Another day, another case of the main brands of AI art suspicion. This time it’s the turn of Marvel Entertainment, and its Fantastic Four: First Step poster is being pulled apart by fans.
Marvel denies it, claiming that the AI image generator was not used to create the artwork. It may be telling the truth. Some of the “evidence” that AI is being selected could be the result of a hastily constructed in Photoshop. But because they don’t know anymore, it means that people will quickly doubt AI. It’s a shame that the controversy overwhelms the glory of character design.
everyone! ! Don’t you know? The reason they all have four fingers is because it’s the Fantastic Four! Not because they used AI generated for most of this poster! no way! https://t.co/z4jxne0ulc pic.twitter.com/pmcu37tn5lfebruary 4, 2025
In X, most of the criticism focuses on one of four fantastic four posters showing scenes of crowds. The suspicious elements include repeated faces in the crowd. This appears to be a more traditional indication of synthesis than AI. The most suspicious element – even the three fingered hands can probably be explained by excessive editing. It appears that the figure may have been pointing to it and the artist was told to add a flag there.
Film fans have analyzed and criticised the design of posters long before the AI image generators appeared, and have seen many anatomical oddities over the years. They were previously dismissed as “Photoshop fails”, but today it all appears to be “AI failure” (see last year’s big AI art controversy).
(Image credit: Marvel Entertainment)
AI art is so controversial that brands like Marvel, where history is deeply connected to the artist’s work, should probably avoid it. You can see why Marvel fans are upset. However, these cases may not be AI can be difficult.
We are always looking for AI tips to cast light corn, so it’s always hard to enjoy any poster design. And it also makes me worry that if the brand is criticized for using AI anyway, then they start to wonder why they don’t use it.
I don’t know what the solution is. Perhaps brands like Marvel should strive to ensure they use art styles that they may not take for AI. Or perhaps you need a tag immediately to prove your design as a created person rather than otherwise.
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What do you think of AI? And is that important? Please let us know in the comments.
Update February 6th: Marvel follows up with the poster above and uses fun retro fantastic 4 artwork that definitely doesn’t look like AI. Harley!
