First it was Sue Storm who was Hispanic, now it's Reed Richards. So will the next reboot have it be Johnny or Ben?
Reed Richards is the Fantastic Four's patriarch and a scientific genius. Beyond his intellect, Reed possesses the superhuman ability to bend, stretch, and extend his body parts across far distances.
You see that word? "Patriarch"? That's why Jim Halpert didn't work as Reed Richards. Literally every instance of fan-casting seems to boil down to "this actor already has the right haircut" (or "a beard," in Jim's case), but for Reed Richards, if you're not going to make him play as the smartest guy in the room, then his second most important trait is that Big Dad Energy. And whatever you think about Pedro Pascal, he's definitely Hollywood's dad du jour; if anybody is going to be running around, taking care of little weirdos, it's going to be Pedro.
Since First Steps is taking place in an alternate reality, it's possible that this isn't the "permanent" Reed any more than Multiverse of Madness's was (though it does raise the question of why, if every other character looked identical between universes, does Reed get two very distinct faces?). This isn't our first 6" Pedro Pascal action figure, but this looks more like him than Din Djarin did.
Considering that the Fantastic Four are supposed to be wearing uniforms, it's kind of funny that no two of them are the same.
It's easy to pick out the difference on Reed's suit: it's blue, but it's missing the white collar section around the neck. That's not a paint mistake, either - look at the images from the film and you'll see that's how he's going to look. The costumes look like cable-knit sweaters, rather than any sort of spandex or armor, which helps fit with the film's retro vibe. (Of course, hockey fans already know the connection between sweaters and uniforms anyway.) It really is a good sculpt, when you get in there and look at it, with lots of seams and joins that make the outfit distinctly his and not just some off-the-rack number.
For something so mundane, the costume does look quite good. It's powder blue with white accents, which makes it a combo of the FF's two most iconic looks: the Lee/Kirby colors, and
the "John Byrne doesn't know what color 'black' is" colors. There's a 4 in a circle on his chest, and the belt, boots, and gloves have black accents to keep them from looking like he's wearing plain dish gloves or something. Hasbro even painted different colors on the soles of the boots! He's wearing some sort of silver device around his right wrist - the whole team is, but since this review is being written before the movie opens, we don't know what it is yet. Here's a guess you can laugh at later: it's something to help hold them in place in their non-native dimension. Reed is painted with stubble on his chin and a slight mustache, and there's a subtle greying at his temples.
The figure has open hands or alternate fists, and shows off his stretching powers by way of swappable rubber arms.
Even the hands on those are stretched out slightly, though since the arms are bendy, those hands can't be swapped. And there's no standard articulation anywhere other than the shoulders. We still think the old ToyBiz movie figure was the best way of doing this, but we're probably never getting that outside of some sort of "deluxe" figure ever again. Marvel Legends Max, maybe?
But speaking of articulation, at this point it feels like Hasbro is just screwing with us. You know how stupid it is that they're currently making Marvel Legends with no shin joints, as a way to cut
corners they thought no one would notice or care about. Of course, we did notice and we do care, so that's just one more thing to be wrong about. However, thanks to the way these costumes are designed, the legs and boots are molded as separate pieces and then glued together. Why the eff would you not just make that a joint when it's already being assembled like one? Don't square off the peg, leave it round and let the legs turn! For god's sake, you're putting as much effort into making a worse toy as you would have to put into making a good one. Stop trying to cheat us, Hasbro! The rest of the joints are standard fare, though we don't realy need a balljoint chest and a swivel waist; a balljoint and a hinge pair better. At least his head has a hinge instead of a barbell? We'll take our wins where we can.
Given that Pedro Pascal's whole thing right now is being the Team Dad, casting him as Reed Richards was a surpring yet appropriate choice. But also given that, how great would it be if this figure had included a little HERBIE robot to pair with him? I guess what we're saying is...
-- 07/28/25
Why are their uniforms not uniform? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.
|
