On Earth-828 in 1964, Reed Richards and his wife Susan Storm prepare a quiet dinner in their brownstone when Sue steps away and tells Reed that she is pregnant after two years of trying. Reed listens as she speaks, then admits he is both thrilled and anxious; the couple exchange practical plans and Reed worries aloud about how two parents altered by cosmic rays might shape their child's physiology. A few days later, television host Ted Gilbert airs a retrospective on "The Ted Gilbert Show," replaying footage from the past four years that traces how Reed, Sue, Sue's younger brother Johnny Storm, and their friend Ben Grimm left Earth on a space mission and came back transformed by cosmic radiation. The broadcast shows Reed stretching his arms and torso in his lab, Sue vanishing and generating translucent barriers, Johnny igniting into a column of flame and flying, and Ben reduced to a hulking, rocklike figure. The montage ends with images of the team protecting New York and forging an uneasy peace with Harvey Elder, the Mole Man, after Sue negotiates terms that allow Elder to rule his underground domain, Subterranea, while cooperating with the surface world.

After the program ends, Reed and Sue visit the Baxter Building living room where Ben and Johnny are waiting. Ben reads Sue's expression instantly and grins; the four celebrate with H.E.R.B.I.E., the polite robot that assists the household. Ben and the little robot set about baby-proofing stairways and cabinets while Reed sketches designs for a modified space pod intended to serve as a crib until he can map the baby's DNA. Reed also continues work on a teleportation apparatus and experiments in faster-than-light travel, driven by the same scientific curiosity that first led the team into space. Outside on the street, Ben relishes the attention of schoolchildren and hoists a car for them to see, and while helping them Ben meets their teacher, Rachel Rozman. She and Ben exchange smiles and contact information; Ben shows obvious affection.

As Sue's due date draws near, a sensor alert interrupts the team's routine. A storm appears above Times Square, darkening the skies and drawing a crowd. The Fantastic Four launch in the Fantasticar and circle the square. A figure cuts through the storm and descends into the plaza: a lithe, silvery-skinned humanoid glides on a polished surfboard, leaving a metallic trail as she speaks in an unknown tongue. She identifies herself as the Silver Surfer and declares that Earth is marked for consumption by her master, a planet-devouring entity named Galactus. News cameras pan across the crowd as she turns and flies away; Johnny ignites and pursues her, burning a trail into the sky. He catches up to her in low Earth orbit and grabs the edge of her board; she leans toward him and whispers a phrase in her language--one he does not understand at the time--then jostles him so that he is flung free and tumbles back toward Earth before he can learn more.

Reed studies the Surfer's flight path and the energy traces she leaves. He cross-references transmissions and discovers other planets that disappeared under similar conditions. He traces a gravitic signature to a great vessel and identifies the being behind the devourings: Galactus. The team decides to confront the threat. With the world watching from news feeds, the Fantastic Four accelerate into space using Reed's experimental FTL drive. They intercept the Surfer near a planetary system as a world is being drawn toward a maw of purple energy. A tractor beam from an enormous ship rips the Fantasticar inside; the space around them warps and compresses. They find themselves aboard the ship and are brought before a colossal presence--Galactus--who regards them with a hunger Reed can feel pressing into his chest.

The Silver Surfer, who moves with ritual calm though her speech is clipped, tells them that she chooses which worlds her master consumes. She approaches but will not aid their cause; instead she explains, in fragments that Johnny later decodes, that the phrase she told him was "Die with yours," a foretelling of the fate she expects for Earth should Galactus feed there. Galactus' attention sweeps the group and settles upon Sue's abdomen. He articulates an exchange in a voice that creates static in their bones: he will spare the planet if they surrender the child in Sue's womb. Galactus senses in the fetus an energy that could relieve his endless hunger. Reed argues, Sue pleads, but Galactus reaches beyond speech; he extends a tendril of cosmic force and in response Sue's labor begins, tightening and halting her breath. The crew scrambles to protect her and to get away.

Reed fires the Fantasticar's engines while Johnny leaps into a protective heat-field around Sue. Ben translates Reed's commands into physical motion, the team improvises, and Reed deploys a localized time dilation to slow pursuit. They rip free from Galactus' ship and use a nearby neutron star's gravity to slingshot back toward Earth; the star's gravity disrupts Reed's FTL drive and leaves their return more precarious. During the transit home, in the cramped medical alcove Reed hovers a modified pod around Sue and guides the delivery. With Johnny cupping the newborn, Reed delivers the boy and Sue names him Franklin. The four stare at the infant as the Fantasticar shudders back toward the atmosphere, carrying a secret no one on Earth yet knows.

