Top 5 Marvel Characters John Malkovich Can be in ‘Fantastic Four: First Steps’

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Oscar-nominated John Malkovich makes a brief appearance in the teaser trailer for “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” that Marvel debuted earlier this month. Except for a distinct white beard and hairdo, the teaser offered no clues as to the identity of Malkovich’s character.

Read more: ‘Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Trailer: Easter Eggs and References Explained

Marvel fans have been busy theorizing ever since the trailer dropped, and here are some of the more tantalizing possibilities.

The Red Ghost

Based purely on Malkovich’s hairstyle in the teaser, one of the first and most popular theories is that the actor is playing one of the Fantastic Four’s earliest villains: the Soviet mad scientist Ivan Kragoff, aka The Red Ghost. First appearing in 1963’s “Fantastic Four” #13, the Red Ghost can make himself invisible and intangible. He also has a trio of Super-Apes at his command to help him combat Marvel’s First Family.

Nathaniel Richards

Another interesting possibility is that Malkovich is playing Nathaniel Richards, the time-traveling father of Pedro Pascal’s Reed Richards. Malkovich comes in and out of the trailer with the same cryptic messenger vibe that has characterized so many of Nathaniel’s comic book appearances.

Franklin Richards

There was no mention of Richards’s powerful child in the teaser trailer, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t there. Just as Reed’s father is known for hopping through time, future versions of Reed and Sue Richards’s (Vanessa Kirby) son have been known to pay his parents a visit.

Puppet Master

Few villains in the Fantastic Four’s rogues’ gallery have as personal a bone to pick with the team as Philip Masters, aka the Puppet Master. The madman uses a special type of radioactive clay to control his victims’ actions. In the comics, he often uses this ability to hound Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), husband of Puppet Master’s daughter Alicia.

Vector And The U-Foes

One intriguing possibility that hasn’t been brought up quite as much is that Malkovich could be playing arguably the most ironic kind of Fantastic Four villain: one who has never fought the Fantastic Four.

Published in 1980, “Incredible Hulk” #254 introduced a twisted version of the Fantastic Four called The U-Foes. They purposely recreate the accident that gives their more heroic counterparts powers, but find they cannot transform out of their altered bodies.

Although meant to reflect the Fantastic Four, the U-Foes have never met Marvel’s First Family in the comics.

Malkovich could be playing Simon Utrecht, aka Vector, the leader of the U-Foes who uses a powerful telekinesis to propel objects away at incredible speeds. Potentially supporting this theory is that there are still a number of actors with unidentified roles such as Natasha Lyonne and Paul Walter Hauser in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” who could be rounding out The U-Foes’s roster.

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