with proving his intellectual superiority has plenty to attack beyond Reed’s gadgets. Reputation itself becomes part of the battlefield.

Buckingham has described his time on the five one-shots as a run of creative firsts, including opportunities to collaborate with Matt Fraction, Charles Soule, Greg Pak, Dan Slott and now Fabian Nicieza. More importantly, Marvel has positioned these comics as a direct bridge between Marvel Studios and Marvel Comics rather than simple movie tie-ins that exist off in their own forgotten corner.

That distinction is what makes this experiment worth watching. Movie universes usually expand through another movie or streaming series, where budgets, actor schedules and production timelines immediately become part of the equation. Comics can walk through a door the film only mentioned and spend twenty pages showing you what was on the other side. For the Fantastic Four, a franchise built on exploration and impossible ideas, that is almost too perfect.

Nicieza is also a writer who understands how much fun continuity can be when it is treated like a toy box instead of homework. Reimagining the Wizard and Frightful Four inside the visual language of First Steps gives him a chance to preserve what makes those villains recognizable while asking what they would look like if this had always been their universe.

And come on, the Fantastic Four have one of the deepest villain benches in comics. Doom gets the spotlight for obvious reasons, Galactus is Galactus, but there are decades of weirdos, geniuses, monsters, explorers and cosmic lunatics waiting for this world to discover them. If these specials keep opening that vault, Marvel has plenty of material before anybody needs to repeat themselves.

Fantastic Four: First Foes – The Wizard #1 goes on sale December 9, 2026, with art by Mark Buckingham and covers from Phil Noto, Betsy Cola and Buckingham. The Frightful Four are officially stepping into the First Steps universe, and if Marvel is serious about letting comics explore the corners the movies cannot reach, keep this experiment going.