Book Review - Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps – The Art of the Movie

The Artbook Collector
7 hours ago
8 min read

Updated: 17 minutes ago

December 1st 2025

The Fantastic Four: First Steps hit the big screen in 2025, inviting fans into a new universe to meet the latest version of Marvel’s First Family, as well as their 60’s retro-futuristic styled world. As is tradition, an artbook is here to explore the artwork that helped create the stunning visuals from the team at Marvel Studios!

Marvel Studios’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps – The Art of the Movie Deluxe Edition changes up the format again, now adding a ‘Portfolio’ and calling itself a 'Deluxe Edition'. As a big fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, I’ve been curious to jump in and see if this book justifies its new title and $150 price tag.

Build Quality

The slipcase comes in at 30cm x 27cm and like the previous releases, is thick and protective, not just decorative. I have always liked the quality of these, so no change there. The book itself is also the same size as the others at 29cm x 24.5cm, but this time has 256 pages, a 32-page increase from the long running page cap for the other books post-Endgame. The paper inside is thinner than you get in most artbooks, but normal for Marvel. While I would like to see this improved, especially in a ‘Deluxe Edition’, it helps a little as the binding is again pretty stiff with no flexibility, although the pages do open a little better than in previous entries.

The 5 lithograph prints seen in the other slipcase formats still do nothing for me. They were used to justify the last price increase, but they are lower quality than found in other artbook special editions, coming on a piece of card that is sized awkwardly like the book, so the art doesn’t fill the space. Nothing changes for me here, despite the artwork on them being great.

Onto the big one, the ‘Future Foundation Portfolio’ additional extra, the biggest reason for the price tag! So what is it? 32 pages of art held together by two staples... I knew it was small going in, but thought there had to be more to it, yet I fail to see why this couldn’t be included in the main book, other than to hike the price up again. The paper is a small improvement over what is in the book, although most won’t notice, and it only has a card cover, so I can’t say I’m impressed here. Overall, great slipcase, decent book, and poor extras, not the best start.

Content

This is where things improve though, as the art for the movie is superb throughout the book. There is a lot on display here, including characters, costumes, the city, the Baxter Build, the Fantastic Four Spacecraft, storyboards, building interiors, and more. I found it to be very well balanced too, not neglecting any part of the movie.

The art comes in a mix of styles, such as the realistic character pieces we see often from the likes of Ryan Meinerding, but also 3D models, sketches, and more stylised images that focus more on a scene or action. The larger range of art styles has become more common in the Multiverse Saga artbooks, something I really appreciate.

Alongside the artwork are insights on the characters themselves, design choices, influences from the comics (especially from Kirby), and the production of the movie. This is all interesting to read and compliments the artwork on the page, especially when hearing from the artists themselves like Meinerding, Wes Burt, Rodney Fuentebella, Jana Schirmer, and more. The actors, producers, Director Matt Shakman, and others are also interviewed and give details about their thoughts and work.

Highlights for me include the concept art of the city and architecture, showcasing the retro-futuristic style with some incredible views from afar, as well as at street level. There is even a piece from Ryan Meinerding seen below that stood out, especially as he often focuses on character art. I also liked the interiors too, for both the Baxter Building’s unique areas and the very different feel of The World Ship, home of Galactus.

A couple of spreads of storyboards were great to see too, as they aren’t always included in the Marvel books. Keyframes are littered throughout and are spectacular, with some capturing moments not seen in the movie, always an exciting part for me.

As expected, the character art remains a strong point for Marvel, continuing to showcase some of the best in the industry. The pages for Galactus will be a favourite section for many and those that love costume design are well fed too, as there is a lot shown for the team’s time on earth and in space. Exploration of the team’s powers is also very interesting, like the radically different ideas for Sue’s forcefield and Reed’s more extreme stretching. Seeing Reed Richards using his powers here in fun ways will be frustrating for those that wanted to see this in action though, as the movie did very little with it!

I could go on about highlights, as there are many, but there are some negatives for me too. First, the dark print quality does make a small return to make art unclear, nowhere near as bad as it has been, but a handful of images do suffer. I was worried about the Galactus art in particular, but these images look great, so I’m not sure why the artbook series has had this problem when this example shows it can be done well, even with its blacks and dark purples.

The Thing, who should have the most interesting designs is underserved, because it’s only one design shown for him on his dedicated pages, with some costume changes explored. He has some slightly different looks in art for the group posed together, but I was hoping to see early and unused concepts for his face and body, even Mole Man gets a better showcase with 6 spreads of his own. The other member of The Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer make up for it though.

