New concept art revealed what could have been an even cooler look for Galactus in Fantastic Four 2025. The towering planet-eating comic book terror made his MCU debut in the new Fantastic Four: First Steps, arriving on Earth as a Kaiju-sized threat ready to take on Marvel's First Family. While the character sported a comic book-accurate look (unlike some past iterations of the villain), he did not come off as menacing as some would have hoped.
It turns out that getting Galactus right was a significant focus in the new film. Director Matt Shakman and Eric Pearson hummed and hawed over the character's massive scale to ensure he was threatening but also made sense from a human perspective. This meant there were some other distinct versions of the star-faring villain used in development, several of which have appeared online.
Fantastic Four 2025 Visual Development Supervisor Jackson Sze shared several pieces of new concept art of Galactus from the film, revealing that the character could have been even cooler than what fans got in the final cut.
Sze posted the images on his personal Instagram, showing several unused scenes featuring the Fantastic Four villain in some unused scenes from the movie. These included what seems to be an alternate look at the film's final battle in New York City.
This concept piece shows the battle taking place in a darker environment, as the towering terror leaves a trail of flaming carnage in his warpath toward the infant Franklin Richards.
This is a far cry from what fans got in the movie's final cut. In the film, Galactus landed on Earth just like the concept pieces, but was much less intimidating in how he went about his siege of the city.
This disparity between the two versions of the final fight ultimately likely has to do with the set dressing surrounding Galactus rather than the villain himself.
The final battle took place in the movie on a bright and sunny day. Just picking the sequence up and setting it in the dark with the flaming wreckage of New York City lighting big bad, gives the conflict this chilling air that was not present in the film's final cut.
Sze shared several other concept pieces of the villain, adding to this feeling of 'what could have been' with the character.
In these particular pieces, Galactus stands above Earth, casting a massive shadow on the planet below.
Because the character's scale was kept consistent in the movie's final version, this look could not be achieved on-screen simply because he would not have been big enough to loom over the planet as he is seen doing in Sze's art.
This 'casting a shadow' moment almost feels more akin to some of the Celestial scenes from Eternals, where one of these massive cosmic characters could take up the entire horizon if they wanted to.
Galactus is just one of the many characters who made their MCU debut in the new Fantastic Four film. The terrifying villain was joined by the likes of Sue Storm, Reed Richards, Ben Grimm, Johnny Storm, and the Silver Surfer as new additions to the MCU canon.
Fantastic Four: First Steps was directed by WandaVision director Matt Shakman and stars Ralph Ineson, Vanessa Kirby, Pedro Pascal, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Joseph Quinn, and Julia Garner. The new MCU film is now playing in theaters worldwide.
Will Galactus Come Back to the MCU Scarier Than Ever?
It was exciting to finally get a fairly comic-accurate version of Galactus in Fantastic Four 2025, but it is sneak peeks at concept pieces such as these that will inevitably make some fans wish we could have gotten that version of the character/final battle.
Luckily, Galactus is not dead and gone in the MCU, and could come back, bigger and better than ever. The character was notably not killed off at the end of the film. Instead, he was thrust through a wormhole to the far reaches of space.
Some have speculated that the character may come back in some form in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday or Secret Wars, either being recruited by the dastardly Doctor Doom for his nefarious Multiverse-conquering schemes or by the Avengers themselves to stop Doom from whatever he is working on.
Either way, it would not be all that surprising if the galactic galoot returned in the MCU in the not-too-distant future, getting another chance to bring the terror fans were hoping for in Fantastic Four: First Steps.
