Marvel and Disney’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps is still months away from release (assuming that everything goes according to schedule) and Marvel officially revealed the main cast of the film on Valentine’s Day. This confirmed Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as members of the eponymous team. However, Marvel went one step further and revealed additional cast members, some of which are portraying undisclosed roles, leading fans to speculate about potential character appearances in the coming movie.
The additional cast includes Natasha Lyonne, probably best known for her work on Orange Is the New Black and American Pie movie. Admittedly, her casting was already mentioned back in May of last year, with fan theories suggesting that she could play the Inhuman Medusa or even a female version of Doctor Doom. However, after Lyonne shared a picture of her and Moss-Bachrach (who portrays the Thing) from London, where the movie is being filmed, many now speculate that she might be portraying Alicia Masters.
For those who are unaware, Alicia Masters is a blind sculptor in Marvel Comics who forms an immediate bond with Ben Grimm and goes on to become his love interest and, eventually, his wife. Before we dive into how she met the Thing and how she chiseled one of the softest bonds in Marvel Comics, let’s discuss Alicia’s origins in the comics and how she met the Fantastic Four team in the first place.
Alicia wasn’t born blind. She was struck blind by a blast caused by an apparent accident, which also killed her father. However, the “accident” was no stroke of misfortune; her father Jacob was pushed into a vat of radioactive clay by his business partner Phillip, which killed Jacob and triggered the explosion. Phillip survived the blast and told everyone that the blast was an accident, keeping Jacob’s murder a secret for many, many years.
Following her father’s funeral, Phillip began teaching Alicia, an artful child who loved to paint, how to sculpt with clay. He also eventually married her mother, with Alicia taking up his last name. But Alicia’s personal tragedies didn’t end there; her mother Marcia died of radiation poisoning caused by the blast that killed her husband years prior. After her mother died, Alicia and Phillip moved to Manhattan, where she attended a special school for the visually impaired. It’s worth noting that Alicia’s character history has some discrepancies in the comics, which were never addressed in comics.
Sometime after, Alicia’s stepfather Phillip developed powers that allowed him to control the minds of others due to his exposure to the radioactive clay. Taking on the name of Puppet-Master, he took control of the Thing, captured Sue Storm, and had Alicia replace her. However, Mr. Fantastic freed Ben from the Puppet Master’s control by reverting Ben to human form, and Alicia rebelled against her stepfather and became a friend of the Fantastic Four. She was especially interested in the Thing, not because of his appearance, but because of his personality.
She started spending a lot of time with Ben Grimm, trying to show him his inner beauty despite Ben’s ongoing depression over his transformation into a walking blue-eyed boulder. Her lack of sight allowed her to see beyond what her vision would allow, and where others saw a creature, Alicia recognized a kind soul beneath all the stone, a man deserving of love and acceptance. More importantly, her kindness wasn’t born of pity but of genuine admiration and understanding that the measure of a person is never found in their appearance.
Making her a sculptor is a really smart metaphor; she carves stone and clay to reveal hidden beauties, which also allows her to draw out Ben’s humanity and vulnerability from within his tough exterior, even when he struggles to be vulnerable himself. Of course, their relationship had its ups and downs, but it has endured through comic book history, proving that their love isn’t one of fleeting attraction but of deep and abiding care and admiration.
The character made her way to the silver screen; Kerry Washington’s portrayal in the 2005 and 2007 Fantastic Four movies — though limited — captured the essence of Alicia’s admiration and her love of Ben. Those films might not be the most beloved adaptations of the Fantastic Four (though they’re stellar compared to 2015’s Fantastic Four), but they did successfully portray the beauty of Alicia and Ben’s relationship, highlighting how love and understanding flourish even in the most unexpected places.
Ultimately, what makes Alicia Masters remarkable isn’t that she loves Ben despite his appearance, but that she never saw it as an obstacle to begin with. Here’s hoping The Fantastic Four: First Steps does her justice — assuming Marvel see’s fit to include her at all.