Previews for 'Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps - The Art of the Movie' Revealed

The Artbook Collector
Aug 4
5 min read

August 4th 2025

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is out now in cinemas, introducing us to Marvel Studios' take on the family of super-powered astronauts, as well as Silver Surfer and Galactus. As is tradition, an artbook is also on the way for the movie, titled Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps - The Art of the Movie. Currently set for release on November 18th 2025, preview pages are now available to give you a taste of what to expect.

Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps - The Art Of The Movie placeholder cover

The previews, as seen below, can be found on retailer websites and aren't typically shared for Marvel Studios' books, at most you get the cover art and the description. This is nice change, because these are artbooks after all, it's important to see what you are buying, especially as some can be wildly different from one another. Marvel sticks to the same formular for their movie artbooks, which isn't a bad thing, but potential new buyers of the long-running series won't know what to expect, so this is good way to get more people interested that come across a listing online. In the previews, you can see full spreads, which includes the artwork, insights, and artist credits that the books have always been good at implementing. The resolution isn't the highest, but it's enough to give you an idea of what to expect. In the first sneak peak you can see a double page spread of Galactus with Mr. Fantastic on his thumb, shown to be much larger here than he is in the movie. The credit for a large piece like this is given on the next page due to lack of space, but it is from Head of Visual Development Ryan Meinerding. The second preview is a spread of concepts for Silver Surfer, also with art from Meinerding. It explores her look with commentary on how Meinderding and Director Matt Shakman worked together to create her look, such as using 'age-tarnished versions of a mirror' while working on the iconic reflective design.

Above art by Ryan Meinerding

The third preview is an interesting look at a keyframe of Marvel's First Family taking on a giant robot created by Mole Man, a homage to Fantastic Four issue 1, originally featuring Giganto. The art was created by Rodney Fuentebella who is a long-time concept artist at Marvel. Those that have seen the film will notice Reed's use of powers as they are being used more significantly here than the on-screen depiction, wrapping around the robot multiple times. It also showcases drilling machines, with designs created by Thomas du Crest.

The final page is a keyframe of the heroes together from artist Wesley Burt. The commentary on this page notes that 'Earth 828', the designation of this Universe's Earth, is in honour of the creator of the characters, Jack Kirby, as his birthday was on August 28th. Kevin Feige also speaks on this page about his choice to have Shakman as the Director and bringing on Production Designer Kasra Farahani, who both worked on Loki, which also had a unique retro-inspired visual design to its world.

Top pages by artists Rodney Fuentebella and Thomas du Crest, bottom pages by Wesley Burt

Previews aren't the only thing unique to this artbook in the series that began with The Art of Iron Man in 2008, but it's also the first to come with two volumes, 'The Art of the Movie' and 'Portfolio'. What this Portfolio book is isn't entirely clear, as in the description it is simply described as having 'a stunning gallery of never-before-seen artwork', which is true for the more than 50 artbooks they have already released.

The early Infinity Saga books, running through to Spider-Man: Far From Home - The Art of the Movie, came with a slipcase and no page cap, often going above 300 pages. The slipcase was then dropped and the pages capped at 224, ending with the release of Marvel Studios' Loki: Season Two - The Art of the Series that is being published imminently on August 5th after series of delays. The slipcases came back and brought with them new lithograph prints, the last was for Marvel Studios' Captain America: Brave New World - The Art of the Movie, with the next being based on Thunderbolts.

The unfortunate talking point about the book though will be the price. This was already increased to $100 to bring back the slipcase, which you can read in any of my reviews for these books doesn't feel justified from a value perspective. This release though is now $150/ £134, triple the price of most artbooks on the market. The final details have yet to be confirmed though, it was first revealed with a page count of 400, then 256, and now 288 on Amazon listings. Assuming that 224 will continue to be their page cap in the 'The Art of the Movie' volume, the additional value has to be tied up in this new mystery book, so it will be interesting to see what they finalised details are because it's unlikely to be just 64 pages.

Outside of this and now putting on my hat as a reviewer of artbooks, my only concern is that in 3 of the previews there are images that cross the centre fold, which can and has caused image loss in previous Marvel Studios' artbooks. It can be avoided with good binding and positioning in the page signatures, but despite the high quality of the artwork and books in the past, Marvel have had the same issues reoccur multiple times in recent years. Examples of this can be seen below.

Top page from Marvel Studios' Captain America: Brave New World - The Art of the Movie. Bottom from Marvel Studios' She Hulk: Attorney at Law - The Art of the Series.

I point this out not to put people off buying the book, as I would still recommend the series in spite of the few issues they have, but to give my honest take as to what I see. To end on a positive though, everything else is looking great as expected with clear layouts, artist credits on the pages and, of course, the incredible talent of the visual development team on display. It's in a prime position to be a strong entry for the movie tie-ins because of First Steps unique retro-futuristic style of its world, no doubt putting this on the radar of those that enjoyed the movie.

If interested in more from Marvel Studios, you can check out my reviews of their most recent releases here, which includes an entry from the ongoing Titan Books' rereleases for the Infinity Saga artbooks;

If interested in ordering Marvel Studios' The Fantastic Four: First Steps - The Art of the Movie ahead of its release on November 18th, you can do so below;