Warning! Minor spoilers ahead for Fantastic Four: First Steps!
Stan Leeinvented the modernMarvelUniverse, but in the decades since,the publisher has arguably lost sight of what made Lee’s characters, and his stories, so distinct, something encapsulated by the character of Franklin Richards,from theFantastic Fourfranchise. Now, the second-generation character’s MCU introduction inFirst Stepshas reignited debates about his role in Marvel lore.
In a 2011 interview published inAlter Ego#104, Stan Lee discussed the milestone introduction of Sue and Reed Richards' child in a 1968Fantastic Fourissue.
Lee acknowledged that time’s passage in the Marvel Universe doesn’t correspond to the real world, yet hestressed the importance of character progression, something contemporary Marvel Comics stories struggle with.
Stan Lee Introduced Franklin Richards To Add A “Realistic” Note To The Fantastic Four, A Lost Art In Marvel Comics
Lee’s 2011 Comments ToAlter EgoMagazine Shed Light On His Creative POV
The Fantastic Fourwere created in 1961 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, inaugurating the Marvel Universe as it is recognized today. That iswhy the team are known as “Marvel’s First Family,” something their long-awaited entry into the MCU honors by makingFirst Stepsa period piece, contemporaneous to the Four’s actual debut.
A critical part of the film revolves aroundthe birth of Franklin Richards, son of the Marvel Universe’s first true superpower-couple, Mr. Fantastic and the Invisible Woman, mirroring Franklin’s debut in 1968’sFantastic Four Annual#6. However,despite nearly sixty years of history, the comic version of Franklin is only canonically a teenager.
Time in the Marvel Universe has never been 1-to-1 with real-world time, nor was it meant to be. Yet, as Stan Lee explained inAlter Ego#104, the lives of his heroes were never meant to be totally static either. Here is Lee on Franklin Richards’ origin:
In trying to be realistic, as we always did … Sue Storm and Reed Richards in The Fantastic Four had been married for quite a while, and I figured the most natural thing in the world would be for them to have a baby. Then it occurred to me we could have a lot of fun with that, because we would assume that if two people with super powers have a baby, the baby might have a super power. But what super power would he have? And we could keep the readers guessing for years until the baby grew up. … Of course, Sue’s pregnancy took about a year and a half or two years, because comic book time is somewhat different from real-world time. And we wanted to stretch that out as long as we could while we tried to figure out whether she’d have a boy or a girl and what to name it. We finally decided on a boy named Franklin Richards.
As Lee states,there was always meant to be an element of realism to Marvel’s fantasy.
In Stan Lee’s stories, that came in the form of character and plot developments that weren’t done simply for shock value, but as the “next steps” in a character’s growth. For Sue and Reed Richards, this first meant getting married, and then having a child; however,Franklin’s subsequent perennial childhood shows how Marvel no longer adheres to this ethos.
Franklin’s Arrested Development Shows How Marvel Lost Touch With Stan Lee’s Vision
Early contemporary Marvel Comics, under the auspices of Stan Lee,include many developments akin to the birth of Franklin Richards. Take the death of Gwen Stacy inSpider-Manlore, as just one example, though certainly among the most notoriously shocking; her death was meant to illuminate the precarious nature ofPeter Parker’s still-fledgling career as the Webslinger.
[Franklin Richards] continues to exist primarily as a supporting character in service ofThe Fantastic Four, when one gets the sense that Lee would have made him fully grown by now.
For Lee and his collaborators, the malleable timeline of Marvel’s ongoing continuity was a feature, not a bug. As he toldAlter Egomagazine, it allowed them to stretch out the pace of stories as they saw fit, given the serial nature of comics. However, over time, it has become a hindrance to Marvel storytelling.
Now, it often seems as though every time Marvel makes a groundbreaking change to one of its characters, ora major franchise likeX-Men, there is an immediate ticking clock counting down until they revert to the revered “status quo.” Marvel might not constantly reboot its characters, butit has figured out the version of each it is most comfortable with.
When it comes to Franklin Richards, the character has played a pivotal role in many Marvel stories over the decades, and is recognized as one ofthe Marvel Universe’s most powerful characters. Still,he continues to exist primarily as a supporting character in service ofThe Fantastic Four, when one gets the sense that Lee would have made him fully grown by now.
At This Rate, Fans Could See A Grown-Up Franklin Richards In The MCU Before He Canonically Becomes An Adult In The Comics
Marvel Characters Still Have To Develop, Even If It’s A Slower Process
Over the years,Marvel Comics has dabbled in aging up Franklin Richards, introducing several different future versions of the character. But these have beenmore akin to “What If?“stories than developments of the canon Franklin, who, again, is barely into his teens. Notably, this sets up a curious phenomenon in the MCU.
A perennially unattached Spider-Man, just like a forever young Franklin Richards, goes against the grain of the Marvel Universe as Stan Lee intended it.
That is,Fantastic Four: First Steps’‘60s settingsuggests that, barring any temporal shenanigans, Franklin will be a full-grown adult by the time ofAvengers: Doomsday.That means an adult Franklin Richards could enter official MCU continuity just a few years after his introduction, in stark contrast to comic book Franklin.
Again, this evokesthe fundamental divide between Marvel Comics today, and in the era of Stan Lee.Contemporary Marvel lore has become largely untethered from genuine character development. In fact, critics of theinfamousSpider-Man: One More Daydecisionto nullify Peter Parker and Mary Jane’s marriage would argue Marvel is straight up anti-development.
A perennially unattached Spider-Man,just like a forever young Franklin Richards, goes against the grain of the Marvel Universe as Stan Lee intended it. It puts Marvel Comics storytelling in full “fantasy” territory, eschewing the vein of realism thatStan Lee, Jack Kirby, and other formative creators recognized was essential to theMarvelformula.
