The Fantastic Four: First Steps starts out with a trade proposal of the highest stakes. Galactus, the world-eating villain of Marvel’s latest reboot, will spare the Earth from his insatiable hunger in exchange for one child.
The child on the cosmic bargaining table is Franklin, son of Reed Richards, aka “Mister Fantastic” (a subdued Pedro Pascal) and Sue Storm, aka “The Invisible Woman” (Vanessa Kirby, who really gets to shine as the Fantastic Four’s leader).
When Reed admits at a press conference the price Galactus has named, most people and pundits agree that, while tragic, losing one child for the safety of billions is math they can live with. A little child sacrifice goes a long way in the retro futuristic world of Fantastic Four — and in our own.
Many in our world today seem happy to sacrifice children in the name of power and security. Whether it’s the politicians protecting the abusers on the infamous Epstein list or those justifying the genocide in Gaza, children around the world remain vulnerable — and those in power still offer them up to keep the world they’ve built the way it is.
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There’s nothing new about child sacrifice. Many cultures throughout history, including those of the Ancient Near East, practiced child sacrifice. Sacrificing a child was, understandably, reserved for dire circumstances, usually involving fertility, agriculture, and martial need. Child sacrifice in the ancient world worked on the logic that children are the most valuable thing we have, so they are the most valuable thing we can offer to the gods. To sacrifice a child proves devotion, and in the direst times, only absolute devotion might sway the gods.
Consider the strange story of King Mesha of Moab in 2 Kings 3.
Under Ahab, Moab had been a client kingdom (semi-autonomous but paying a regular tribute to Israel). After Ahab’s death, Mesha of Moab attempted to free his people from Israel’s rule. Ahab’s son and successor, Joram, led Israel’s armies to put down the rebellion. They routed the Moabite army, chasing them all the way back to their last stronghold city.
When Mesha saw his armies were defeated, he sacrificed his eldest son and heir as a burnt offering on the city wall. And, seemingly, it worked. The text says only that “great wrath came upon Israel, so they withdrew from him and returned to their own land.” While it’s unclear to our modern ears, ancient readers would have understood this to mean that Chemosh, the chief god of the Moabite pantheon, received Mesha’s sacrifice and drove Israel’s armies from the land.
It’s easy for us modern-day readers to shake our heads at the Bronze Age superstition that led to the death of this young man. But the logic was undeniable: Israel was winning, then Mesha sacrificed his child, and then Israel lost.
People wouldn’t sacrifice kids if it didn’t work. The problem is that, far too often, it does work.
Let’s fast forward a couple of thousand years. Today, many of us continue to believe that the lives of children are an acceptable price to pay for pleasure, power, or safety. Dare we pry open the infamous Epstein files to find the names of wealthy and powerful people whose will shapes our economy, our foreign policy, our infrastructure? Or will we cling to our idols of partisan politics, prizing the power we feel over the lives of those children harmed forever?
What of our support for Israel, which is working to eradicate Palestinian children from the earth? Will we cling to the sense of security our alliance with Israel bestows over the more than 50,000 children who have already been slain? President Donald Trump has suggested the U.S. take over Palestine and turn Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East.” As the violence has worsened, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson insisted — against evidence — that Hamas “has stolen the food.” It’s Johnson’s best attempt at washing his (and by proxy our) hands of culpability for these starving children by shifting blame away from Israel’s U.S.-backed genocide.
READ: Munther Isaac Warns the Church Against Denying Genocide in Gaza
Perhaps asking whether we would be willing to sacrifice a child to save the world we live in is the wrong question; the more poignant one is this: Is a world that thrives on sacrificing children the world we want to save?
When faced with the anger of a terrified world, Sue takes Franklin out into the hostile crowd. She announces to them, “I will not sacrifice my child for this world. But I will not sacrifice this world for my child.”
Superficially, Sue’s unwillingness to sacrifice her son for the world seems anti-Christ, or at least anti-God. After all, didn’t God sacrifice his only son to save the world? But unlike Jesus, Franklin cannot yet choose for himself. Surrendering him to Galactus would not be an act of self-sacrifice; it would just be good old-fashioned child sacrifice.
By refusing to surrender a child who cannot advocate for himself, the Fantastic Four declare that they will not help to create a world that thrives on the exploitation of the vulnerable.
The easy, expedient choice for the world would have been to offer up Franklin to Death. The hard choice — the heroic (and holy) choice — is to say no to Death, to do whatever we can to push back its forces and protect the most vulnerable from its grip.
By refusing to surrender a child who cannot advocate for himself, the Fantastic Four declare that they will not help to create a world that thrives on the exploitation of the vulnerable. Because that road leads only to Galactus. If we will consume the vulnerable to live, well, we will always find more vulnerable people to sacrifice. Just ask the children of Gaza.
JR. Forasteros pastors the Haven Collective in Dallas, co-hosts the Fascinating Podcast, and wrote Empathy for the Devil: Finding Ourselves in the Villains of the Bible.
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