Spoilers ahead for the plot of The Fantastic Four: First Steps.

While it may seem like a retread of 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer — in which a metallic surfboarder heralds the arrival of the voracious Galactus, a giant cloud — Fantastic Four: First Steps features a few key differences. For one thing, it’s pretty good. For another, its version of the Eater of Worlds (Ralph Ineson) isn’t an evil cumulonimbus but a giant humanoid cursed to feed on planets for all eternity. And finally, its plot revolves around a surprise fifth member of the titular team: Franklin Richards, the infant son of heroes Reed Richards (Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm (Vanessa Kirby). In fact, the movie’s mid-credits stinger features the MCU’s next big villain, Doctor Doom (Robert Downey Jr.), coming face-to-face with the young son of Mr. and Mrs. Fantastic, setting up pivotal events for future movies. But what exactly is this toddler’s deal? And what can Marvel’s source material tell us about where he might be headed?

One of the coolest things about First Steps is it provides very few answers up front, forcing the obsessively prepared Reed Richards to face the mystery of what kind of child he’ll have — given the couple’s exposure to the cosmic rays that gave them their powers — and what kind of father he’ll be. All of Reed’s tests during Sue’s pregnancy turn up normal. But when Galactus threatens to consume their planet, and the First Family heads to outer space to negotiate with him, the ancient giant scans Sue’s womb and senses something special about her baby-to-be. He offers to spare Earth but demands their child in exchange, vaguely alluding to Franklin as possibly the only being who can take his place and relieve him of his curse.

That’s an awfully tall task, but by the end of the movie, Franklin does prove inexplicably special. Sue sacrifices herself to save the planet and her son from Galactus, dying in the process. But she’s quickly resurrected when Reed places Franklin on her chest. The baby’s hands emit an ethereal glow, and Sue’s eyes reopen, now filled with stars, recalling a moment from Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 when the Celestial villain Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell) shows his son Star-Lord (Chris Pratt) “eternity.” But Celestials are supposed to be old as heck, older than the universe itself. Franklin, on the other hand, is only 4 by the time we see him in the post-credits scene. For most of the movie, you can count his age in weeks. So what’s really going on here? Why is every character in this film dead set on kidnapping, saving, or meeting Franklin?

Despite debuting in the pages of Fantastic Four Annual in 1968, Franklin hasn’t really appeared in any prior Fantastic Four screen adaptations, unless you count his brief cameo in the 2009 children’s cartoon The Super Hero Squad Show. The mystery of what his powers were lingered for years. First, it was revealed that Franklin could see (or sense) his mother even when she’s invisible. Eventually, he displayed glowing eyes filled with stars, similar to what happens to Sue in First Steps. But before anyone could figure out the full extent of what Franklin’s deal was, the villain Annihilus showed up and tried to kidnap him to siphon off his energy — another plot point mirrored by the movie.

Over the years, various writers and artists have provided different explanations of what Franklin’s abilities are and where they come from, but it usually comes down to some form of reality warping, much like Wanda Maximoff (played by Elizabeth Olsen in the MCU). His power set was vaguely attributed to “cosmic energy” in 1973’s Fantastic Four No. 130. And by the “Days of Future Past” story in Uncanny X-Men in the 1980s, he’d been dubbed a mutant — one at the “Omega” level. That’s the most powerful a mutant can be, putting him on par with Magneto, Professor Xavier, and the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. An alternate version of Franklin was described as a “nexus being” in the ’90s — a concept hinted at in WandaVision — and in a pivotal 2010s Fantastic Four series by writer Jonathan Hickman, a group of Celestials recognizes Franklin’s powers as “beyond” an Omega classification.

Hickman’s work on the Fantastic Four (alongside his run on the Avengers) would eventually lead into the 2015 Secret Wars crossover event, which seems to be the framework for the upcoming MCU sequels Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars. While early versions of Franklin’s powers manifested in kooky ways — in one 1982 comic, he accidentally ages himself up into a bearded adult superhero — Hickman pressed the reset button so that readers could gradually discover just what he was capable of, including the creation of entire universes and the possibility that he might even be immortal.

