The Thing and the 2026 Super Bowl

For the first time in over a decade, Marvel didn't have a Super Bowl commercial, but the Fantastic Four were well represented in this years' game, which thankfully included the Patriots getting the stuffing kicked out of them for four quarters (if only it could have gone on longer and they could have lost some more).

Near the end of the first half, the NFL aired a commercial for...itself, I guess? in an ad titled "Champion." (I tried to embed the full commercial, but I guess I didn't have the expressed and written consent of the NFL.) The premise of the ad was "yes, football!" but the real star of the spot was obviously the Thing, presented in 6-inch form. There were a number of toys featured in this ad, like Spider-Man, Skeletor and Optimus Prime, but the Thing is the only one shown to possibly also be alive, as he raises a fist in triumph in between shots.

The figure is a recent one from the Marvel Legends line, with the Thing in his Fantastic Four: First Steps outfit. I wonder if Marvel (and Hasbro and Mattel) paid a hefty licensing fee to get their intellectual properties in an NFL commercial, or if the NFL was the one to shell out the cash to include these pop culture icons in their ad. The fact that we don't see any DC superheroes on this kid's shelves leads me to believe that it might be the former.

The Thing wasn't the only FF member to make an appearance on game day. During Bad Bunny's halftime performance (which I thought was great), we see more than a few celebrity cameos.

Look, it's Jessica Alba, the Invisible Woman!

And there's Pedro Pascal, Mr. Fantastic!

I assume Johnny's invite got lost in the mail.

Hot Thing Summer: Fantastic Four First Steps Funko Pops

I don't blame Funko for going as off the rails as it eventually did. It gained national awareness and seemingly had every license in existence. It got as big as possible on a pretty simple idea.

I think the fad is ending, after, what fifteen years? I don't think of myself as someone who was ever a really big fan of Funko, and yet I've got Fantastic Four Pops, Weird Al Pops, Futurama Pops, the occasional Steelers Pop...a few years ago, Target sold an exclusive Rhinox Pop. I bought it. I suppose I'm as much to blame as anyone.

It was inevitable that Funko would make figures for the First Steps movie. These new FF designs are part of the third wave for the superhero team. The Thing and Dr. Doom helped launch the line back in 2008. Just a few years ago, Funko released a bunch of new figures as Marvel brought the title back from its hiatus, and we saw core characters as well as villains like the Mole Man and Super Skrull and a few mega-sized Things to boot. Now we've got a new line, with designs from the movie. I grabbed the Thing in his various poses. Let's take a look!

There are three versions of the character. The first has him in his First Steps costume.

The second is an Amazon exclusive with Ben in a trench coat. Funko upgraded their exclusive stickers relatively recently, probably because the previous ones were easy to fabricate. The new ones have the illusion of depth, and a QR code.

The third is a Target exclusive, with the Thing in his Galactus-chasing spacesuit. Target had space suit versions for all four characters.

Lastly, we've got a Comic-Con exclusive set of all four characters, in Funko's Bitty Pop! line. As the name suggests, these are the familiar molds, just a lot smaller. The figures are all about an inch in height.

This set has all four characters in miniature. Comic-Con also had a regular-sized H.E.R.B.I.E. figure. I wasn't able to grab this at the show, but prices were thankfully pretty low on eBay when I was finally able to grab one -- about $30. I'm glad that these were all pretty easy to find.

Hot Thing Summer: Fantastic Four Snapple

I don't think I had ever bought a bottle of Snapple before the summer of '25, and yet on one magical day, I bought enough to last me for the rest of my natural life. Why? The Thing made me do it.

Of all the Fantastic Four: First Steps promotional food items, the four branded Snapple bottles were the ones that took the longest to show up on shelves near where I live, in July 2025. Weeks earlier, I saw the Mr. Fantastic apple drink on a food cart in New York City. When this didn't translate to me driving home and immediately finding it, I got a little worried. But I soon found them all on the shelves of a nearby Wawa.

For the lineup, we had Mr. Fantastic on apple, Invisible Woman on peach tea, the Human Torch on zero sugar peach tea, and the Thing on strawberry kiwi. These were all on 16-ounce bottles. I did find a much larger peach tea with the Torch on it, but none of the others. I choose to believe that this was the only size bottle for kiwi strawberry.

If the Thing could have been on any of the four bottles, strawberry kiwi seemed like the best bet. I later found out that Snapple drinks are just...well, they're okay. I wasn't excited about any of them. In case you're wondering, they do still have Snapple facts under the caps.

After I got the four bottles (okay, I got eight), I figured that I was done with my search, and it didn't take too much effort to cross these off my list.

And then I found out that these bottles came in both branded six- and 12-packs! And wouldn't you know it, the Thing was printed on the cellophane wrapping of each. So I ended up going home with 20 bottles of Thing juice in various packaging.

Much like the cereal boxes and milk jugs, I had to consider what I was going to do with these huge packages. I ultimately decided to just keep the wrapping, and a couple of the individual bottles. It's insanity that I can live with.

On average, I drink about one of these every three months, so it looks like I'll have Thing juice in stock until about 2030.

Around this same time, Snapple released a Fantastic Four promotional comic. Who knows how or where this was distributed (I found a copy on eBay), but it looked like this. It's a reprint of Fantastic Four #36 by Lee and Kirby, with an appearance by Lady Medusa and the Frightful Four. I'm not sure why they chose this issue, as the content didn't tie in very much with the First Steps movie. The cover is new, of course, though the costumes the team wears are also a bit strange. They're not the First Steps costumes, they're not the costumes the characters wear in the book, and they're also not the most recent iteration. In fact, these look like a new, slight redesign of the classic look, with a new Fantasticar design in the background as well. Who knows! Some young artist got a paycheck for it, and that's good.

I would have demanded that the cover feature all of the characters drinking Snapple.

Hot Thing Summer: Fantastic Four First Steps magazine

One of my first comic book buying experiences was at my local Foodland, a grocery store which I think has been out of business for, like, 20 years at this point (I should have tried to get their spinner rack when it closed). I wanted to get one of those Spider-Man 30th anniversary hologram cover issues (the heart wants what it wants), and my mom balked at the cover price, which, I mean, was fair. But hey, Amazing Spider-Man #365 introduced Spider-Man 2099 to the world, so they provided some lasting cultural value.

Anyway, comics, and printed magazines in general, probably won't see a return to the newsstands and racks that I barely witnessed growing up, at least not in the way people get nostalgic for, but every once in a while you do see superhero comics show up in some unlikely-ish places. This summer, Marvel released a Fantastic Four: First Steps magazine, and I found it at the grocery store!

This issue came, in true comic book form, with two different covers. Both of the covers have previously published art, which is kind of disappointing, but at least they picked two good compositions. The cover on the left of the picture above has art by Phil Noto, and the one on the right is by Art Adams.

The interiors, similarly, barely have any original content, but I guess the potential audience for these is different than your regular comic book reader. I say this as someone who has no idea who picks up magazines from the checkout line.

The magazine mostly serves to reprint three separate, 21st century Fantastic Four issues, each of them the first chapters of storylines that are probably easily found in trade format.

I know that Alex Ross gets a king's ransom for his page rate, but Marvel publishes whatever he does over and over again, ad infinitum, so they get their mileage from it. Pages 1, 3, 4 and 5 are all Ross, from previously published works.

There are only a few short articles in this magazine, and they serve to tie the comics into the movie (hey, there's more Alex Ross art). I would have liked to see more pictures from and information about the movie, but I'm glad that there's a big focus on the comics throughout the publication.

Each comic issue has an introduction page that precedes it. Fantastic Four #60 might be the most published FF story since the '60s. This was sold as a 9-cent issue back in 2002.

The other two stories are from the Hickman/Eaglesham "Solve Everything" run, and the first issue of the 2022 series. All of the stories look really nice printed on glossy stock.

Around this same time, DC put out similarly sized and formatted collections for Superman and Batman, and I just saw a Teen Titans Go! issue out on my last trip to the store. It's great to see comics show up in places like these, beyond the standard Archie fare.

I wonder how many of these magazines were sold, not just because of reader interest, but because of the hefty price tag that accompanied them. These issues were $14.99 each! By comparison, some trade collections, with more material and a complete story, often run at around $9.99. So this was not what I'd consider an impulse buy. Since the DC issues are priced the same, this is apparently the cost of getting the rack space. I was supremely motivated to both find and buy these, but I was still taken back by the price, especially since there's almost no new content to be had. If you compare these to DC's 100-page Wal-Mart comics from five years ago, which had new lead stories and cost five bucks, these come up a little short.

