HERBIE, the robot in the MCU’s Fantastic Four casting poster, has a long, strange history

Marvel Studios unveiled the cast of the Fantastic Four film on Wednesday, confirming Pedro Pascal, Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn and Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Marvel’s first family. But apparently another member of the team is also coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe: HERBIE, the robot sidekick of the Fantastic Four, who has an unusual origin story.

In the casting reveal poster for The Fantastic FourThe Thing is served a cup of tea by a small white and blue robot who appears to be HERBIE.

HERBIE, which stands for ‘Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics’ or ‘Highly Engineered Robot Built for Interdimensional Exploration’ depending on the era, was created in 1978. He made his first appearance in the animated series The new Fantastic Four. (Marvel created an earlier animated series called Fantastic four which aired in 1967.)

The short-lived 1978 cartoon’s lineup included Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, The Thing and HERBIE. The Human Torch was not part of the team. According to Mark Evanierveteran writer, comics historian and former assistant to Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby, Marvel was unable to feature the Human Torch in its animated series due to rights issues.

A long-standing urban legend, seemingly fueled by misinformation, claimed that Marvel and NBC chose to do so not to deploy the Human Torch The new Fantastic Four fearing that children watching the show would try to imitate Johnny Storm and set themselves on fire.

Evanier’s explanation, posted on his personal website, says the real reason why Human Torch was expelled from the US New Fantastic Four lineup was because Universal wanted to make a live-action film based on the character.

In 1977, Marvel made a deal that saw some of their characters licensed to Universal Studios to be developed as live-action TV movies and potential series. The Incredible Hulk That deal spawned TV shows (those with Bill Bixby and Lou Ferrigno), as well as Dr. TV movies/pilots. Strange and Captain America that never became a regular series. The Human Torch was one of the characters Universal wanted to develop, and a teleplay was written but never produced.

This meant that NBC wanted to acquire a new, animated film the following year Fantastic four series, the rights to the Torch were encumbered. Universal – which would not be involved in the cartoon show – would not make a deal that would include the Torch. Therefore, he was replaced by a robot named HERBIE, created and named by Stan Lee and designed by Jack Kirby.

Evanier says the fear that children will have a “Flame on!” were “encouraged by a few statements from people working on Marvel animated projects” who “had short memories or thought there was a PR benefit to saying so.”

While HERBIE’s cartoon career was short-lived – The new Fantastic Four lasted only 13 episodes – the robot was integrated into Marvel Comics in 1978 Fantastic four issue 209. In that comic, HERBIE is introduced as a creation of Reed Richards and Master Xar, the chief scientist of the planet Xandar. HERBIE, Reed explains, was designed to handle intensive computations, originally to track Galactus’ hyperspace travels.

Funnily enough, Reed also explains in that song why HERBIE exists The new Fantastic Four animated movie:

Image: John Byrne and Joe Sinnott/Marvel

Yes, according to Marvel Comics canon, The new Fantastic Four cartoon was approved by the Fantastic Four themselves, but Johnny Storm wasn’t there to draw away his likeness. So Reed suggested that HERBIE – who apparently relinquished all likeness rights – replace the Human Torch.

HERBIE has a long, storied history in the lore of Marvel Comics, where he is eventually revealed as a sleeper agent of the evil Doctor Sun, and later reimagined as a sort of babysitter for Franklin Richards, the super-powered son of Reed and Sue . .

Whether HERBIE will actually appear in The Fantastic Four It is currently unclear when the film will hit theaters on July 25, 2025. But if he does, there’s already a perfect voice actor to fill the role: Frank Welker, the voice of Scooby-Doo, Garfield and Megatron from the Transformers. Welker voiced HERBIE in the The new Fantastic Fourand still performs.