‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ is a love letter to the Space Age we always dreamed of

Perhaps it’s fate that Marvel’s Fantastic Four made their comics debut in 1961 as the era of human spaceflight began. Or it could just be a cosmic coincidence. Either way, that Space Age connection is abundantly clear in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps,” which heralds the arrival of Marvel’s First Family into the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The entire foundation (or Future Foundation, if you will) of the Fantastic Four is rooted in space exploration. They get their superpowers after their first space mission runs into “cosmic turbulence,” with cosmic rays giving each in the family of four astronauts a unique superpower. Super scientist Reed Richards is stretchy, his wife Sue, turns invisible and has force field powers (and commands the spaceship), her brother Johny Storm is a fire-covered flyer, while Reed’s best friend, Ben Grimm (a pilot), is a rock-like Thing.

***Spoilers Ahead for “The Fantastic Four: First Steps.” You’ve been warned.***

When “The Fantastic Four” debuted in comics, it was August 1961 (the issue was dated November of that year), just four months after Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to fly in space. A month later, NASA astronaut Alan Shepard put the United States on the board. Neither man — cosmonaut or astronaut — developed superpowers.

But the era of human spaceflight had begun, and the stars beckoned. It’s been more than 60 years, and humanity has yet to walk on Mars. It’s been over 50 years since anyone walked on the moon.

By the time we catch up with the Fantastic Four in “First Steps,” the quartet seems to have done as much and more. They’ve been active for years, saving the world from the likes of the Mole Man, Thinker, and some mind-controlled apes. The world is united under their Future Foundation (there’s one if its flags on the moon instead of Old Glory), and the film’s New York City is much different than the one I see outside my office window near Bryant Park — one filled with flying cars, futuristic buildings and, perhaps most dazzlingly, the Excelsior rocket (named for the catchphrase of comics co-creator Stan Lee), which stands on its own pad in the East River.

“First Steps” is full of retro futuristic designs, from its buildings and cars to clothes and technology (the Fantasticar and Fantasikitchen, for example), but the Excelsior stands apart. A sleek reusable rocketship with clustered main engines and three boosters (watch closely, they relight after separation to return to Earth), the Excelsior is the embodiment of a futuristic, yet retro, rocket.

“Research into 1960s-era space technology, particularly the Apollo missions, influenced the design of consoles and instruments on set,” Marvel writes in a description of the rocket. “Inspiration was drawn from sci-fi films, embracing a highly stylized vision of space travel and exploration.” Marvel Studios even sought tips from former NASA astronaut Rick Mastracchio on some of the smaller details, like Velcro tabs for holding gear down, or handrails to move around in zero gravity.

As a lifelong space fan, I reveled in the Excelsior’s launch sequence — which evokes a similar feeling to the launch in the movie “Apollo 13” — as well as the look of the ship and its spacesuits. This iteration of Fantastic Four actually has two types of spacesuits: An initial spacesuit worn on their first trip to space that left them vulnerable to cosmic radiation, and new spacesuits with that sleek blue Fantastic Four aesthetic.

“It feels like they’re going on a real adventure,” “First Steps” costume designer Alexandra Byrne said in a Marvel statement. “We looked at early Gemini and Mercury space suits from NASA as our reference and used those as the foundation for designing our early Air Force suits.”

For the record, space radiation is still a major concern for real-life astronauts. Solving that riddle will be critical if NASA and its partners ever hope to send humans to Mars. Luckily, we don’t have planet-devouring villains like Galactus or his herald Shalla-Bal, the Silver Surfer, to worry about (yet).

There are other nods to real space history as well. Johnny Storm translates alien signals from deep space on golden records that look uncannily similar to NASA’s Golden Records, which carried messages from humanity into interstellar space on the twin Voyager spacecraft. Reed Richards has telescopes that regularly seek out alien planets (like NASA’s own space telescopes), and his Excelsior rocket can land itself like SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets (although Reed’s ship can fly faster than light and escape a black hole). And don’t miss those cameos by Jupiter and Mars.

The biggest takeaway for space exploration in “Fantastic Four: First Steps” is its feeling of hope and unity. In the film, humanity has conquered space together as a united world. That’s something we could use a lot more of in the real world as NASA faces budget woes and competition in space with China. If the world can find just a bit of that cooperative spirit, well, that would be fantastic.

‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ is showing now in theaters around the globe, and will be available for streaming on Disney+ at a later date.