One month after the arrival, Reed holds a press conference at the Baxter Building and broadcasts the encounter. He explains that Galactus offered the ultimatum and that the team refused to hand over their child. The revelation triggers outrage. Protesters gather, some chanting that the team should surrender Franklin to save the planet; commentators split between praising the Four's courage and denouncing them for prioritizing one life over billions. As the protests swell, Sue takes Franklin from Reed and walks into the crowd. She speaks directly to the people, telling them that she will not sacrifice her son and that she and Reed will continue to search for a solution that protects everyone. Her speech calms a portion of the crowd, though street-level hostility persists. Reed and Sue face protesters, Reed continues refining his teleportation research, and Johnny dives into the Surfer's recordings. He digs through transmissions that Reed intercepted from the Silver Surfer's homeworld and reconstructs parts of her language and the Surfer's name: Shalla-Bal.

Reed proposes a grand plan. He orchestrates an international effort through his Future Foundation to lay massive teleportation bridges--colossal arcs of focused energy between spatial nodes--that can relocate the entire planet into a different universe beyond Galactus' reach. Nations ration power and cranes hoist enormous pylons; construction crews work beneath Reed's supervision to anchor the bridges at strategic points around the globe. The team prepares a contingency: if they cannot move Earth in time they will use a portal to send Galactus into an uninhabited void. As the bridge network nears completion, Shalla-Bal returns. She streaks through city airspace and begins to tear down the bridges, cutting power lines with precise blasts of cosmic energy. Her strikes are efficient; she knows how to disable the anchors and she targets each activated node. Johnny intercepts her at the last bridge in Times Square and forces her down with flame and bravado. During the confrontation he uses his deciphered fragments of her language and pushes her until she speaks in English. Under pressure she reveals that she is Shalla-Bal, that her home planet Zenn-La was spared because she accepted the role of Galactus' herald, that she sacrificed her freedom--and her name--to save her world and her daughter. While Johnny presses her, Shalla-Bal hears the voices of countless worlds she has led to destruction through Galactus' appetite, and the grief cracks her resolve. She stops attacking the bridges and, rattled by the transmissions of losses she carries in her mind, she flees into the void of space.

Reed and the Future Foundation flip the final bridge toward activation. With the world evacuated in stages, the Fantastic Four make an agreement with Mole Man: Harvey Elder opens the gates of Subterranea and shelters millions of New Yorkers in tunnels and caverns while the surface is cleared for the team's last gambit. Reed positions a portal in the center of the city and rigs energy concentrators to anchor the destination, calibrating the aperture to accept a mass the size of Galactus. The plan calls for luring Galactus to the portal while the team works to push him across its threshold. For bait, they decide to use Franklin's presence. Reed and Sue agonize over the decision and then commit; Reed carries Franklin into the Baxter Building, placing him under the watch of Ben and H.E.R.B.I.E., and sets a trap that will open once Galactus approaches.

Galactus arrives like a storm. The surface cracks under his weight as he strides skyscrapers aside and tears through streets in search of the child he smelled on the wind. He barrels toward the Baxter Building and smashes through the façade, tearing masonry and steel while Reed and the others fight in the broken halls. Sue projects a forcefield the size of a cathedral, a shimmering dome of pressure that slows Galactus' advance and shields the corridors. Reed stretches his body upwards, elongating his limbs and torso, lashing them around energy conduits to reroute power to the portal. Ben meets Galactus directly; Johnny grabs Ben, lifts him to a great height above a collapsed avenue, and releases him so Ben can plummet down and collide with Galactus' midsection. Ben pummels the giant's shell with fists that sound like falling boulders. The assault distracts Galactus, who finally spots Franklin being carried toward a stairwell by Reed.

Galactus reaches down and snatches Franklin from Reed's arms with a titanic hand that dwarfs a city bus. The X-ray heat and cosmic hunger wash Franklin with a dull, suffocating pressure as Galactus cradles the child against his chest, testing the energy signature that Reed had promised would sate him. Sue turns her entire being toward the titan and focuses every reserve of strength she has into a single, unyielding field. The forcefield expands and pushes outward, pressing against Galactus like a tidal wave of will; Reed uses his elastic body to wrench Franklin free from the giant's grip and tuck the infant into his suit. Johnny accelerates toward Galactus, aiming to shove him into the portal manually. Johnny burns with full intensity and aims his kinetic force at Galactus' back, planning to sacrifice his own body as the shove. As Johnny slams into the giant, Shalla-Bal reappears at the edge of the portal. She spots Johnny's trajectory and intercepts his motion; without hesitation she pushes him aside and dives at Galactus herself. With a cry, Shalla-Bal plunges her board into the portal's current and drives Galactus forward. The two are engulfed in purple and white light as the portal closes; a final convulsive surge of energy slams through the plaza and the aperture seals. Shalla-Bal goes through the portal with Galactus. She dies as she sends the devourer into the void.

