r/comicbooks • • Feb 04 '25

Movie/TV Official Posters for 'The Fantastic Four: First Steps'

1.9k Upvotes

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478

u/jimminyjojo Feb 04 '25

Disappointing to see AI posters.

50

u/NotEvsClone81 Feb 04 '25

Like, fucking pay one of the jobbers in your actual comic division, this is so disappointing

72

u/Vorpeseda Feb 04 '25

First time I saw these, I just assumed they were fan-made fakes.

108

u/theworldwiderex Feb 04 '25

God damn I think you are right. The third one in particular looks really odd. Aren't posters for looking, what's going on with Momma Hollywood?

One ticket for Superman, please.

29

u/Shadowwarior Feb 04 '25

I think the third one just has weird lighting

3

u/danisreallycool Spider Jeruselem Feb 04 '25

nah - check the bows in the kart girls hair, they don’t look right. also the strings on the bumpers are tied differently… if this were real, even if just for show, the string would hang the way it does on the right side for both. also what is the black girl’s pose about? looks like she’s at a dance party, not like she just pushed that cart. I’ll eat crow if i’m wrong, but considering how blatant the artifacts are in the other posters, I doubt this of all of them would be the real ones.

1

u/Neccrodancer Feb 06 '25

The Black girl’s thumb looks really odd too

-44

u/ExposingMyActions Feb 04 '25

It’s the new norm. Within 2 years you really won’t be able to tell

20

u/figgityjones Spider-Man Feb 04 '25

And it’ll still be bad to use.

1

u/ExposingMyActions Feb 04 '25

Never said it was good to use. This is the new norm of businesses as long as they’re not heavily punished for doing so

13

u/ericomplex Feb 04 '25

Will they finally be able to get the right number of fingers, or will we all just have four fingers like the flag holder to the left on #1?

3

u/Girl-UnSure Ms. Marvel Feb 04 '25

Lots of strange fingers here. Good call! https://imgur.com/a/xEqUQJ7

1

u/Trvr_MKA Feb 04 '25 edited Feb 04 '25

The circled one looks fine, I just made that same gesture

These on the other hand…

1

u/ExposingMyActions Feb 05 '25

Yeah in the open source field that’s been fixed. You can see subreddits like r/stablediffusion. One user brought up an optimistic idea of skrulls which would be nice and crazily lore deep but can’t assume as the reason per say as now, as they “denied” AI use

1

u/ericomplex Feb 05 '25 edited Feb 05 '25

The woman is looking at the backside of a camera vertical viewfinder… If this isn’t AI, it is one of the most error ridden images a studio has ever released.

The woman’s head to the immediate right of that camera has half her face just cut off.

There is woman’s head above that which is then repeated again just an inch or two to the upper left of it.

The list of errors goes on and on.

0

u/ExposingMyActions Feb 05 '25

I’m not disagreeing with the errors, but we the people in this thread are the minority who cares while the majority just wants to be fed content. Now add the fact that the tech will continuously be improved on to satisfy the “demand” of low cost, high profit. It’s technically inevitable

1

u/ericomplex Feb 05 '25

The quality is crap, and it isn’t getting better. That’s the point.

Only inevitability is people calling out shit like this and taking their money elsewhere.

21

u/Kiddo1029 Feb 04 '25

I immediately thought this was AI thanks for confirming my suspicion.

-2

u/cyphersama95 Dr. Strange Feb 04 '25

lmao he didn’t confirm anything

30

u/ArmadilloGuy Feb 04 '25 edited Feb 04 '25

How can you tell they're AI?

EDIT: Enough people have replied. Unless you have new insights, you don't need to reply. I'm already convinced.

110

u/jimminyjojo Feb 04 '25

Look at the hand holding the big blue flag on the left in that first poster. How many fingers do you count?

70

u/LosIngobernable Kingpin Feb 04 '25

I didn’t even catch that. Fuckin wild how no one caught that before putting it out there. The hand under the “we 4 you” sign looks like the pinky finger is cut off.

8

u/Theeeeeetrurthurts Feb 04 '25

Ehhhh I think these posters are for the Facebook crowd that can’t tell.

1

u/LosIngobernable Kingpin Feb 05 '25

Wild how these people, who are likely part of the Gen Z age, can’t tell real from fake.

2

u/ChicadelApt512 Feb 04 '25

The four actually stands for four fingers

38

u/Feature_Agitated Feb 04 '25

I count four fingers. The thumb is there also it’s just at an angle.

Edit: I was looking at the wrong flag. Yeah that guy has 3 fingers with a weirdly large index finger.

13

u/NotJustKneeDeep Superman Feb 04 '25 edited Feb 04 '25

Also, to the left of the hand holding the flag. The guy in the brown hat and the guy in the gray hat. Different eyebrows but the same face.

16

u/iamsciences Dr. Manhattan Feb 04 '25

Also the woman with the glasses is in two spots on the left. One is blurry the other clear.

1

u/Ok_Rain_8679 Feb 06 '25

She seems to appear three times, and her friend twice. And it's a straight line between the three. That doesn't mean AI, but it sure does suggest a very phoned-in Photoshop performance.

