The Thing Appears to Be Rocking a Beard in 'Fantastic Four: First Steps'

In a summer filled with intriguing blockbusters, Fantastic Four: First Steps is among the most anticipated. The movie, which will finally introduce the Fantastic Four to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, is currently slated to hit theaters on July 25, is Marvel's biggest bet of the year.

The studio is pulling out all the stops to promote the film, which includes the release of a final trailer, which just dropped on June 25, a month before the movie's release. While the trailer gives us snippets of things we've seen before, it also includes new footage of Ben Grimm, a.k.a. the Thing, and some fans noticed a distinctive feature. Namely, the Thing appears to have a beard. Here's what we know about why that is:

The trailer seems to suggest that, at least for part of Fantastic Four: First Steps, Ebon Moss-Bachrach's Ben Grimm will be sporting a rocky beard. This almost unavoidably leads to questions. Unlike Hulk, the Thing cannot transform at will. He is a big, rocky guy all the time, and that means he's not just porting over some kind of human beard. So, can the Thing actually grow a beard? Where does the beard begin, and what is it made out of? How do you maintain such a thing?

As it turns out, though, the beard is actually a feature that the Thing can grow in the comics. In "Fantastic Four" #605, Reed Richards time-travels to the distant future, where he discovers that Ben will far outlive the rest of his friends. In that comic, he meets a heavily bearded version of the Thing, so it's clear that the character is capable of growing facial rocks.

Although that comic sort of implies that it took Ben thousands of years to grow that beard (which would make sense given how slowly rock formations change), it seems like the movie is suggesting that Ben could grow a beard in roughly the same amount of time it would take a human to do so. Of course, it's possible that Ben could wind up doing some time travel. Maybe he leaves the team for thousands of years right in the middle of the film.

Although we've gotten some looks at the movie thanks to trailers and previews, we still don't really know much about the plot of this Marvel entry. We do know that the movie takes place in a universe where the Fantastic 4 are the only superheroes, and we know that it seems to have a sort of retro-futurist aesthetic that's befitting of its central heroes.

Trailers have let us know that Galactus and the Silver Surfer are coming to threaten this world, but past those details, there's plenty we don't know about what will actually happen in the film itself. Maybe Ben's beard will prove to be crucial to the plot, but until we see the final movie, we really can't say for sure.