Reed Richards Makes A Huge Error In The Fantastic Four: First Steps That No One Is Talking About
By Dan Bibby
October 2nd, 2025
Warning! Spoilers ahead for The Fantastic Four: First Steps!
Pedro Pascal's character in The Fantastic Four: First Steps immediately shoots to the upper echelon of the MCU's most intelligent figures, but the newest version of Reed "Mr. Fantastic" Richards makes a major miscalculation in his debut that has seemingly gone under the radar.
Things like First Steps' fun Back to the Future reference prove that the movie isn't afraid of paying an incredible amount of attention to detail. However, there is at least one thing that slipped through the cracks. I haven't seen anyone bring it up yet, but it hugely damages Reed's reputation as one of the smartest people in the MCU.
Things like First Steps' fun Back to the Future reference prove that the movie isn't afraid of paying an incredible amount of attention to detail. However, there is at least one thing that slipped through the cracks. I haven't seen anyone bring it up yet, but it hugely damages Reed's reputation as one of the smartest people in the MCU.
Reed Richards Massively Overestimates How Long Johnny Storm Can Stay "Flamed On" In Zero Atmosphere
Joseph Quinn's Johnny "The Human Torch" Storm is ecstatic when he finds out the Fantastic Four are headed back to space in First Steps, even if the circumstances are less than ideal. Part of his excitement comes from the fact that Reed has finally finished redesigning their bespoke spacesuits that each accommodate the wearer's powers.
Johnny's abilities make Reed's job a little trickier in this respect, as fire doesn't exactly thrive in the vacuum of space without oxygen to burn. Pascal's character solves this as best he can by not only making Johnny's suit immensely fireproof - which is probably standard across all four - but also by giving it a "maxed out" oxygen supply. Again, I'm sure Reed found a way to give every member of the team a similarly robust air supply.
Reed's upgrades mean Johnny can use his powers in space. That said, the Human Torch is also warned that he will burn through his enhanced oxygen supply in "less than ten minutes" if he stays "flamed on." When the time comes for Johnny to put his new spacesuit through its paces, Reed is proven...technically correct, I suppose. After two incredibly brief stints of power usage, Johnny's oxygen redlines.
While I'll admit that Reed's calculations weren't wrong, they were WAY off the mark. There are several moments in First Steps that establish Mr. Fantastic as a man of obsessive detail and preparation. So, I refuse to believe that he would have been happy with telling Johnny he had "less than 10 minutes" of oxygen if he used his powers, if he didn't also think he was being pretty much exact with those figures.
The error makes Reed seem as though he took his eye off the ball, or that he doesn't care enough about Johnny to spend too much time on getting his numbers straight. Johnny might annoy Reed at times, but the pair have a strong bond, so the latter explanation doesn't add up. Similarly, I struggle to get on board with the explanation of Reed making a mistake so big that it almost costs his brother-in-law his life.
Johnny's abilities make Reed's job a little trickier in this respect, as fire doesn't exactly thrive in the vacuum of space without oxygen to burn. Pascal's character solves this as best he can by not only making Johnny's suit immensely fireproof - which is probably standard across all four - but also by giving it a "maxed out" oxygen supply. Again, I'm sure Reed found a way to give every member of the team a similarly robust air supply.
Reed's upgrades mean Johnny can use his powers in space. That said, the Human Torch is also warned that he will burn through his enhanced oxygen supply in "less than ten minutes" if he stays "flamed on." When the time comes for Johnny to put his new spacesuit through its paces, Reed is proven...technically correct, I suppose. After two incredibly brief stints of power usage, Johnny's oxygen redlines.
While I'll admit that Reed's calculations weren't wrong, they were WAY off the mark. There are several moments in First Steps that establish Mr. Fantastic as a man of obsessive detail and preparation. So, I refuse to believe that he would have been happy with telling Johnny he had "less than 10 minutes" of oxygen if he used his powers, if he didn't also think he was being pretty much exact with those figures.
The error makes Reed seem as though he took his eye off the ball, or that he doesn't care enough about Johnny to spend too much time on getting his numbers straight. Johnny might annoy Reed at times, but the pair have a strong bond, so the latter explanation doesn't add up. Similarly, I struggle to get on board with the explanation of Reed making a mistake so big that it almost costs his brother-in-law his life.
First Steps Could Easily Have Fixed Reed's Oxygen Error By Swapping 2 Johnny Storm Moments
As I've already mentioned, we see Johnny use his powers exactly twice before his oxygen supply runs out on the team's mission to find Galactus (Ralph Ineson). The first time is when he flies alongside Shalla-Bal (Julia Garner) to try and find out what she said to him as she left Earth, and the second is when he attacks Galactus so that everyone can escape.
Johnny's in-flight conversation with Shalla-Bal appears to be an incredibly routine use of his powers. Still, he's quickly alerted to the fact that his suit has burned through 90% of its oxygen supply in the process, which forces him to abandon his conversation and return to the others with just 10% remaining. The other instance, quite inversely, looks like it shows Johnny at somewhere approaching full power as he burns through several of Galactus' conduits so that everyone can escape. This would probably mean a faster rate of oxygen consumption than Reed allowed for.
Confusingly, Johnny's attack on Galactus only uses up another 9% of his oxygen supply. The two percentages lost don't align with the acts on display from Quinn's character. It would have made far more sense for his conversation with Shalla-Bal to have burned through 9% of his oxygen, and the 90% drain could very reasonably have come from Johnny's actions that allowed his team to get to safety.
I'm fully aware that hindsight is 20/20, but I can't shake the feeling that swapping these two burn rates would have removed the error from a movie that is otherwise pretty much void of other missteps of any kind. As it stands, I guess I'm stuck ignoring the fact that The Fantastic Four: First Steps is only ALMOST perfect.
Johnny's in-flight conversation with Shalla-Bal appears to be an incredibly routine use of his powers. Still, he's quickly alerted to the fact that his suit has burned through 90% of its oxygen supply in the process, which forces him to abandon his conversation and return to the others with just 10% remaining. The other instance, quite inversely, looks like it shows Johnny at somewhere approaching full power as he burns through several of Galactus' conduits so that everyone can escape. This would probably mean a faster rate of oxygen consumption than Reed allowed for.
Confusingly, Johnny's attack on Galactus only uses up another 9% of his oxygen supply. The two percentages lost don't align with the acts on display from Quinn's character. It would have made far more sense for his conversation with Shalla-Bal to have burned through 9% of his oxygen, and the 90% drain could very reasonably have come from Johnny's actions that allowed his team to get to safety.
I'm fully aware that hindsight is 20/20, but I can't shake the feeling that swapping these two burn rates would have removed the error from a movie that is otherwise pretty much void of other missteps of any kind. As it stands, I guess I'm stuck ignoring the fact that The Fantastic Four: First Steps is only ALMOST perfect.
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