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It’s not just the officially sanctioned Future Foundation origin of the Fantastic Four that FF fans will find in Marvel Comics’ The Fantastic Four: First Steps special issue — with fake ads and articles scattered throughout the issue, there are more background details about the team and their place in their world. For those who haven’t picked up the issue yet, here are four things we learned about the Fantastic Four and their First Steps.

Fantastic Fact #1: The Fantastic Four have been around for awhile

Given that the comic book is published as if it’s an artifact from the FF’s own world, yet makes no mention of Galactus or the events of First Steps, it’s safe to assume that it was ‘published’ either contemporaneously or prior to the events of the movie — which means that, by the time First Steps takes place, the Fantastic Four have been active for four years at least; an introductory note from the Future Foundation mentions that the issue is being published to celebrate the group’s “4nniversary.”

Fantastic Fact #2: HERBIE has ancestors

Much has been made in the run-up to First Steps’ release of HERBIE, the robot companion to the team; in the comic strip portion of the First Steps comic, fans get a brief chance to meet one of his predecessors, when Ben Grimm takes out his frustrations by sparring with ‘KERBIE’ — Kinetic-type Experimental Robot Biomimetcs-Integrated Electronics, a robot that apparently predates the FF’s fateful space flight that gave them powers.

Visually, he seems identical to the HERBIE we’ve seen in trailers, but his name calls back to one of the real-life fathers of the FF, Jack Kirby. (For those wondering, HERBIE traditionally stands for Humanoid Experimental Robot B-Type Integrated Electronics, although it has also been an acronym for Highly Engineered Robot Built for Interdimensional Exploration in previous appearances.)

Fantastic Fact #3: Reed Richards might be the smartest man alive

An article from the “School of Science Newsletter” about Dr. Reed Richards helps put his achievements in some kind of order — described as “a beacon of innovation in various scientific fields,” it’s reported that his work “spans multiple disciplines, including physics, chemistry, and biology,” and that he’s played “a crucial role in the United States’ burgeoning space program.” That’s putting it mildly, as elsewhere in the same article, it’s also revealed that he “built and launched the first functioning spaceship,” which was the Excelsior — the ship that took the FF into space and resulted in their gaining powers. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s revealed that the Excelsior was more advanced than many might assume, including “advanced life support systems and a propulsion system far ahead of its time [which provides] both the initial thrust to escape Earth’s gravity and the sustained power needed for deep space travel.”

Something about that last part might be particularly important considering that last post-credit scene from May’s Thunderbolts*…

Fantastic Fact #4: Sue Storm is a politician

An advertisement for the many publications in which the FF have appeared lays out the characters’ public personas: Reed is on the cover of the School of Science, Ben on the cover of Spacecraft: The publication of Astro Mechanics, Johnny’s starring in (amusingly) Golf Weekly — headline: ‘Fantastic Fore’ — while Sue features on the cover of NOW Politics, with the headline, ‘Taking the World by Storm.’ That’s an idea furthered in the comic strip itself, where Sue doesn’t just help take down the threat of the day… she also ends up speaking up for them in front of the United Nations. A quote from Sue appears in the comic, taken from an address to a local union meeting: “We FIGHT for what we LOVE. My grandfather taught me that all politics is LOCAL. And that LOCAL… means personal. It means what affects our communities. Our neighbors. Our FAMILIES.”

The Fantastic Four: First Steps will arrive in theaters July 25. The Fantastic Four: First Steps comic is available now.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters