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When Galactus shows up onscreen in this summer’s The Fantastic Four: First Steps, it won’t be the first time the planet-eater has made it into the movies; fans with long memories might remember a version of the character in 2007’s Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer — albeit in a far more vaporous form. Turns out, it wasn’t just important to director Matt Shakman to have a Galactus that looked like he does in the comics, but one that wasn’t just computer-generated, as well.

"I didn't want to just use motion-capture for Galactus. I wanted to actually have someone there embodying the part," Shakman told Entertainment Weekly. "So we've built an entire costume for him, and we've done a lot of photography testing to figure out, How do you make sure that the scale is correct? How do you film Mount Rushmore?"

Obviously, there’s certainly some motion-capture and CGI connected to the role — that, or there’s some impressive trick photography going on in order to make Inerson seem as big as Galactus does in the trailer — but nonetheless: the idea that we’ve gone from the CGI cloud that represented the character in the 2007 Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer movie to a comic-accurate costume and at least partial practical effects feels oddly important in terms of how period-specific (and respectful to the source material) First Steps looks set to be.

The Fantastic Four: First Steps reaches theaters July 25, for those of us who want to marvel (no pun intended) at how wonderful Galactus looks.

Want more? Make sure you've read our list of all the best Marvel Comics stories of all time, and get ready for all the free Marvel comics coming as part of this year's Free Comic Book Day / Comics Giveaway Day events.