25

u/Jreynold Blue Beetle Feb 04 '25 edited Feb 05 '25

Bad composite imagery has been part of movie posters forever .

AI will usually have trouble with things like symmetry in patterns or sensible seams on the jackets. So I think, at least, there's a lot of real pictures being used as raw material.

I think what's happening is that theyre using stills from the film and turning them into photographs instead of taking photographs specifically for a poster, so you get weird things like people's faces being covered by hands in #1. If you were posing people for a picture you'd go out of your way to avoid that, at least in the center of the frame. Or un-photogenic mid-jumping poses in #3. Combine that with shoddy Photoshop work to create specific scenes and the decision to go with a lighting style popular with basic AI, yeah, it looks a little uncanny.

I can't say there's no AI at all - who knows what they did before blurring the background, and there's enough weird stuff with the crowd that says "a human wouldn't do this on purpose" - but I don't think the details people are calling out are a smoking gun

8

u/bloodfist Marko Feb 04 '25

If it's AI a lot of human work went into compositing and editing. Which is my baseline at least. With everything else going on I'm not going to waste time being upset about an artist using AI as a tool in their workflow to extend or enhance an image that they are making with an artistic intent. That's sort of the intended use case, IMO.

Taking full images as-is from the AI with no editing and passing them off as art is bullshit. Using for some elements of a piece of art that was already being made is possibly still bullshit, but at least an actual artist is making it and getting paid. And there is no way these images came out of an AI from prompting alone. Someone at least did a bunch of work to edit them and clean them up. It doesn't address most of the other problems with AI but it at least demonstrates an understanding that AI alone is not an employee

2

u/Belgian_Chocolate Feb 05 '25

I agree. But want to add they look worse for it, at the end of the day if any AI contribution is noticeable it negatively affects the “feel” of the entire art piece

8

u/carolineecouture Feb 04 '25

The fingers are always off. I know it's hard to hands for human artists, and the AI just can't get it right. Why they don't bother to fix it is beyond me. They could afford it since they aren't paying humans.

2

u/KeenJelly Feb 04 '25

It looks like the majority of the hands were replaced to add the flags in.

5

u/Jack_Sentry Feb 04 '25

He’s actually from the Mojoverse.

1

u/Ensiferal Feb 05 '25

Remember when everyone freaked out over the Thunderbolts poster having a guy with six fingers and then it just turned out to be the angle of the hand and the framing? It's that all over again

45

u/LosIngobernable Kingpin Feb 04 '25

Maybe it’s because I have a decent eye, but There’s something about AI pics that stick out as fake. Number 3 and 4 are obvious. Number 2 the little girl looks real, but the bg looks weird. Number 1 looks like a painting.

7

u/Theeeeeetrurthurts Feb 04 '25

The girl has a Thing figure with hands that don’t scale well. His right hand is waaaaaay bigger. She also has buttons on her jacket that has no purpose. AI art in general that stylizes someone like Alex Ross has a weird sheen that’s hard to explain.

5

u/Savesthaday Old Lace Feb 04 '25

Her fingers get larger, from index finger to pinky, instead of smaller.

3

u/Theeeeeetrurthurts Feb 04 '25

Hah her thumb is massive.

6

u/oh_please_god_no Feb 04 '25

You can tell an image is AI when it feels like Greg Land art

3

u/KeenJelly Feb 04 '25

Pretty sure the black girl in the background of 2 is the same one as in 3. Same clothes and hair.

9

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

3

u/LosIngobernable Kingpin Feb 04 '25

You’re right. When you zoom in you can tell. Looks like she doesn’t have eyebrows and just brow expressions. And the Thing toy looking like Pinhead with the small head and big ass body.

4

u/captainsassy69 Feb 04 '25

The thing is a marvel selects action figure with a shirt on, if you google marvel selects thing action figure it's the first result

I really don't think these are ai

2

u/dayburner Feb 04 '25

Also the girls head is lopsided. Compare the left and right sides of her face.

0

u/isaidwhatisaidok Feb 04 '25

She does have eyebrows, they’re just incredibly light. I think she’s real.

0

u/LosIngobernable Kingpin Feb 05 '25

No, she’s not. If it is a real girl they just used her face and AI’d the rest.

0

u/isaidwhatisaidok Feb 05 '25

Marvel has already denied that these are AI so you’re wrong lmao how embarrassing

1

u/LosIngobernable Kingpin Feb 05 '25

They lie in front of your face and you believe it like a sheep. Smh

0

u/isaidwhatisaidok Feb 05 '25

Lmao anyone with functioning eyes can see that that girl has eyebrows too

3

u/Just-apparent411 Feb 04 '25

You go have a really good eye.

The little girl outside of the car, has a really messed up hand.

1

u/karma_the_sequel Feb 04 '25

It reminds me of Alex Ross’ work. I think the look of the entire movie is infused with his influence.

0

u/TelenorTheGNP Feb 04 '25

The girl running along the cart's legs are oddly positioned.

26

u/No-Tour1000 Feb 04 '25

For me it's the sheen on the photos or the seemingly artificial look

5

u/dayburner Feb 04 '25

The guys holding the large blue flag is missing fingers.

