{"id":1115190,"date":"2026-01-30T10:07:24","date_gmt":"2026-01-30T10:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=518888"},"modified":"2026-01-30T10:07:24","modified_gmt":"2026-01-30T10:07:24","slug":"its-weird-that-herbie-is-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/its-weird-that-herbie-is-here\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s weird that HERBIE is here"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure> <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-caption=\"\" data-portal-copyright=\"Image: Marvel Studios\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/its-weird-that-herbie-is-here.jpg\" \/><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">I do not care for HERBIE. And furthermore, I don\u2019t think it makes any sense for him to be in <em>Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Let me explain.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">We have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/24072946\/fantastic-four-movie-robot-herbie-marvel\">told you about HERBIE before<\/a> here at Polygon, but let\u2019s recap anyway. The little robot guy, who appears in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/marvel\/518273\/fantastic-four-2025-first-trailer\">trailer for <em>The Fantastic Four: First Steps<\/em><\/a> making cute noises and cooking soup or whatever, first appeared in an animated TV show called <em>The New Fantastic Four<\/em>. The most important thing to know about HERBIE\u2019s origin is that he was on the show <em>instead of<\/em> the Human Torch, because of rights issues (there was going to be a Human Torch movie, but that didn\u2019t pan out). <\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">This situation arguably set up HERBIE to be hated by people like me. He\u2019s there because we don\u2019t get to have a cooler character there. Not good! Yet you can\u2019t very well put the word \u201cfour\u201d in the title of a show and not have four characters on the titular team, so the animators had to come up with <em>something<\/em>. They came up with a a love-him-or-hate-him robot sidekick who has what I can only describe as Scrappy-Doo energy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\"><em>The New Fantastic Four<\/em> first aired in 1978, and it was for children, so its depiction of the Marvel universe was quite a bit more basic and less nuanced than the comic books. Episodes began with an introduction of the three characters you\u2019d recognize, with a narrator describing their powers (\u201ca mighty-muscled powerhouse called The Thing,\u201d and so on). Last and definitely least, the narrator would describe HERBIE simply as \u201cthe newest member of the group.\u201d Yes, HERBIE came along on that ill-fated space flight with Sue, Reed, and Ben, but did he get powers as a result of it? No, not really.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/its-weird-that-herbie-is-here-1.jpg\" alt=\"A screenshot of HERBIE from The New Fantastic Four animated TV show. He is a small white robot with yellow glowing eyes and multicolored buttons on his torso\" title=\"A screenshot of HERBIE from The New Fantastic Four animated TV show. He is a small white robot with yellow glowing eyes and multicolored buttons on his torso\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" data-caption=\"\" data-portal-copyright=\"Image: NBC\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Unlike in the trailer for <em>First Steps<\/em>, the original animated HERBIE could also talk. He has a whiny little robot voice. He says things like, \u201cMy sensors tell me something is not right,\u201d or, \u201cThis does not compute,\u201d all the time. Not a fun guy to be around. Giving HERBIE a series of cute noises instead of a voice in <em>First Steps<\/em> was probably for the best, although it\u2019s not clear why Ben Grimm can (seemingly) understand him in this trailer. Why does Ben Grimm speak droid? Does <em>everyone <\/em>in this world speak droid?<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">I should acknowledge that even though HERBIE only existed due to a rights issues workaround and didn\u2019t add much to the team in terms of powers or personality, he did end up in the comic books after <em>The New Fantastic Four<\/em> introduced him. And he\u2019s not the first comic book character who originated elsewhere first (e.g. Harley Quinn, X-23\/Laura Kinney, and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/List_of_comics_characters_which_originated_in_other_media\">many more<\/a>). There may very well be people who love comic-books HERBIE (I am not one of those people).<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">It\u2019s just hard for me to get past the weirdness of HERBIE\u2019s initial conception. He only existed because the Human Torch wasn\u2019t there. If the Human Torch <em>is <\/em>there, why would HERBIE need to exist? And, more specifically, in a movie that\u2019s set in the 1960s, why am I being cursed by the inclusion of HERBIE, who didn\u2019t exist until 1978 and even then only existed because we were all being punished by the development of a Human Torch movie that never materialized?<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">I say all of this, and yet, perhaps HERBIE is going to end up being pivotal to this entire movie\u2019s plot \u2014 a plot that currently isn\u2019t clear from this initial trailer. Plus he is cute, in part because this version of HERBIE doesn\u2019t talk (which means he can\u2019t say annoying stuff), and that will probably help other people get past whatever issue they might have had with the guy in his original animated form. Not me, though. I can\u2019t forget. Sorry.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/opinion\/518888\/herbie-why-fantastic-four-first-steps\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I do not care for HERBIE. And furthermore, I don\u2019t think it makes any sense for him to be in Fantastic Four: First Steps. Let me explain. We have told you about HERBIE before here at Polygon, but let\u2019s recap anyway. The little robot guy, who appears in the trailer for The Fantastic Four: First Steps making cute noises and cooking soup or whatever, first appeared in an animated TV show called The New Fantastic Four. The most important thing to know about HERBIE\u2019s origin is that he was on the show instead of the Human Torch, because of rights issues (there was going to be a Human Torch movie, but that didn\u2019t pan out). This situation arguably set up HERBIE to be hated by&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerpt-more\"><a class=\"blog-excerpt button\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/its-weird-that-herbie-is-here\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1115191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1115190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polygon"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>It\u2019s weird that HERBIE is here | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I do not care for HERBIE. And furthermore, I don\u2019t think it makes any sense for him to be in Fantastic Four: First Steps. Let me explain. 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And furthermore, I don\u2019t think it makes any sense for him to be in Fantastic Four: First Steps. Let me explain. We have told you","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/its-weird-that-herbie-is-here\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"It\u2019s weird that HERBIE is here | Arcader News","og_description":"I do not care for HERBIE. And furthermore, I don\u2019t think it makes any sense for him to be in Fantastic Four: First Steps. Let me explain. 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