The back cover was an ad for the movie, which was the natural choice.

I'm glad these exists, and was excited to see Fantastic Four comics outside of a comic shop! I definitely sorted through the entire stack to make sure I got the ones that were in the best shape. They're aimed at new readers, but I bet that collectors and existing comic fans were the ones to snatch these up.

Hot Thing Summer: Fantastic Four Pop-Tarts

I suppose that I admire the Pop-Tarts brand for being willing to try weird marketing ideas. Their "crazy good" commercials are odd and the fact that they ritualistically sacrifice a person-sized Pop-Tart after a college football bowl game is, well, I mean, it's memorable. By comparison, going in on the Fantastic Four: First steps marketing push seems like a safe idea. I didn't see any advertising for these, but I had my eye out for them, and around the beginning of July, they started showing up in stores.

There were four different varieties of these toaster pastries this time around. You could find strawberry, brown sugar cinnamon and toasted s'mores in pretty much any grocery story. Walmart went in for yet another exclusive with their blue raspberry flavor. The strawberry and blue raspberry boxes feature the FF prominently on the fronts, while the other two just have top banner branding. The back of each box look the same, with images of some of what you'll see inside.

There were a set of eight different images, and you'd see one on each Pop-Tart in each box.

The images actually transferred pretty well to the icing. Like the cereal, I ultimately decided that I couldn't keep a bunch of full Pop-Tart boxes in my house, so I opened the boxes and flattened them, and I ate the contents. This was the right choice, though I held my breath as I broke the boxes apart.

I took a picture of these every time I toasted a pair...for posterity, I guess (and blogs). The blue raspberry tasted like the most artificial food you've ever ingested. But this was an official Thing food product, so I went for it and I do not regret it.

Not stopping at the exclusive flavor, Walmart also released an online-only collector's box (we're really stretching the boundaries of the word "collector's" here) that contained a few different items. I missed these entirely, but your friend (and mine) Larry grabbed a couple of these for me. They called it the Launch Box! I get it. Here's what's inside!

The boxes all had another blue raspberry box of Pop-Tarts, with the logos and some of the branding shining in embossed metallic to distinguish it from the boxes you'd find on store shelves. Okay, this one I kept sealed in its package. In ten years, the contents will probably turn nuclear and burn a hole through the floor.

There's also a small cloth tote with the movie logo on it. I admit it -- this is pretty neat.

I guess it IS collectin' time.

Hot Thing Summer: Fantastic Four milk

 

I vaguely recall seeing a blue Star Wars milk tie-in a while ago. I don't remember specific thoughts about it, just an overriding emotion that I would not want to drink it and that, perhaps, it should not exist on this world. Well, sometime around June of last year, I found myself on the hunt for what I expect was the exact same product with a different label on the front, and I'm here to say that I did both buy and consume TruMoo's Fantastic Four: First Steps promotional milk-like substance.

I knew that these products were coming sometime in the summer, so I kept an eye out every time I went to the grocery store, but I only discovered them when I saw a half gallon in someone else's cart. I'm only slightly ashamed to say that I talked to a stranger in my local Giant to find out just where they found their container, and it turns out that I missed it because it wasn't shelved with the other milk, but the milk-adjacent liquids like creamer and Quik. All four Fantastic Four characters got their own label, and I of course picked the Thing.

This was not just dyed regular milk, but flavored; the label listed it as "Fantastic Berry." I was hesitant to try it, but, I mean, it says it's fantastic, so why not. Well, the reason why not is because it was kind of syrupy, and rather than fruity, it almost tasted like it was...I want to say perfumed? It was an interesting experience. I did it for the Thing.

Wouldn't you know it, TruMoo's Fantastic Berry milk wasn't the only FF milk product out there this summer. Lehigh Valley is a local dairy brand that I suspect is actually owned by a really big corporation (I mean, I'd guess they probably own TruMoo as well) that puts regional labels on their cartons in different locations. Their take on Fantastic Four milk was a lot more straightforward, as theirs was just a gallon of milk with a character on the label.

As with the Fantastic Berry drink, each FF character got featured on a label, but these were specific to whole, 2%, 1% and skim. The Thing got plastered onto the whole milk gallon jugs, so that's what I got.

