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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Ben Child

First Steps to ruin: Is Marvel’s Fantastic Four finally about to let the bad guys win?

Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Unhappy ending? Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm/Human Torch in The Fantastic Four: First Steps. Photograph: Marvel Studios

What if Thanos really had finger-snapped away half of all life in the universe and then kicked back on his scorched Titan homestead like a giant, purple Cincinnatus? What if Ultron had succeeded in uploading himself into the cloud, turning every smart fridge and Fitbit into a genocidal death bot? What if Loki had kept the Tesseract, conquered Earth, and turned Avengers Tower into a golden skyscraper shaped like his own smirking face?

These are the Marvel sliding‑doors moments we are secretly relieved that we will never see – too bleak, too bonkers, or too off‑brand to survive outside the whiteboard of producer and Marvel boss Kevin Feige.

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