As for the ‘Portfolio’, you get some technical drawings, designs, and blueprints for the Baxter Building, FantastiCar, H.E.R.B.I.E., lab devices, the baby stroller, and more. There is some nice stuff here and it’s presented as in-universe, though it has no notes for insights. The contents do nothing to change my mind on it not needing to be separate from the book, it could have been a unique chapter at the end. You can see a page below.

Overall, Fantastic Four fans will be very happy with what is in this book, there is a lot of brilliant art to enjoy and interesting insights to read. It’s one of the strongest releases from the last few years for content.

Credits

A quick part of the review for Marvel as always, because they credit the artists on every page and list them in the back too. They have been consistent on this and it’s always the best way to do it!

Use of Space

The page design for The Fantastic Four: First Steps – The Art of the Movie is very strong throughout, with the pages being filled and the layouts being clear and readable. It’s another aspect the books have been very consistent on, to the point I could have pre-written this paragraph before even looking inside. I’m always very happy with this part of the review for the series and don’t expect that to change.

The binding does cause less image loss than has been seen in some of Marvel’s other artbooks, but it doesn’t avoid it completely. Text next to the centre fold does end up on the bend of the pages because of the lack of flexibility, but this has also been much worse. It’s still not ideal though and after it being an issue for so long, it should have been fixed by now by either adjusting the page design (which I wouldn’t do after just praising it!), or improving the binding itself. Again, it’s not as bad as we have seen before.

Value

Well, I think this is what some people will be jumping forward to read, because the book has an RRP of $150/ £134, which is quite frankly offensive to collectors of the series. It’s not all bad news, but allow me to vent first.

The books when sold alone were $60, which were on the high end for artbooks, especially capped at 224 pages with not the best build and print quality on the market, but the art made it worth it. The jump to $100 by adding a slipcase and 5 below average prints was something I’ve not been happy with in prior reviews, as the value wasn’t there. Now though, for another added $50—the price of an entire 200+ page high quality artbook from other publishers—you get an extra 32 pages in the book and 32 pages stapled together as an ‘extra’.

Needless to say, this is awful from a value perspective and I would struggle to agree to $100 RRP for this when considering higher quality books with more art and content can be bought for a third of the price. This is ‘Deluxe Edition’ in name only, because it certainly doesn’t feel like it in execution. There is also no standard edition, so it was already a misleading title and a standalone book would have been most welcome.

For this price, you can buy 3 of Titan Books’ re-releases of the older Marvel books as part of their Infinity Saga series instead, coming with up to over 300 pages, the same quality of art and content, but with better paper, binding, and print finish. Marvel should be looking to others like Dark Horse, Titan Books, and Abrams Books as to what their quality and pricing should be, because this is pretty awful.

But, and this is a big but, either by design, or because retailers can’t shift copies, the discounts on this book have already been heavy, even before its release. Comparing on Amazon as I always do for consistency, in the US it is 26% off at $111.46, and 41% off in the UK at £79.05. Given how quickly these books come down, either Marvel is playing a game to sell at a discount and their real target price, or copies aren’t moving. Given it’s the biggest franchise in cinema and yet the book can’t crack the top 100 in any Amazon book list, I would guess it’s a sales issue. The UK price I think is fair, the US price is coming close, but I think at over $90, it’s still tough to recommend.

As someone that has all of the artbooks for Marvel Studios, it’s painful to see this and I hope they don’t do another ‘Deluxe Edition’, because there isn’t enough added value here. They haven’t listed any future artbooks yet, but Daredevil: Born Again is confirmed to be getting one and I want to believe they have been waiting to see the sales before making their next move. I’d love for them to go back to just a slipcase, or better yet just the book. Without a steep discount like I got this time (I paid £80), I won’t be getting another in this format.

Verdict

Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps - The Art of the Movie is a frustrating release, because there is a wonderful book here, but it’s held back by the ongoing missteps of the publisher. The artists at Marvel continue to create artwork that deserves to be seen, showing why they are some of the best to ever do it, with page design and insights that compliments their talents. However, the team behind the pricing and production of the books are out of touch, making the series that was once the easiest to recommend, now a ‘wait for a discount’ line of books.

Calling this a ‘Deluxe Edition’ at $150 is a stretch that Reed Richards would struggle to pull off. I sincerely hope that Marvel dial it back, lower the price, make them affordable, and actually promote the books themselves to get people interested, rather than leaving it to the artists on social media. There is gold here, I hope they return to letting it shine again soon! If you find a good discount though, this will be a welcome addition to your collection.

If you’re interested in Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps - The Art of the Movie and would like to add it to your own shelf or keep and eye on discounts, you can do so here;