I, of course, immediately thought of what my life would be coming to if I kept empty plastic milk jugs, like, on a shelf or something, so I took the slightly less crazy (but still crazy) pathway and I cut the labels off of these to keep.

Around this same time, TruMoo ran a promotion where they gave away color-change Fantastic Four-themed glassware to people who sent in a proof of purchase and filled out an online form. Each week for a month, you could send away for that week's glass. These were apparently very limited, but I still somehow landed both the Thing and Reed. The back of the glass has logos for both the movie and TruMoo.

By "color change", I mean that these reveal their colors when you pour a cold drink into them, or just put them in the fridge for the purposes of taking pictures for your blog. As with much of the promotional materials, these glasses used the standard marketing images. Still, I think that this is one of the more unique pieces of merchandise for the movie, and I'm happy to get this one. Some folks are attempting to add a new wing to their houses by selling theirs on eBay.

Let's look at one more First Steps glass. This one was available at Alamo Drafthouses across the country and is at least a little bit different than just the standard promotional item.

You could order these glasses at the physical Alamo locations, and they have similar ones for many of the movies they show there. I have to believe that there's one guy who collects them all and just has a house full of movie-themed glassware. I guess there are stranger things. You could collect milk jugs.

Hot Thing Summer: Regal's Fantastic Four trading card set

Let me tell you a little bit about the Regal Cinemas 4DX theater experience. It's like you're on a roller coaster, but you still have to watch a movie, and also you get misted with water every few minutes. If you can manage to not be forcibly ejected from your seat during a screening, you get some trading cards afterwards. Maybe? Or was that just me? In any case, I braved the mechanical bull that was the 4DX theater in early May for one reason and one reason only: because there was some Fantastic Four: First Steps promotional merchandise to be had.

The start of Marvel's summer movie season was its Thunderbolts* film, released at the beginning of May. On this same day, the company put out a social media advertisement that showed off Fantastic Four trading cards, and not much context. I eventually figured out that these were real, and that you could get them at very specific Regal Cinemas locations. I looked it up and learned that there were only two of these 4DX locations in the entire state of Pennsylvania, but what do you know, both of them were about an hour away from me. Did I immediately get my car keys? No, I waited several whole minutes to do that.

I thought that the Thunderbolts* movie was pretty good. The Fantastic Four teaser in the post-credits scene is a little confusing after having seen the First Steps movie, but whatever -- I saw the Pogo Plane (they're probably not calling it that) and I liked it. I was one of five people in the fully automated theater, wearing 3D glasses and being jostled around in my seat as chairs all around me were seemingly filled by ghosts, but I was determined to get those cards. I got them, and, um, I might have talked myself into getting a few more packs on the way out. Listen, I deserve this.

The packs were pretty nicely made. They felt like the wax packs of yore and they maintained the retro theme that much of the FF advertising had throughout the buildup to the movie. The back of the package had the company branding on it and there were five cards inside, with all four members plus H.E.R.B.I.E.

The backs of the cards are all the same, with the "4" logo and movie date. These cards were really great and boy, am I glad that I found some locally and didn't have to pay to buy 'em on eBay after the fact. I got to keep a sealed pack and open one up. This was a great success.

This happened to be Free Comic Book Day weekend, so I grabbed the very first Fantastic Four FCBD title in the event's 25-year history, which means it was a big day. Around this time, Diamond filed for bankruptcy, and the Free Comic Book Day brand is owned by them, so maybe this was also the last FCBD? At least with that specific title and logo? Who knows.

A few months later, there were four more First Steps promo cards to be had, these ones from Topps at their Comic-Con booth in San Diego. They released one each day of the show, from Thursday through Sunday.

And in the months since, Topps has put out a bunch of sets that include some FF movie cards. Most of them use the standard promotional art and images, and they're hard for me to keep track of. The trading card industry shares a lot of the same ills as the comic book industry, in that it's caught up in another dumb speculation boom, and thus there are variants and shiny, metallic versions and, like, pop up versions or whatever. I picked up a Thing card from eBay recently and it has 82/125 stamped on the back, and I'm thinking to myself, is this good? Do I care about this? And then I settle on, "well, this is dumb," and then there's a voice that whispers in my ear, "it's the same with comic books and variant covers" and I try to suppress that as much as I can. Ah hem.

Anyway, the Regal cards were a great promotion, and I was happy to chase them down. I'm not sure if it would have been better with a stick of gum included.