The role of Mr. Fantastic has another new voice. Marvel has announced the latest actor to take on the role of Reed Richards, adding another name to a casting history that has seen the character recast more than almost any other major Marvel figure. After the third live-action Fantastic Four movie iteration in 2025, the revolving door for the character continues even after Pedro Pascal left his mark in The Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Mario Lopez has been cast as the voice of Mr. Fantastic in Disney Jr.’s preschool series Marvel’s Spidey and His Amazing Friends Shorts, which is available now.
Per Marvel, his Reed Richards is “the leader of the Fantastic Four” who “uses his ingeniousness and stretching powers to tactfully help Team Spidey beat the baddies.”
Lopez joins a long list of actors to voice and act as the iconic Marvel Comics hero over the past three decades. Of course, this version is aimed at kids, tapping more into the playfulness of his stretching powers rather than the darkness his grand intellect can hold.
On the big screen, the journey of Reed Richards has been anything but smooth. Ioan Gruffudd kicked things off in Fox’s Fantastic Four and its sequel, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer.
The films were modest performers but struggled critically, despite some young fans at the time loving them, and Fox’s attempts to build another franchise alongside the X-Men were reset.
In August 2025, Gruffudd denied any plans to return for a future Avengers cameo, but also left the door open if Marvel Studios came calling.
Fox infamously tried again in 2015, this time with Miles Teller as a younger Richards in a reboot directed by Josh Trank.
“Say that again.”
It became one of the worst productions in modern superhero history, bombing with critics and at the box office. Fox swiftly shelved the characters, then the rights eventually fell into Marvel Studios’ hands following Disney’s acquisition of Fox in 2019.
When the MCU finally brought Richards into the fold, it came as a shock. John Krasinski appeared as the Earth-838 version of the character in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, banking on a long-time fan casting.
His Reed Richards served on the Illuminati, but his MCU tenure was extremely brief… Elizabeth Olsen’s Scarlet Witch made sure of that.
Despite some fan speculation in the age of the multiverse, that was never going to be the permanent answer for Kevin Feige and Marvel Studios.
Pedro Pascal became the definitive MCU Reed Richards in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, leading Marvel’s First Family alongside Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach, all returning for Avengers: Doomsday.
Pascal’s take on the stretchy genius got generally positive reactions from fans, though the box office didn’t light the world on fire during a tumultuous MCU year.
On the animated side, Lopez joins a lineage of voice actors who have brought the character to life for younger audiences.
Over thirty years ago, Beau Weaver anchored the role in the 1994 Fantastic Four animated series, introducing an entire generation of young fans to The Fantastic Four.
Hiro Kanagawa stepped in for the 2006 stylized series Fantastic Four: World’s Greatest Heroes. He only got to play the character for a limited time, as the series ran for just one season of 26 episodes, though its U.S. run lasted from 2006 to 2010 due to an erratic broadcast schedule.
Moving to video games, Ian James Corlett voices Mr. Fantastic in the uber-popular multiplayer online shooter Marvel Rivals. The game recently launched “Path to Doomsday,” a mode inspired by the 2012 Avengers film, making way for the MCU’s next blockbuster crossover.
It’s safe to say Mr. Fantastic has been an incredibly iterative character across different forms of media. It’s yet to find a true legacy casting like Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man or Chris Evans as Steve Rogers. Building on First Steps, Marvel Studios hopes that Pascal is the answer, especially given the many plans the studio has for the character in the future.
Mr. Fantastic’s MCU Future Explained
The future for Pascal’s Reed Richards is shaping up to be one of the most consequential for a newly introduced character in the year.
He is confirmed to have a massive role in Avengers: Doomsday, and early marketing has already telegraphed that the comics rivalry between Richards and RDJ’s Doctor Doom will be one of the film’s central points of conflict.
That feud in Marvel Comics dates back to their college days at Empire State University, when Doom blamed Richards for a lab explosion that permanently scarred Richards’ face. The animosity between the two has driven some of Marvel Comics’ most compelling stories across more than 60 years. It arguably peaks in the 2015 Secret Wars comics event, where Doom decides, for the greater good, to give Reed control of the Multiverse.
Some fans expect that storyline, or an adaptation of it, is rumored to be part of Avengers: Secret Wars, capping off the Multiverse Saga.
The potential road ahead doesn’t stop there either for Pascal. The current Phase 7 release schedule points to an MCU Fantastic Four sequel as early as 2028, with the full First Steps cast expected to return after the universe’s soft reboot.
