Scooper Jeff Sneider claims Doctor Doom won’t be the main antagonist of Fantastic Four but could be saved for a last-minute cameo. When Marvel announced the cast on Feb. 14, eagle-eyed fans spotted a copy of Life Magazine from 1963. Along with the ‘60s aesthetic, it suggests that the movie will take place around this time period. It would make sense if Doom appeared in the present-day MCU as a future threat for the team.
We can also speculate about how the Fantastic Four could end up in the modern day. Following in the footsteps of Captain America going under the ice, perhaps Marvel’s First Family became trapped in the cosmos in the ’60s, explaining why they weren’t around to help tackle Thanos. Could it be a nefarious Doctor Doom that brings them to the future or discovers them lost in space?
A bigger question: does the Fantastic Four movie need Doctor Doom at all?
Mole Man? We ‘Dig’ It
There’s an untapped rogues gallery of Fantastic Four villains, and despite Sneider maintaining Galactus will be the antagonist of the team’s origin story, we don’t see a franchise-shattering villain like the Devourer of Worlds being introduced here. Options from Psycho-Man to Molecule Man offer Fantastic Four a chance to give someone else a time to shine, although there’s another perfect candidate waiting in the wings.
As the first foe the Fantastic Four faced, and dubbed Marvel Comics’ first true villain by some, it would make a lot of sense for the Mole Man to show up in Shakman’s movie as the introductory baddie that unites the team. Appearing in 1961’s Fantastic Four #1, Harvey Rupert Elder was an outcast scientist who fell into the underground realm of Subterranea. Damaging his eyesight and taking on the mantle of Mole Man, Elder found his place as the leader of the Moloids and became a recurring thorn in the Fantastic Four’s side. Although we’re reminded of The Incredibles’ campy the Underminer, Mole Man could get an MCU-inspired revamp akin to Michael Keaton’s Vulture in Spider-Man: Homecoming.
A partially blind, short guy, ruling over cave-dwelling creatures is very much a product of the ‘60s, but that hasn’t stopped Mole Man from becoming a more serious threat over the years in the comics. Mole Man is known for his Deviant-bred monsters, and as well as giving a potential tie to Eternals, the MCU could deliver a real monster movie akin to Kong: Skull Island. If not, Mole Man’s first scheme of trying to trigger a nuclear World War III by setting the monstrous Giganto on chemical power plants would be easy to adapt into a ‘60s-set Fantastic Four movie. X-Men: First Class put its own spin on the Cuban Missile Crisis with great success, and as the US was still testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific Ocean in 1962, picture the scene where this forces Mole Man to come to the surface.