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In addition to the titular super-team, there is also an array of villains that will appear in the new MCU movie. In The Fantastic Four: First Steps, you’ve got the massive, planet-eating Galactus (Ralph Ineson), as well as his herald, the shiny Silver Surfer (Julia Garner). But in addition to these main baddies, there’s also at least one more bad guy you might want to know about: The Mole Man, played by Paul Walter Hauser.
Also known as Harvey Elder, Mole Man is the first villain the FF ever faced in the comics, and based on the info we have on the new movie, it seems like he’ll be the first villain they face in the MCU, as well. That said, with multiple versions of Mole Man in the comics and a vastly different one on screen, let’s dig into what we know about the villain.
You get it: dig? Like a mole? Ah, never mind. Let’s unearth the deep history of one of Marvel’s oldest characters. How about that?
The Mole Man (Or Rather The Moleman) Is The First Villain The FF Faced
Fantastic Four #1 by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby is considered the dawn of modern comics. But if you’ve never read the issue, you might be surprised to learn that not only does it not start with the origin of the team – that happens several pages in, after they’ve already been established in media res – but the first villain they face isn’t Doctor Doom… It’s The Mole Man, at the time called Moleman (no relation to The Simpsons’ Hans Moleman).
After receiving a summons from Mister Fantastic, the team explores an enormous hole that takes them to Subterranea, an underground Hollow Earth-style kingdom that, in part, is ruled over by The Mole Man. As The Mole Man explains, he was an ugly, misshapen man spurned by women, his boss, and people on the street. So feeling like a monster, he wandered off to Monster Isle, a home to real monsters. There, he fell into a hole and became blind as a mole in the process. Hence: Mole Man.
At least in that first issue, Harvey doesn’t really offer many more details about any of this – like how falling in a hole led to ruling an underground kingdom. But he battles the Fantastic Four, they stop his plan of invading the Earth through a bunch of tunnels by, uh, sealing the tunnels. And that’s pretty much it!
Mole Man Has Plagued The Whole Marvel Universe
While Mole Man has, since that first 1961 issue, battled the Fantastic Four multiple times, he’s also clashed with nearly every other hero in the Marvel Comics universe. That includes the Avengers, the X-Men, Namor the Sub-Mariner (also a sometimes Fantastic Four villain), the Hulk, and even launched numerous schemes to get Squirrel Girl’s best friend to go out on a date with him.
Basically, if you send your heroes underground in any capacity, or need a threat to take out before the main threat, Mole Man is your guy. He’s rarely actually threatening, though he does control enormous kaiju-sized monsters that can wreak havoc on the surface world.
Harvey, though, doesn’t have any real powers. Because his sight is so bad, he does have somewhat heightened other senses, though not to the extent of Daredevil. He’s also an extremely smart guy, and over time has trained himself to fight using his omnipresent staff. But in a one-on-one fight with any hero, he’ll be taken out almost immediately. He mostly works on zombie rules: send a horde of monsters to overwhelm the enemy and hope he gets out alive.
Another key aspect of The Mole Man that doesn’t appear in Fantastic Four #1? His moloids. They’re little yellow dudes who usually don’t speak, and are slavishly devoted to their leader. While the Moloids were created by the Deviants, the enemies of the Eternals, they are far more associated with Harvey, and provide the above zombie-style hordes, without the biting.
Though they’re usually not more than drones (and maybe the inspiration for The Minions? Who is to say?), they’re important to mention because we’re getting a different look at them in the MCU (more on that in a second). Alongside those Moloids are massive subterranean monsters like Giganto, the massive green kaiju who attacks on the cover of Fantastic Four #1. But the Moloids are the main event.
Mole Man has appeared in multiple animated series and video games. And funnily enough was slated to be in two previous iterations of Fantastic Four on screen, though each time the appearance changed to another character by the time the movie arrived.
However, there have been two other important versions of the character, both in different versions of Marvel’s Ultimate Universe. In the first, he was Dr. Arthur Molekevic, a scientist working with the Fantastic Four in the Baxter Building. Increasingly feeling like he was being shoved to the side, he eventually created the Moloids himself and inhabited underground caverns with them.
The second iteration was recently introduced in Ultimate Spider-Man, and not much is known about him other than he’s a member of the Sinister Six – mob bosses who have split up New York, and all work for Wilson Fisk, aka The Kingpin. Mole Man is, of course, in control of the area under New York and briefly helps out Spider-Man for his own purposes.
How Will Mole Man Show Up In The MCU? Here’s What We Know… Based On The Comics
In order to understand how Mole Man will be portrayed in the MCU, we need to look at the comics. Specifically, Fantastic Four: First Steps #1 by Matt Fraction and Mark Buckingham, an in-universe tie-in that is supposed to retell the origin of the Fantastic Four, as if the comic were printed four years after the team got their powers in the MCU (or at least their retro-future Earth in the MCU).
Just like in Fantastic Four #1, Mole Man is the first villain they face. And similar to his comic book counterpart, this Mole Man controls both Moloids and giant monsters, like the big, green Giganto.
However, the twist here is that Mole Man was living peacefully in his civilization of Subterranea, drilling and building like a bunch of Snow White’s dwarfs, until the humans above started building bigger and bigger structures. Every time the folks on the surface drilled below, or created a subway tunnel was seen as “an act of war.” But the straw that broke the camel’s back was the Fantastic Four building their new headquarters, leading Harvey to attack the surface world.
The Fantastic Four stop him – or rather, he surrenders once he sees his pregnant mate is in danger… And it turns out in this continuity, “moloids” are just what they call people who live underground. Once captured, Susan Storm (Vanessa Kirby) realizes he’s not just a labor organizer, he’s a leader of a civilization. Sue helps Harvey make Subterranea part of the United Nations, and they all become friends.
And chances are, given First Steps starts with a montage explaining the team’s origins, we’ll likely see a good chunk of what was on the page, on screen. Director Matt Shakman told USA Today that Harvey is “really more of a union boss than a supervillain… He's all about community, and that's why Sue and Harvey have a good relationship and they get along. They understand each other.”
That’s a far cry from the guy who fell into a hole in Fantastic Four #1 – and we’ll see just how far when First Steps premieres on July 25. For more, check out all the upcoming Marvel movies and shows on the way, as well as our guide on how to watch the Marvel movies in order.
