Rumors continue to swirl thick and fast around Spider-Man’s return to the MCU and one of them concerns a possible future team-up between Peter Parker and the Fantastic Four, who’ve recently been brought into the franchise after a long legal tussle and are set to make their debut in the cinematic universe’s Phase 5.
According to YouTuber Lord of the Long Box, Spider-Man will have a deeply personal relationship with the First Family of superheroes from Marvel Comics. In fact, Peter will show up in one of the Fantastic Four movies and apparently come to see Mr. Fantastic AKA Reed Richards as a mentor of sorts, both in terms of science and his personal life.
In previous films in the MCU, the role of being a mentor to Spider-Man, which had traditionally been served by his uncle Ben, was transferred to Tony Stark. The two had a much deeper relationship than work friends, and Peter was hit the worst by Stark’s death, even going so far as to trying to find a replacement father figure in the form of Mysterio, to disastrous effect.
Tony’s former home, the Avengers tower, is apparently going to be turned into the Baxter Building as well with the arrival of the Fantastic Four. And it’s the role of Tony in Peter’s life that Richards is supposed to fulfill, advising the young Spidey on scientific matters in addition to what it means to be a hero.
This sort of familial relationship between the webbed wall-crawler and Mr. Fantastic follows closely from the comics, of course. When Spider-Man initially got his powers, one of the first things he did was to try to become a part of the Fantastic Four. While that plan didn’t work out, Peter went on to become quite close with the team, even counting Johnny Storm among his best friends in the hero community.
It remains to be seen how much of this pans out when the Fantastic Four do finally make their debut in the MCU, and how the existing heroes in the cinematic universe react to the arrival of the group, but we’ll certainly let you know as soon as we hear more about what Marvel’s got planned for the gang.