In Marvel comics, Franklin is often considered the most powerful being in existence, so it makes sense that the MCU’s Galactus would want to switch seats with him. Hickman’s series even features a future, time-traveling version of Franklin controlling Galactus — the Eater of Worlds becomes his herald. But his powers aren’t the most important thing about him. In fact, Hickman’s Fantastic Four (and its spinoff FF, or Future Foundation) mostly features Franklin as a regular, fun-loving kid, alongside several other gifted children who study under Reed. He dresses up as a cowboy and loves superheroes; he says his favorite is Spider-Man, but it’s secretly his uncle, Johnny Storm. His most intriguing and lovable dynamic is with his younger sister Valeria, a 3-year-old super genius.

Where Franklin is a playful, unpredictable adolescent (who occasionally fires real bullets from toy guns, like when he’s upset at Norman Osborn for trying to arrest his dad), Valeria is a master tactician with the cool disposition of an adult scientist. They make for perfect foils, especially as Franklin begins to discover the full potential of his powers with some guidance from his future bearded self. Valeria can build cities, while Franklin can build universes. She has the intelligence and cunning, while he has the wide-eyed imagination, making them the perfect micro-macro pairing.

There’s no telling whether the MCU will eventually include Valeria. But Franklin already seems positioned to be a major player going forward. It would be unfortunate if this is just for the sake of using him as a MacGuffin; he shines the most as a character when he’s around other children and was once part of an all-kid superhero group called Power Pack. But based on how the MCU tends to adapt major comics, it wouldn’t be a surprise. The specifics are usually tilt-shifted a little to suit what the movies have already set up. In Avengers: Age of Ultron, for instance, it’s Tony Stark (Downey Jr.) who creates the malicious AI Ultron instead of Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), who hadn’t yet been introduced. And in Avengers: Infinity War, existing objects like the Eye of Agamotto and the Cosmic Cube (or the “Tesseract”) turn out to be Thanos’s all-powerful Infinity Stones, while in the comics, the Infinity Gems are their own powerful objects, separate from the Eye and the Cube. Following this logic, the events of Avengers: Secret Wars will likely be simplified as well, and Franklin will probably be at the center of it.

In the comics, Doom helps thwart the collisions of various universes (events known as “Incursions,” referenced in the MCU at the end of Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) by creating his own universe, Battleworld. He not only rules over this realm but also rewrites reality so that Sue is now his wife and Franklin and Valeria are his children. Doom does all this by absorbing the powers of an omnipotent character called Molecule Man, which he in turn uses to destroy a higher-dimensional alien species called the Beyonders, who have been causing the aforementioned Incursions. Meanwhile, Franklin is charged with controlling Galactus like a pet and using him against the heroes.

If all that sounds too complicated to track, don’t fret: Neither Molecule Man nor the Beyonders are part of the MCU, so they’re unlikely to have anything to do with the movie version of Secret Wars. But with Franklin already displaying godlike powers in First Steps, it’s entirely possible that the films will have Doom somehow use Franklin’s abilities to either stop the multiversal Incursions or to create his own universe — perhaps even both.

In the comics, Franklin’s benevolent, universe-molding powers become part of the solution to Secret Wars: The series was used to streamline and simplify all of Marvel’s existing realities by having Franklin help Reed create new universes and timelines. The movies could be headed in the same direction. Marvel Studios head honcho Kevin Feige recently hinted at Avengers: Secret Wars potentially leading to a soft reboot (or a “reset”), with recast versions of beloved heroes like Iron Man and Captain America. So we may just see the big-screen version of Franklin fulfill this function too after the next phase of the MCU is all said and done.

 Reed Richards and Sue Storm’s son, Franklin, is poised to be a major player heading into Marvel’s Avengers: Doomsday.