When Marvel unveiled the first trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, one thing was immediately clear. This is a different style for Marvel than we’re used to. Pair it with DC’s Superman reboot, and 2025 suddenly looks like the year of bright, retro superheroes. While some vibrancy and earnestness feel long overdue, the mid-century vibe is a little more complicated than it seems.
Bring On the Hope
Both Superman and Fantastic Four — or, at least their early promo — lean into a Silver Age gloss. The colors are saturated, the action is sleek, and the heroism is earnest. They’re deliberate contrasts to the prior DCEU’s grimdark aesthetic and the quip-a-minute snark of the extended MCU.
The very idea of the superhero is a character who fulfills our fantastical longings; they can embody what we wish were true in our own world. Post-9/11 fears brought us the “become the dark to defeat it” of The Dark Knight. A growing sense of moral unease brought us movies like Iron Man and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, with tales of how easily corruption oozes in. The social media age brought us quip-tastic Guardians of the Galaxy. And so on…
The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Superman both feel like a reaction against the “gray”-ness of recent years. Against the literal darkness and grayscale of everything from movies to interior design, sure, but also against a gray, gloomy mood. The colors are vibrant. The characters have good hearts. Will a brightly-colored superhero movie about good people earnestly trying to do the right thing fix our world? Of course not. But it sure does feed our diminished stores of hope.
Put a Little Love in Our Hearts
One of the biggest signs that Fantastic Four and Superman are leaning into the joy? Both of their trailers focus a surprising amount on romance. Romance — both the genre and the plot element overall — is an easy target for cynicism. It’s dismissive as cheesy, frivolous, or unrealistic.
Unrealistic… in a genre where we happily agree that human-appearing aliens can fly and cosmic radiation can give people quirky superpowers. Sure, let’s go with that.
Obviously, we don’t know how either movie’s storylines will actually play out. But in the trailers, it’s refreshing to see romance 1) foregrounded and 2) played just as earnestly as the rest. None of this jaded stuff, none of this too-cool self-awareness. Just the pure romance of Lois Lane and Superman levitating while they kiss (or making out in the kitchen). Just the pure joy of Reed Richards being the superpowered wife guy.
The way a story treats love (romantic but also platonic) typically corresponds to how it’ll treat other “soft” concepts. I’m psyched for the idea of big, splashy blockbusters that say, “Hey, you know what? It’s actually really cool to be kind, honorable, and compassionate.”
Retro Vibes, Not Vintage Values
There’s a caveat to all this, though. It’s delightful to see the retro vibes — literally, in the case of Fantastic Four. That deliberate retro-futuristic setting taps into the hopefulness and sky’s-the-limit imagination of the early Space Race. And that’s great! It’s part of the whole optimism-not-cynicism package.
But I’m also approaching it with a perspective borrowed from the fashion world. Among vintage clothing enthusiasts, there’s a saying: vintage style, not vintage values. It means enjoying the retro aesthetic without over-romanticizing the actual time period. Superman has it easier. It’s set in the modern day, with the “retro” vibes coming from the styling and the gee-shucks earnestness.
The Fantastic Four trailer hints that the movie might play around with those mid-century expectations. As the trailer opens, Reed and Sue appear to be doing a promotional fluff piece of some kind, cheerfully telling their “guests” how they make sure to have dinner as a family every night. I’m fascinated to see how they’ll balance these elements in the movie proper, especially given the deliberate ambiguity around what era (and what universe) the story takes place in.
And I hope that we, too, can celebrate a spirit of curiosity and optimism without falling into the “things sure were great back then!” trap. After all, on our own earth, the era these movies evoke wasn’t just a time of glamorous aesthetics, but one of fierce determination to achieve progress in all areas of society – no matter how hard it got. Maybe a little old-fashioned hope is what we need, as long as we bring that optimism with an understanding of the present day and a spirit of, well, truth and justice.
Take a look at the first teaser for The Fantastic Four: First Steps below!
