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When Galactus shows up onscreen in this summer’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps, it won’t be the first time the planet-eater has made it into the movies; fans with long memories might remember a version of the character in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer — albeit in a far more vaporous form. Turns out, it wasn’t just important to director Matt Shakman to have a Galactus that looked like he does in the comics, but one that wasn’t just computer-generated, as well.

"I didn't want to just use motion-capture for Galactus. I wanted to actually have someone there embodying the part," Shakman told Entertainment Weekly. "So we've built an entire costume for him, and we've done a lot of photography testing to figure out, How do you make sure that the scale is correct? How do you film Mount Rushmore?"

Obviously, there’s certainly some motion-capture and CGI connected to the role — that, or there’s some impressive trick photography going on in order to make Inerson seem as big as Galactus does in the trailer — but nonetheless: the idea that we’ve gone from the CGI cloud that represented the character in the 2007 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer movie to a comic-accurate costume and at least partial practical effects feels oddly important in terms of how period-specific (and respectful to the source material) First Steps looks set to be.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps reaches theaters July 25, for those of us who want to marvel (no pun intended) at how wonderful Galactus looks.

Keep up to date on Popverse's Marvel coverage, with these highlights:

• The MCU needs Anya Taylor-Joy's Magik in it (and not just for the X-Men connection)
• How Disney+'s What If...? is the moonshot for the next 50 years of Marvel Studios & the MCU
• Marvel Studios has accidentally created a new Phase that predates Phases 1 - 6: the MCU Phase Zero
• Overgrown children of the atom: Marvel's X-Men can't evolve past their '90s commercial peak
• The biggest outstanding questions of the Marvel Studios' movies & TV shows
• Donald Trump is the landlord for Marvel's House of Ideas
• Marvel Studios swapping out Doctor Doom for Kang offers the chance to jettison the Multiverse Saga
• What Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige is saying (and not saying) about the MCU X-Men franchise says a lot about the future of the Mutant Saga
• If Marvel is going to bring Loki back for Secret Wars, it's time to give him an upgrade
• In 2021, Sony's boss said people won't miss Spider-Man in its Spider-adjacent movie. Turns out, they do.