The Fantastic Four: First Steps teaser trailer presents a comics-accurate take on Marvel’s First Family, with one exception: the facial hair on Reed Richards’ upper lip. Surely, the traditionally clean-shaven Reed Richards hasn’t ever grown a moustache in The Fantastic Four: First Steps‘ comic book source material?
And indeed, he hasn’t (unless we’re counting his multiversal variants). But that doesn’t mean Reed’s mug has always been follicle-free since Stan Lee and Jack Kirby created him back in 1961. On the contrary, the Fantastic Four’s long-limbed leader has a history of letting it all grow out in the comics, which we’ve recapped below.
Reed Richards Sometimes Sports Stubble
The first time Reed Richards went into battle with stubble was in 1966’s Fantastic Four #48–50, otherwise known as “The Galactus Trilogy.” That’s right, Reed was rocking five o’clock shadow for one of the most important Fantastic Four story arcs – heck, one of the most important Marvel story arcs, period! In his defense, the poor guy had been working overtime in the lab, and he did break out a razor in time for the final showdown. Even so, Reed started out with whiskers when he first encountered Galactus in the comics, so if we’re being generous, his moustache in First Steps (which is inspired by said encounter) broadly tracks with canon.
Either way, “The Galactus Trilogy” established a trend of Reed forgetting to shave while puzzling over a particularly tough problem. Lee and Kirby depicted Reed with stubble again in 1967’s Fantastic Four #67, and the likes of Fantastic Four Annual #15 creative team Doug Moench and George Perez followed suit in the decades that followed. Most recently, scribe Jonathan Hickman and his various artistic collaborators (particularly Dale Eaglesham) put fuzz on Reed’s face for a decent stretch of Hickman’s 2010s run on Fantastic Four. Hickman’s tenure also featured the aforementioned moustachioed Reed variant from one of Marvel’s many alternate universes.
Mister Fantastic… Grower of Beards
Why stop at a moustache when you can grow a full beard? That’s possibly what went through Reed’s mind when he first grew a beard in 1995’s Fantastic Four #406. Either that, or this was writer/artist team Tom DeFalco and Paul Ryan’s nod to the classic trope of fictional characters turning up alive and bearded after their apparent demise. Reed soon got rid of his scraggly – and ginger! – beard, but he’s grown others since.
Notably, Dwayne McDuffie and Paul Pelletier introduced a future version of Reed with white-grey facial hair in 2008’s Fantastic Four #533, while Hickman and artists such as Mike Mayhew and Stefano Caselli gave the present-day Reed his beard back for 2014 event “Time Runs Out.” In the latter case, Reed wouldn’t revert to his classic, clean-shaven look until sometime after Hickman and Esad Ribic’s follow-up crossover, 2015’s Secret Wars.
Check out Reed Richards’ moustache on the big screen when The Fantastic Four: First Steps arrives in cinemas on July 25, 2025.