Who Is H.E.R.B.I.E.? Fantastic Four’s Cute Robot Explained

The Fantastic Four will finally join the Marvel Cinematic Universe in 2025, with the “Fantastic Four: First Steps” teaser trailer having now provided a glimpse at how this new take on Marvel’s first family will work in live-action. The comics version of the team debuted in 1961, and the movie is full embracing the characters’ history with faithful old-school designs and a profoundly 1960s aesthetic. Indeed, one of the most surefire signs that the film is doing its best to capture the Fantastic Four’s most retrofuturistic aspects is the presence of their esteemed robot sidekick, H.E.R.B.I.E.

H.E.R.B.I.E. features prominently in the trailer’s early moments, establishing himself as something of a butler figure while receiving gentle cooking critique from Ben “The Thing” Grimm (Ebon Moss-Bachrach). Fans of the Fantastic Four can no doubt expect more entertaining moments from the character in the movie proper — but precisely which kind of H.E.R.B.I.E. we’re going to get is a whole other question. Like the Fantastic Four themselves, their robot servant has a long and storied history in Marvel’s comics, and he’s been depicted in various ways over the years. Let’s take a closer look at him.

Though the trailer for “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” makes it seem that H.E.R.B.I.E.’s power set is limited to looking cute and using inadequate amounts of garlic, the robot’s comic book history packs far more wallop than his cooking game. His name now stands for “Highly Engineered Robot Built for Interdimensional Exploration,” but it used to mean “Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics” … and he wasn’t a robotic servant as much as he was a full-on replacement character for one Fantastic Four member.

A delightful deep cut to the Fantastic Four’s 1978 NBC animated series “The New Fantastic Four,” H.E.R.B.I.E. was effectively the “new” in that show’s title. Since the Human Torch couldn’t be used in the series, Stan Lee created the robot to complete the quartet, and H.E.R.B.I.E. proved popular enough to make his way into the comics after the single-season cartoon ended. It’s unclear whether the “First Steps” version of H.E.R.B.I.E. is the “Humanoid Experimental” or “Highly Engineered” take of the character — or perhaps even both, courtesy of a mid-movie upgrade. At this stage, our only clue is in his design. With a head that’s clearly influenced by the magnetic tape units of 1960s computers, the film’s cute live-action version of H.E.R.B.I.E. embraces the general retro aesthetic on display, which might imply that “First Steps” will lean on the character’s zany sidekick aspects.

Since H.E.R.B.I.E. has been around the superhero comic block a good few times, he’s played a number of roles over the years — and not all of them are nice. There have been multiple versions of the robot since “The New Fantastic Four,” and some of them range from tragic to outright villainous. The Earth-2099 H.E.R.B.I.E. is effectively a well-armed serial killer whose directives have twisted into fatal repeat attempts to recreate the Fantastic Four with cosmic rays. Similarly, the reprogrammed H.E.R.B.I.E.s in “Deadpool: Killustrated” (2013) are heavily buzzsaw-themed and colloquially referred to as HERBIEs of Death.

The most prominent comic book H.E.R.B.I.E. is, of course, the main Earth-616 one. Like the original, he was built by Reed Richards and the Xandarian scientist Master Xar. However, this H.E.R.B.I.E. unit was soon possessed by the evil Doctor Sun, prompting him to act as a sneaky antagonist with a tendency to create dangerous weapons and unleash deadly antagonists. Eventually, the robot realized the risk he posed to his family and destroyed himself. Several other H.E.R.B.I.E. units have been built since then, and some of them have had fun adventures (while others have broken bad).

Though H.E.R.B.I.E. has plenty of capacity for comedic moments, he’s ultimately a flying all-purpose robot with tremendous processing power, as well as copious weaponry and equipment. This can makes him a strong ally and a dangerous adversary — and while the trailer for “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” doesn’t exactly portray him in a hostile light, the character’s comic book history features so many dark moments that Ben Grimm might want to think twice before criticizing H.E.R.B.I.E.’s cooking.

“The Fantastic Four: First Steps” opens in theaters on July 25, 2025.