In the aftermath of the closing vortex, the city lies scarred and silent. Reed, breathing hard, sifts through the rubble to the corridor where Sue collapses, unconscious and pale. Reed kneels beside her and calls her name; his hands find no heartbeat. He checks her pupils and struggles to coax a response. The medics who arrive lift the exhausted hero onto a cot and administer aid, but monitors flatten. Franklin, who has been held by Ben and H.E.R.B.I.E., begins to cry in a small, urgent wail. Reed cradles the child and places him against the still chest of his mother. For a moment nothing moves. Then, as Franklin's wet fingers brush Sue's skin, color flushes into her face and her chest rises. Sue inhales and opens her eyes; she squeezes Franklin and looks at Reed, who lets out a breath like a laugh and a sob at once. Medical staff and teammates surround them. The city's emergency services declare an all-clear for survivors, and newsfeeds become pictures of relief and celebration.

Officials and civilians begin to return to surface life in slow waves. Reed addresses the public again from the Baxter Building and clarifies that while they did not defeat Galactus forever, they refused to give up Franklin and they accept the consequences of that choice. Crowds erupt into applause in neighborhoods that remember the Four saving lives; other quarters murmur in mistrust but step back from calls for retribution. Reed, Sue, Johnny, and Ben take note of the complexity of public opinion as they consolidate repairs and tend to those displaced. Mole Man escorts citizens from Subterranea up to daylight and oversees restitution for his subterranean guests; Rachel Rozman visits Ben in a temporary shelter and they share coffee and a quiet conversation, hinting at a slow deepening of their relationship.

Months pass and the Fantastic Four resume missions. They practice with Franklin's car seat in the Fantasticar; Reed awkwardly clicks buckles as Ben and Johnny fumble with straps in the cockpit and H.E.R.B.I.E. monitors Franklin's vital signs. The team accepts new alerts and begins to respond to smaller crises, and they resume appearances on "The Ted Gilbert Show" to explain their continuing efforts to protect Earth. Even as they move on, time reopens the wound of Shalla-Bal's sacrifice. Reed studies the portal's residual energy and catalogs data from the confrontation; Johnny keeps listening to the transmissions he salvaged, piecing together more of Shalla-Bal's language and the history of Zenn-La. The world treats the Four with a mix of renewed admiration and cautious skepticism.

Four years later, in a domestic scene in the Baxter Building, Sue sits on a living-room rug and reads a picture book aloud to a toddling Franklin. She sets the book aside and rises to fetch another volume from the kitchen. When she steps back into the room Franklin no longer sits alone; a man stands near the child. The stranger wears a green cloak and a metal mask tucked under his arm. He looks at the boy, then lifts the mask and regards Sue. The camera holds on their faces as the screen cuts to black--Victor von Doom has arrived. In the post-credits sequence, an animated title card plays as an in-universe Fantastic Four cartoon begins on a television. H.E.R.B.I.E. reaches forward and turns the screen off, ending the episode.

The ending of The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) shows the team luring Galactus into a trap in Times Square using their baby Franklin as bait. After a fierce battle, Sue Storm pushes Galactus through a portal but dies from the effort. Reed Richards tries to revive her, but it is Franklin who uses his cosmic powers to bring Sue back to life. Earth is saved, and the film ends with a hopeful note about the family's future and Franklin's immense power.

In the final sequence, the Fantastic Four prepare a global effort to trap Galactus, the planet-devouring cosmic entity, in Times Square. They use Franklin Richards, the infant son of Reed and Sue, as bait to lure Galactus near a portal Reed has created. The plan is for Galactus to be sucked through this wormhole to another part of the universe, sparing Earth from destruction.

As Galactus approaches the portal, he realizes the team has moved Franklin, disrupting the plan. A battle ensues between the Fantastic Four and Galactus. Despite their efforts, they cannot stop him outright. At the critical moment, the Silver Surfer, who had been working with Galactus to protect her own planet, intervenes and helps Sue Storm push Galactus into the portal.

Sue uses the full extent of her powers to force Galactus through the wormhole, but the exertion is fatal. She collapses, appearing dead. Reed Richards attempts to revive her but fails. Franklin, crying and reaching out to his mother, is placed on Sue's chest. Suddenly, Franklin's hands glow with cosmic energy, and he revives Sue, who begins to breathe again. Sue later tells Reed that Franklin's powers are far greater than theirs, hinting at his cosmic potential.

The fate of the main characters at the end is as follows:

• Sue Storm: Dies momentarily after pushing Galactus through the portal but is revived by Franklin's powers.
• Reed Richards: Survives and continues to lead the team, mourning Sue briefly before her revival.
• Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm: Participate in the battle and survive.
• Franklin Richards: Revealed as a powerful cosmic being capable of reviving his mother and potentially more.