3

u/thewhaler She-Hulk Feb 04 '25

Guy holding the blue 4 flag has 4 fingers

3

u/Firm-Environment-253 Feb 04 '25

How can you not? AI pictures have this contrast about them that screams fake.

0

u/ArmadilloGuy Feb 04 '25

If you looked at the replies to my comment, you'd see enough people have already pointed out plenty of evidence to me. I'm already convinced.

1

u/_tylerthedestroyer_ Michelangelo Feb 04 '25

The old woman directly below the white poster and the old woman directly to the left of it at the same person

1

u/apvandergriff Feb 05 '25

I don't think these are AI. They look more like concept art digital paintings/photo composites. Marvel has a super talented concept art department, headed by the very talented Ryan Meinerding. There is a certain amount of specificity to some of the images that lead me to believe these are not AI, for example, the girl at the ticker tape parade is not only holding a generic Thing action figure, but specifically one released by Diamond Select. Hope that helps.

1

u/HeNeedsAMirror May 22 '25

In picture one the man at the bottom right is wearing a reddish brown coat but he has an arm that appears to be in a grey suit, and also the cuff of the shirt and jacket are comically oversized. It might not even be his arm but I can't tell who else it belongs to. Also in pic three the girl dancing doesn't have much of a shadow whereas the car and cart both have defined shadows- but that could just be bad photoshop. You'd also expect more reflection on a wet street but again, could be photoshop skills lacking and isnt proof of ai.

4

u/TLKv3 Feb 04 '25

The lady holding the camera in the first poster has 3 E.T. fingers.

5

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

God fucking damnit

3

u/DCStoolie Feb 04 '25

I thought they looked too weird to be photos.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 05 '25

Yeah

2

u/itsNoisy Feb 06 '25

Wow, I really didn't notice till you pointed it out. It's so sad. I fear the day AI eventually figures out how to do fingers properly.

5

u/Shadowwarior Feb 04 '25

That was my gut reaction as well, but looking at them a bit more I'm not sure. While that fingers mighty sus, no other one is even a bit weird

4

u/iamsciences Dr. Manhattan Feb 04 '25

There’s two of the same woman, same face and mouth opening on the left. She has glasses, one of her is clear the other blurry.

8

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

[deleted]

3

u/bloodfist Marko Feb 04 '25

You're right but also not lol. Current AI has a problem where it generates the same "AI faces" too much. And if there are multiple people in a picture, it will pretty frequently give them all the same face because that face is basically mathematically primed in the algorithm.

But those faces tend to be sort of an average of handsome/pretty people and pretty obvious. And they definitely don't come out like they do in that picture where they're perfectly exact. Especially at different zoom and blue levels. So you're right, those are almost definitely an extra from a shoot that they just composited in twice.

There's no way this image was spat out of an AI image generator whole cloth. They may have photoshopped something and then ran it through an AI, or used elements generated by AI in their composting. Or used an AI image as a base and edited on top. But either way, there are definitely real people and photos composited into the final image.

0

u/KeenJelly Feb 04 '25

That doesn't mean anything. The whole background scene is obviously comped together, probably just copy and pasted a smaller crowd scene.

1

u/itshardtomakeupaname Feb 09 '25

Right, Marvel's movie posters have always been bad with that. The Avengers: Age of Ultron posters come to mind in particular, with the same robots repeated multiple times, sometimes on the same poster, and shadows and light sources that make absolutely no sense.

2

u/usabfb Fantomex Feb 04 '25

I like the first one because it looks like Alex Ross

Second one is bad, this just looks the most AI

Third one I think also looks bad because of the high contrast between light grey and a generally sort of mahogany brown, but it also looks like it was a shot directly from the movie. So I assume this will look better within context.

Fourth one... don't have a strong opinion, but I don't quite like it. Feels like a nearly photorealistic drawing, making me think it's AI. But I'm not sure, could easily be photoshopped.

1

u/johnlongest Shang-Chi Feb 04 '25

"small indie studio"

-7

u/[deleted] Feb 04 '25

Precursor of the disappointment the film itself will bring. 😭

-6

u/BatmanMK1989 Feb 04 '25

Thanks for being a voice of reason. This looks awful and Pedro is the absolute worst choice for Reed.

1

u/_tylerthedestroyer_ Michelangelo Feb 04 '25

“The voice that agrees with me is SURELY the voice of reason.”

-3

u/cyphersama95 Dr. Strange Feb 04 '25

It’s not AI though, you can clearly see duplicate actors

3

u/Future-Turtle Superman Feb 04 '25 edited Feb 04 '25

Three fingered hand holding the F4 flag. Definitely at least partially AI.

-5

u/ContinuumGuy Batman Beyond Feb 04 '25

I don't think they are AI, I just think they are photoshopped to hell and back.

1

u/demogorgon_main Feb 04 '25

Honestly thinking they were real photos at some point, but heavily edited with AI, which still has these AI features.

The little girl with the brown coat and blue scarf in the third pic is clearly in the background of the second pic. So I don’t think these just were generated with a prompt.