Did Marvel really use AI in The Fantastic Four: First Steps? Fan backlash and more, explored

Some say the new poster of The Fantastic Four: First Steps has been generated using AI. Others think it's just bad Photoshop, still others feel it's a bit of both.

A Marvel Studios rep told Deadline that no AI was used for the poster. They didn't say anything about Photoshop, but appeared ardent in their statement about the use of AI. The report says:

A rep from Marvel Studios tells Deadline that AI wasn’t used.

Maybe they didn't use AI, but fans aren't convinced — especially when it comes to the fingers of the people in the image. AI still needs to work on hands, to figure out the detailing, Phil Edwards produced a fun video on this for Vox. Well, that's not the topic here, so onto Fantastic Four.

A Business Standard report states that a Marvel spokesperson has outright denied AI rumors to The Hollywood Reporter. In their story, Business Standard quotes the spokesperson as saying:

"The image was crafted through traditional methods."

We couldn't find any such quote in any of The Hollywood Reporter's stories around The Fantastic Four: First Steps, or any recent MCU stories for that matter.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps owes fans more clarification on this

Featured above is The Fantastic Four: First Steps poster that came under fire from the Marvel community. Before getting on with the rest of the story, we advise you to take a closer look at the poster.

There were several fans who believed that the poster is AI-generated. Some tried to prove the point with specific screenshots in their replies. An enraged user writes:

"You can instantly see that this sh*tty poster is AI-generated."

Another user shared the same sentiment while leaning toward genuine artists who are being affected by the unethical use of this technology.

"Seriously? With all the $$ Marvel makes, you couldn't be decent and gainfully employ talented humans over generating AI slop from a plagiarism machine?"

Another user highlighted the number of fingers in a hand, which is something that, as we have already mentioned, AI struggles with. This user notes:

"Was he supposed to only have 4 fingers?"

Whether AI was used to create The Fantastic Four: First Steps poster or not, whoever made this definitely forgot about attention to details, which, ironically, Marvel is known to put much emphasis on.

When Marvel literally used AI and accepted it

Let's forget this poster for a moment and talk about The Fantastic Four: First Steps teaser. AI-generated images or videos are dreamlike, and have too many glitches. They come across as poor efforts to achieve perfection, and scream that they were generated using a technology that most artists hate. This clearly wasn't the case here.

It was in fact the case with Secret Invasion, which properly brought the Skrulls to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Marvel had a perfect explanation back then. Director Ali Selim of Secret Invasion said:

"When we reached out to the AI vendors, that was part of it — it just came right out of the shape-shifting, Skrull world identity, you know? Who did this? Who is this?"

In short, the technology went hand in hand with the series' concept. Still, fans weren't happy about it and there was backlash all over the internet.

Ever since AI has breached the world of artists, it has received a lot of criticism for pulling data available on the internet and presenting it in the form of images and videos that many feel are nothing short of creepy.

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Also Read: Why does Galactus look so small in The Fantastic Four: First Steps teaser? Reasons explored