The Fantastic Four: First Steps features four fantastic cameos you probably missed

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is set on Earth-828, meaning there’s no cameos from MCU characters that we know and love, but hardcore fans might recognise four faces that very briefly appear.

Fantastic Four: First Steps plays out in an alternate Earth that’s different to the planet depicted in previous Marvel movies.

This is a retro-futuristic world where the only super-powered beings on the planet are the Fantastic Four, and in First Steps, they face their greatest challenge when Galactus arrives with divine powers of his own, and plans to eat up Earth.

So there’s no crossover with other MCU characters, as that’s being saved for 2026 release Avengers: Doomsday. But actors from the F4’s controversial past do pop up throughout the movie if you know where to look.

Old Fantastic Four actors appear in the new movie

Back in the early 1990s, Roger Corman made a Fantastic Four movie that never saw the light of day. We tell that story in an article about the movie Marvel doesn’t want you to see, during which everyone involved seems to cite a different reason for the film being buried.

But it’s clear that the actors who played Marvel’s First Family had no idea their efforts were doomed, making it a somewhat tragic tale for the very first Fantastic Four.

But that sad story has a happy postscript this week, as the quartet all make surprise cameos in First Steps, so here’s who they played in the original, and how they cameo in the new movie.

Alex Hyde-White was Reed Richards in the 1994 movie, and in the new film plays ABC anchor William Russell, who announces the birth of Fantastic baby Franklin to the world. Rebecca Stab was Sue Storm in the original, and is Channel 9 newscaster Carolyn Haynes here.

Jay Underwood was Johnny Storm and Michael Bailey Smith was Ben Grimm previously, and in First Steps the duo play Power Plant workers who salute the Human Torch early in proceedings.

And while the launch of their F4 movie was cancelled back in the day, all four actors attended the First Steps premiere earlier this week, and you can see them beaming on the blue carpet above.

Fantastic Four is in UK theaters now and US cinemas tomorrow. For more F4 action, find out why Fantastic Four takes place on Earth-828, when to take a bathroom break during the movie, how parenthood inspired First Steps, plus where to get the Fantastic popcorn buckets.