The film closes with a mid-credits scene set four years later, showing Sue reading to Franklin in the Baxter Building. A mysterious hooded figure, later revealed to be Doctor Doom, approaches Franklin, holding a Doom-shaped mask, setting up future conflicts.

This ending unfolds scene by scene:

1. The team coordinates a worldwide effort to build a trap for Galactus, culminating in Times Square.
2. Reed's teleportation plan to move Earth fails due to sabotage, leaving the portal in Times Square as the last hope.
3. Johnny confronts Shalla-Bal, the Silver Surfer, playing messages from destroyed planets to sway her, but she flees.
4. The Fantastic Four lure Galactus using Franklin as bait.
5. The battle with Galactus ensues; the team struggles to contain him.
6. Sue uses her powers to push Galactus into the portal, sacrificing herself.
7. Reed tries to revive Sue but fails.
8. Franklin's cosmic powers revive Sue, restoring her to life.
9. The team is safe, but the threat of future challenges looms.
10. The mid-credits scene introduces Doctor Doom's presence in Franklin's life.

This detailed ending highlights the themes of family, sacrifice, and the emergence of new cosmic powers within the Fantastic Four universe.

In The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025), several characters face significant challenges, and some meet their demise. Here's a detailed account of the circumstances surrounding these events:

1. Galactus: The movie features Galactus, a powerful cosmic entity known as the Devourer of Worlds. He is defeated by the Fantastic Four, but the specifics of his "death" are not fully clarified, leaving room for speculation about his ultimate fate.

2. Inhabitants of a Distant Planet: Early in the film, the Fantastic Four witness Galactus consuming an entire planet. This event results in the death of all life forms on that planet, though the types of creatures are not specified.

3. Sue Storm: Sue appears to die during the confrontation with Galactus. However, she is later revived by her son Franklin Richards, who possesses incredible powers. This scene is pivotal as it showcases Franklin's abilities and emotional vulnerability.

These events are central to the plot of The Fantastic Four: First Steps, setting the stage for future developments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Yes, The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) has both a mid-credits and a post-credits scene.

The post-credits scene takes place four years after the main events of the film, showing the Fantastic Four still living in the Baxter Building. Sue Storm is reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar to her young son Franklin. After declining a suggestion from the robot assistant H.E.R.B.I.E. to read a Charles Darwin book, Sue turns with another book in hand. At that moment, a cloaked figure enters the room holding Doctor Doom's iconic silver mask, while Franklin looks on with curiosity. The figure is implied to be Doctor Doom, portrayed by Robert Downey Jr., setting up his role in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday (2026).

The mid-credits scene similarly introduces Doctor Doom as a major future threat, reinforcing the connection to the next phase of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Franklin Richards, the son of Reed Richards and Sue Storm, is revealed to possess immense cosmic power that Galactus desires to absorb in order to cure his endless hunger. Galactus offers to spare Earth if he can have Franklin, but the Fantastic Four refuse, leading to a high-stakes standoff and the need to protect Franklin at all costs.

Reed Richards devises a desperate plan to transport the entire Earth to another dimension to buy billions of years' time and avoid Galactus's destruction. The team also flees Galactus and returns to Earth to warn humanity, revealing the threat publicly.

The Silver Surfer arrives on Earth as the Herald of Galactus, warning the Fantastic Four of the impending danger. Later, Johnny Storm communicates with the Silver Surfer in her native language, awakening her memories and emotions, which influences the conflict.

The movie emphasizes the strength of the Fantastic Four's family bond as they balance their roles as heroes with protecting their child Franklin. Their unity is central to their efforts to defend Earth and resist Galactus's demands.

Yes, a mid-credits scene set four years later shows Sue reading to Franklin at home, who is interacting with a man in a green cloak holding a metal mask, hinting at future storylines and possibly the introduction of new characters.

The movie The Fantastic Four: First Steps (2025) is rated PG-13, indicating it is generally suitable for teens and older children but may contain material parents might find inappropriate for younger children. It is family-friendly in the sense that it is a superhero adventure with visually impressive effects and a straightforward story, but it does include some elements that could be potentially objectionable or upsetting for sensitive viewers or young children.

Potentially upsetting or objectionable aspects include:

• Intense action sequences and interstellar battles that may be intense or frightening for very young children.
• Some scenes involving cosmic radiation and transformation that might be unsettling for sensitive viewers.
• Moments of tension and mild peril, including the presence of a villain (Galactus), though the villain is described as less threatening than expected.
• Emotional moments that involve worry or fear, but nothing described as graphic or excessively violent.

No explicit or graphic content, strong language, or mature themes are noted in the reviews, but the PG-13 rating suggests some scenes may be too intense for very young or sensitive children. Overall, it is a visually rich superhero film with moderate action and mild peril, suitable for families with older children or teens.