Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is out in theaters, and the highly-anticipated sequel just introduced an antagonist who may very well become a hero in the MCU after Black Panther 2. It’s unclear where this MCU mutant might appear next, but Fantastic Four is always possible, given the comics. Speaking of Namor (Tenoch Huerta), an insider also addressed the upcoming Fantastic Four reboot, dropping an interesting and mysterious tidbit about the film.
Apparently, the main action in Fantastic Four doesn’t happen in the present-day MCU, which is an essential detail for the overall MCU timeline. Before we can elaborate, you should know this is a significant spoiler, so you might want to steer clear if you want to be surprised.
There’s still a lot we don’t know about Fantastic Four right now. We only have a new release date, February 14th, 2025, as Disney pushed the original premiere back by several months. And we know that WandaVision director Matt Shakman will helm the project.
Marvel still hasn’t announced the main cast, as the search for the First Family continues. We saw plenty of exciting rumors about the potential Fantastic Four team members. The latest development points to William Jackson Harper as the MCU’s Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic.
Specifically, that rumor says the actor has a mysterious role in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. That’s a movie where the main action might occur in the Quantum Realm, which is outside the regular flow of time. That’s an important detail, considering the following Fantastic Four rumor.
The Fantastic Four timeline
According to YouTuber Grace Randolph, Fantastic Four will be a Mad Men-esque period piece. That is, the film happens in the ’60s rather than present-day MCU. That’s some 60 years before the events we witnessed since Avengers: Endgame.
Randolph did not reveal more details about the plot of the movie. And we have no idea how the Fantastic Four will get themselves trapped wherever they get trapped. After all, we expect them to jump into the present-day, and they should be in the mix in time for Avengers: Secret Wars.
The connection to some Quantum Realm event certainly makes sense. That’s just speculation, however.
Randolph, who has been the source of many accurate Marvel leaks, mentioned Fantastic Four while discussing Namor’s future appearances in the MCU. We know from Wakanda Forever that he’s been alive on Earth for about 500 years, so he was certainly around in the ’60s.
Nobody discovered the Talokan until Wakanda Forever. And if the Fantastic Four did meet Namor, they never shared the secret. Disappearing to some mysterious place in the ’60s would be one way to keep this secret.
Whether or not this Fantastic Four plot detail is accurate, we’ll note a couple of other exciting developments concerning this team of superheroes.
Recent rumors claimed that Deadpool 3 will revisit Fox’s Marvel universe, including the 2005 Fantastic Four team. Furthermore, Kevin Feige reportedly supposedly wants to have a massive number of superhero cameos in Secret Wars from all sorts of universes. The list includes other Fantastic Four teams from the Fox stories.
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