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Franklin Richards is a newborn baby in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, but he may already have the fate of the entire Marvel Universe on his shoulders.
We knew that Vanessa Kirby's Sue Storm-Richards would be pregnant in the film, with early trailers for the film making the big reveal. And subsequent trailers have revealed Franklin himself.
And though he's just a baby, Franklin Richards may be the key to everything that's about to unfold in the MCU, with Galactus himself attempting to take possession of the child in exchange for sparing the Earth.
Because much like the rest of his Fantastic family, Franklin is blessed with incredible powers - ones that could make him the most powerful being in the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe, capable of altering all of reality itself in a way we've never seen before.
Heroes Reborn
In comics, Franklin Richards is possessed of the ability to completely alter reality around him with nigh-omnipotent power, to the point where he can not only destroy entire worlds but also create them.
This has come up multiple times over the years, with Franklin having occasionally been a last ditch savior of the Marvel Universe, using his omnipotent abilities to defeat enemies that the entire Marvel Universe struggled against, including Galactus.
But what's perhaps most interesting is what happened when the Avengers and Fantastic Four went up against a foe they actually couldn't defeat, and how Franklin Richards managed to save them all in the face of certain death.
Back in 1996, the entire Marvel Universe was being terrorized by the psychic villain Onslaught, who was created when Professor X mindwiped Magneto several years earlier, absorbing part of Magneto's personality into himself. The all-powerful villain threatened to destroy the entire world, with a deadly gambit established as the only way to stop him.
With no other options, the Avengers (including Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Hulk, and more) and the Fantastic Four sacrificed themselves to Onslaught, weakening him just enough for the surviving heroes, primarily the X-Men, to finish him off.
But the heroes weren't actually dead. Instead, they were transported to a whole new pocket reality created by Franklin Richards at the last minute, an entire new world where the Avengers and Fantastic Four existed separately from the rest of the Marvel Universe, with their own separate history and continuity.
This led to a publishing initiative titled Heroes Reborn in which the Iron Man, Captain America, Avengers, and Fantastic Four comics were relaunched with the superstar creators of the day at the helm, leading to two entirely separate Marvel Universes - one in which the Avengers and Fantastic Four died, and one where they lived totally different lives from the ones we knew.
The Heroes Reborn reality was eventually reincorporated back into the rest of the Marvel Universe a couple years later in 1998, after none other than Doctor Doom, himself trapped in the pocket reality, became aware of his history in the mainstream Marvel Universe and attempted to conquer both realities.
The new MCU
This could have some very real implications for what's coming up in the MCU. We know that The Fantastic Four: First Steps centers on a conflict with the world-devouring Galactus which will lead the FF to exit their own reality to join the MCU, as seen in the post-credits sequence of Thunderbolts.
We also now know that Galactus wants Franklin Richards for himself, likely because of his inborn reality warping powers and their potential use in feeding his undying hunger.
Meanwhile, Doctor Doom actor Robert Downey, Jr. has shared a social media post that could be teasing a showdown between Doom and Galactus in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, which will of course set the stage for the reality-bending Avengers: Secret Wars.
This leads us to how Franklin could fit in. If the threat of the Beyonders, the villains behind the end or reality in comics, is replaced with the threat of Galactus, could the powers of Franklin Richards become the mechanism by which everyone is saved?
In comics, Secret Wars begins with Doctor Doom saving reality by holding together scraps of different realities in a new setting known as Battleworld, using not just his own abilities but the powers of the Molecule Man. Could Franklin Richards take the place of the Molecule Man as the source of Doom's reality saving abilities?
And if that is how things shake out, could that mean that we're looking at a potential reboot of the MCU, a la the way Heroes Reborn rebooted part of the Marvel Universe?
It wouldn't be the most surprising development, especially considering the 2015 Secret Wars comic altered and rewrote parts of Marvel continuity, even bringing characters from alt-realities, such as Miles Morales, into the mainstream Marvel Universe.
We can't say for sure that Marvel Studios is looking at a soft or even a hard reboot coming out of Secret Wars, but the idea that aspects of Marvel's reality will be rewritten is not so far-fetched, especially with Franklin Richards - a character who has already been responsible for one reboot in Marvel Comics - in the mix.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps hits theaters on July 25 to kick off Marvel Phase 6. For more, check out our guides to upcoming Marvel movies and shows and how to watch the Marvel movies in order.
