‘The Fantastic Four: First Steps’ Post Credits Scenes Explained: Who Cameos in the Mid Credit Scene? What Are Franklin Richards’s Powers?

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is officially in movie theaters worldwide, introducing us to Marvel’s versions of Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal), Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby), Ben Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach), and Johnny Storm (Joseph Quinn). Like this summer’s other big superhero movie, The Fantastic Four leans fully into the optimism that defined early comic books. The Fantastic Four: First Steps embraces goofy characters like Mole Man (Paul Walter Hauser) and H.E.R.B.I.E. while giving us a moving story about a family tested like never before.

But does the new Fantastic Four movie have an end credits scene? Does Robert Downey Jr.’s Victor von Doom make a post credits debut ahead of next winter’s Avengers: Doomsday? What’s going on with baby Franklin Richards? And do you really have to sit through all of the credits at the end of Marvel’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps?

Here’s everything you need to know about The Fantastic Four end credits….

**SPOILERS for The Fantastic Four: First Steps, now playing in theaters**

Does The Fantastic Four: First Steps Have an End Credits Scene? Mid Credits Scene? Post Credits Scene?!?!

The Fantastic Four: First Steps is an MCU movie, so of course you’ve got to stick around for a treat after the credits roll.

There are actually two post credits scenes. The mid credits scene takes place four years after the events of Fantastic Four and sets up Doomsday. The end credits scene is more of a fun Easter egg for hardcore fans.

If you sit all the way through all of The Fantastic Four: First Steps credits, you’ll get to see the animated opening credits for the in-universe Fantastic Four cartoon. (You’ll also get to hear a haunting folk song co-written by composers Michael Giacchino and Andrea Datzman from the POV of one of the Galactus cult followers.)

However, the scene everyone will really be talking about is the Fantastic Four mid-credits scene…

Is Robert Downey Jr.’s Doctor Doom in The Fantastic Four: First Steps?

So does RDJ’s Doctor Doom pop up in the new Fantastic Four movie? Well, sort of.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps mid-credits scene is set in the Baxter Building four years after our heroes have defeated Galactus (Ralph Ineson). Sue is reading with her precocious son Franklin and leaves the conversation pit to grab another book. As she returns to Franklin, she’s suddenly on high alert. They are not alone. A green hooded man is talking to Franklin.

Although we never see the man’s face, this is obviously Victor von Doom, aka Doctor Doom. In the comics, he is Reed’s metal-masked arch-nemesis: a brilliant inventor, power-hungry supervillain, and the leader of the nation of Latveria. (You’ll note that Latveria is shown as the only nation that sits out Sue’s utopian version of the U.N. earlier in the film, already establishing bad blood between the nation and the FF.)

So, Doctor Doom does show up in one of The Fantastic Four‘s end credits scenes, but since we don’t see Robert Downey Jr.’s face, the role is likely being played by a stand-in.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps: What are Franklin Richards’s Powers in the Comics?

About halfway through The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Galactus offers our heroes a terrible compromise. He will spare Earth if they give him Sue and Reed’s baby. The supervillain believes that little baby Franklin Richards has the power to take over his all-consuming hunger, thus freeing him from his planet-devouring gig. Of course, the Fantastic Four aren’t going to give their little guy up, so they come up with a different plan to save the Earth.

Okay, but how powerful is little Franklin? What exactly are his powers? And why do villains like Galactus and Doctor Doom obsessed with him?

Franklin Richards is one of the most powerful characters in all of Marvel comics. Thanks to Reed and Sue’s cosmic powers, he’s born with the ability to completely change reality according to his whims, making him, uh, basically a god. In the comics, he often puts limits on his own abilities so he can cosplay being a normal kid. Because he can manipulate reality, he also has psionic powers that occasionally manifest as telepathy, telekinesis, and astral projection. He is also probably immortal.

Given all that, Reed and Sue are gosh darn lucky that their all-powerful tyke seems to be a pretty nice kid. So far, in the MCU, he’s only used his insane powers to bring his mom back to life after she dies battling Galactus. (Yes, Sue died overexerting herself pushing Galactus through the streets of Manhattan, and, yes, her baby brought her back to life and then clapped for himself. That is what happened.)

So what is Doctor Doom doing in the Baxter Building during The Fantastic Four: First Steps mid credits scene? Well, he’s cozying up to little Franklin. Doom probably wants that nice kid’s god-like power for himself. Could Franklin’s powers have something to do with how the heroes of Earth-828 find themselves in the MCU’s main Earth-199999 timeline for Avengers: Doomsday?