Report: Marvel Comics to Cancel Fantastic Four

[PiercedMonk]

The idea of cancelling the comic to spite the films is ridiculous. It's baffling that this rumour has so much traction. Not making new books in no way prevents Fox from mining the 50+ years of comics for stories to completely disregard as they make their crappy movies. Your average movie goer isn't going to care one whit that Marvel isn't currently publishing a FANTASTIC FOUR comic, and comic fans are already writing off the upcoming film because there's zero indication that it's going to be more than tangentially related to the source material.

Marvel doesn't cancel books these days, they relaunch them. New creative teams -- which FANTASTIC FOUR certainly needs -- new directions, new costumes; any excuse to slap a big ol' #1 on the cover. Which isn't necessarily a bad practice, though they should figure out a better numbering system for their collected volumes. FANTASTIC FOUR isn't going to be ending any time soon. The book will be back in no more than six months, and they'll all be wearing fuchsia costumes and Wolverine's ghost will be their new butler or something.

 

[flying_whimsy]

Considering everything else that's already been said in this comic, I only have one thing to add:

Why didn't they stretch or fill for another 21 issues? I would have loved to see this end on issue 666.

 

[Something Amyss]

We've got a super-scientist that looks like he's 23.

You mean he looks about the appropriate age for a FF origin story? Those bastards. What next? Will they have Sue's powers develop gradually or Doom as ruler of Latveria?

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

Uh huh, right... Marvel is going to kill one of it's main cashcow comics. I give it a year, tops, before Fantastic Four is back like nothing happened.

I'd hardly call comic books a "main cash cow" for either Marvel or DC when their movie studios have been generating from hundreds of millions to over a billion dollars in profit per film.

 

[Therumancer]

Meh, they "kill" and "end" comics, teams, and characters all the time. It's a publicity stunt, and one that will probably move a lot of comics and back issues, with the buzz being heightened by the theories of a behind the scenes assassination over unrelated media rights. Something like this is the best way Disney/Marvel could actually use the fact that someone else has the rights to these characters to their financial advantage.

It probably works like this, they cancel FF, this generates attention, moves books, and angers fans. Marvel brings back the comics (which bear little resemblance to the movies anyway) due to demand. Then down the road when something else happens they announce loudly "it's the last straw" and make a show out of cancelling it again with all kinds of reasons connected to a lack of control surfacing. They rinse and repeat as much as they can get away with.

See, the messed up thing about this rumor is that by most accounts the new FF movie won't be any real threat to the comics or the IP because they are making things so different that the characters are barely recognizable. I don't expect it to be a threat to them, even if it succeeds, and really the speculation is that the current FF project might actually be about to bomb so bad that they will want to sell the rights back.

In short I can buy them even cancelling the book for a couple of years if they play the long game, but I don't doubt in the end the FF will be back in print, it always is.

To be blunt, I'd be more inclined to believe nasty rumors about Universal than Sony or Fox. Right now Universal, which is Disney's big competition in the Theme Park arena has the rights to Marvel's characters. Despite the success of the films, the parks have always been a huge, and reliable, source of income for Disney. Universal has also gotten the rights to Harry Potter, and has expanded things in record time by Theme Park standards... and apparently Disney is taking something of a hammering... well at least in terms of what they expect... and losing a lot more business than ever before to Universal. The success of their movies brings people to "Islands Of Adventure" (even if what they have isn't the best) rather than to The House Of Mouse. When it comes to crazy rumors I'm more likely to believe stories about say industrial espionage with Disney hiring people to burn down sections of the competing park to pressure them to sell the rights ASAP, than I am to believe they would cancel a comics line which is making money just to spite the competition slightly... the only way I can see them doing that is to make more money, which the announcement of the cancellation can do, both in "final issue" sales and of course when they inevitably re-launch the title.

 

[Heartsib]

@Heartsib I doubt a hundred bad (lacklustre?)Spidey films will hurt the comic too much

Heres hoping the Deadpool film is as fun as the "leaked" trailer, I hope they shoot for R/18, it'll get the boxoffice.

is that two guys in your profile pic

Yeah, outside adaptations almost never hurt a comic's popularity. At worst, it does nothing, usually you get a temporary uptick in sales, at best you get a healthy and sustained sales increase a la The Walking Dead.

Last I heard, they were heading for PG13 with Deadpool; Fox would just cut off too much of their potential audience by going hard R.

And yeah, that's Marvel's Northstar and his husband Kyle in my icon.

 

[Naqel]

I think what happens is the Fantastic Four retire and disband as a team, with individual characters making guest appearances in various other series.

That way nobody has to die, and they still get to cancel the series for as long as they need them canceled to further whatever agenda it's meant to serve.

 

[hermes]

If the reason behind that is just Hollywood soreness, what is the next step? To cancel off Spiderman? I think, at this point, we should give Marvel more credit than that...

Well, they're killing Wolverine for "real this time."

I seriously think they overestimate their influence on the movies, but....

Come on... how many comic book characters have been killed "for real this time"? How long has Captain America dead? Or Batman? Or Superman?

