We know a Fantastic Four reboot is a priority for Marvel, now that they have the rights to the First Family back from Fox. Kevin Feige confirmed at Comic-Con last year that a new movie featuring the team was in the works but as yet, no official word has followed this, so it seems like we won’t get the reboot until at least 2023. While we wait, then, this glut of rumored info may tell us what’s in store for the gang in the franchise.
Scoopster Mikey Sutton has dropped a lot of intel about the studio’s plans for the foursome this week, including the fact that Mole Man will be the first villain they face in their film. Though the character doesn’t have the fame of, say, Doctor Doom or Galactus, it would make sense to feature him in the reboot, seeing as he was the first villain they faced in the comics, too, making his debut alongside the team in 1961’s Fantastic Four #1.
For those unfamiliar, Dr. Harvey Elder serves as a ruler of a subterranean world and a race called the Moloids, mole-human hybrids, with his evil plots generally involving hitting back at the surface-level dwellers who shunned and mocked him all his life. Tim Blake Nelson previously played a very loose adaptation of Mole Man – renamed Harvey Allen – in 2015’s Fantastic Four, but whether there were any plans to do more with him in a sequel, we’ll never know due to the failure of Josh Trank’s effort – even Trank himself hates it.
Sutton also claims that the FF will be reimagined as explorers, with their movie taking them to strange lands, worlds and dimensions. Their origins will also reportedly involve the Negative Zone, potentially depicted as a pocket universe within the Quantum Realm.
Of course, we’ll chalk all this up as a rumor for now, but it would add up pretty neatly given what we’ve heard in the past. And as soon as Marvel make any official announcements on their plans for the Fantastic Four, we’ll be sure to let you know.