My guess is that, in the next 6 months Wolverine/Logan will return in some way or another (I am willing to bet real money on it). That is how much I trust any comic book publisher to stick to their guns...

 

[blackrave]

I give is 3 months until a re-launch and it'll all have been a marketing ploy.

I call bullshit as well.
Lets hope Devil isn't involved this time, though :/

 

[iniudan]

I really hope they are not going to go with the " take my ball and go home" strategy in order to try to get the film rights to their wayward franchises back. If they do this it will sabotage any future efforts with any non marvel controlled studios.

I think that the point, now that they are owned by Disney, they don't want any non-marvel controlled studios.

 

[Darks63]

I really hope they are not going to go with the " take my ball and go home" strategy in order to try to get the film rights to their wayward franchises back. If they do this it will sabotage any future efforts with any non marvel controlled studios.

I think that's the point, now that they are owned by Disney, they don't want any non-marvel controlled studios.

Granted, but this move is still in bad taste. Quite frankly this is the sort of behavior i'd expect if a fanboy ran the company, not somebody who had to work their way up the chain of corporate command. Also it poisons the well for any possible franchise crossovers as well.

Also I personally hate this move because it seeks to kill off the competition barring DC of course. Competition is good since it can promote innovation. Disney having all of the marbles so to speak is bad and it would drag down the quality of the films in the long run.


Lastly I like the idea of some of the franchises being outside of Disney control, because if comic book movies become unprofitable again and Disney shitcans Marvel studios there will still be a chance of other studios still making comic book films.

 

[Something Amyss]

Come on... how many comic book characters have been killed "for real this time"? How long has Captain America dead? Or Batman? Or Superman?

My guess is that, in the next 6 months Wolverine/Logan will return in some way or another (I am willing to bet real money on it). That is how much I trust any comic book publisher to stick to their guns...

Hence the quotes. People speculate that this is to screw Fox. I hope that Marvel's not that stupid, because less wolverine will probably hurt them. At least, until the big comeback. Which is what I assume this is really about.

Either way, I'd doubt they'd kill off one of their biggest characters permanently. Hell, I still expect the New Warriors who died in Connecticut to come back. And I'm one of about sixteen people who actually misses Night Thrasher.

 

[Insideout Ink Demon]

snip

Yeah, outside adaptations almost never hurt a comic's popularity. At worst, it does nothing, usually you get a temporary uptick in sales, at best you get a healthy and sustained sales increase a la The Walking Dead.

Last I heard, they were heading for PG13 with Deadpool; Fox would just cut off too much of their potential audience by going hard R.

And yeah, that's Marvel's Northstar and his husband Kyle in my icon.

Personally, I feel another PG13 comic book movie will get drowned out amongst the others, along with the teen-angst-dystopia stuff. We'll see.

Flipping heck, heroes in multiracial homosexual relationships, Marvels getting diverse nowadays.

snip)

Last I saw, there hadn't been a significant boost to sales for most of the MCU-related comics. I heavily doubt that there's been harm to any of the other comics, even when you preclude Spider-Man and X-Men. And killing the comic because the movie didn't raise sales is inane.

fair enough. I dont keep up with comics as much as I used to, too many world changing events that would eventually be retconed to meaningless. So I was just speculating on effect on sales.

 

[XDSkyFreak]

Considering everything else that's already been said in this comic, I only have one thing to add:

Why didn't they stretch or fill for another 21 issues? I would have loved to see this end on issue 666.

Because it will remind people of One More Day, and trust me, no one wants to remind their fans about THAT piece of trash.

 

[The Inquisitive Mug]

Does Marvel really need to do ANYTHING to kill the FF movie franchise? Fox has been doing a pretty good job of that already. At this point it would be like denying food to a man who is bleeding out in a ditch anyway in hopes to starve him to death.

 

[Darth_Payn]

Weirdly, one of my friends has been saying Marvel will do this for the past month. And this guy gets his his own fanboy wishes and theories mixed up with rumors and real facts he hears, so it was hard to take his word for it. Now I owe him an apology.

I know of a reason besides the film they would do this. The book hasn't been good a long time. They let writers destroy and disfigure it. Claremont was the last good writer they had on it. He was the last writer that wrote anything that felt remotely like the FF. Not that the other writers aren't good writers, they just didn't write the FF well at all.

What about when Jonathan Hickman rebranded them as the Future Foundation?

 

[Baresark]

Weirdly, one of my friends has been saying Marvel will do this for the past month. And this guy gets his his own fanboy wishes and theories mixed up with rumors and real facts he hears, so it was hard to take his word for it. Now I owe him an apology.

I know of a reason besides the film they would do this. The book hasn't been good a long time. They let writers destroy and disfigure it. Claremont was the last good writer they had on it. He was the last writer that wrote anything that felt remotely like the FF. Not that the other writers aren't good writers, they just didn't write the FF well at all.

What about when Jonathan Hickman rebranded them as the Future Foundation?

For me, personally, I didn't care too much for it. It detracted from what the book was about in a lot of ways. I will say it was better than some of the other things that have happened in the last 13 years with them though.