Fantastic Four -No More?
Would Marvel Really Cancel Fantastic Four To Snub Fox?
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Well this is an interesting one. Recently we ran a piece looking at the absence of comic book characters associated with Fox Studios on the Marvel 75th Anniversary Magazine cover, in favour of the likes of the Inhumans and Captain Marvel.
Well, now I’m being told from a Marvel source that Marvel are intending to put the Fantastic Four comic books on hold, both Marvel Universe and Ultimate. The characters will still appear, but in other folks’ books such as Inhuman and Avengers. And that artwork featuring the Fantastic Four is even being taken down in the company offices.
Twentieth Century Fox pretty much has an eternal claim on Fantastic Four and X-Men movies, if they keep making them, after the deal was done during Marvel’s bankruptcy days, with very little benefit to Marvel.
The belief inside the higher echelons of Marvel is that promoting these properties in comics only benefits Fox’s movies at the expense of those from Marvel Studios. Which is why the Inhumans are being pushed as mutant replacements in the Marvel Universe. And Marvel have been pushing Avengers, Guardians Of The Galaxy and other comics over the X-Men. And while X-Men comics remain solid sellers, they are no longer the focus of internal promotion unless, as with the upcoming AXIS event, the Avengers get equal billing.
If this story is true, we should be able to watch for an absence of Fantastic Four from upcoming solicitations. Will we get an Ultimate FF for September? The August solicitations seem rather final…
ULTIMATE FF #6
(W) Joshua Hale Fialkov (A/CA) Andre Araujo
• The ULTIMATE UNIVERSE’S worst nightmare approaches
• Jump into the future of the Ultimate Universe as the DOOMSDAY CLOCK counts down.
• The END of the FUTURE FOUNDATION.
8/13/2014 $3.99
The Fantastic Four is Marvel’s longest running comic book and is the foundation of the Marvel Universe. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961, even if its sales have varied, it’s considered the cornerstone of the comic books. What will happen if it goes away…?
Marvel gave an “no comment” when approached.
Artists Given Specific Instructions Not To Use Fantastic Four Characters (UPDATE)
evrlvnbluidthng Apologies for giving BleedingCool an amount of credence even equal to the weight of a single electron, but please start my heart again and tell me that Marvel isn’t cancelling “Ultimate FF” and “Fantastic Four” to snub Fox or for any other reason.
It is amazing how many of you guys asked some version of this question this morning.And I can hear Rich counting the nickels from your page clicks.
From Tom Brevoort‘s Tumblr there. And I would like to assure Tom that I am on a fixed salary.
So, yes. More. When I first heard the story, albeit from a Marvel source, I thought it was ridiculous.
That Marvel Comics were to cancel their Fantastic Four comics (though still using the characters in other titles) as a deliberate snub to Fox, currently producing the Fantastic Four movie. With the belief, from on high, that any publication of Fantastic Four comic books only helped Fox Studios at the expense of Marvel Studios. And while X-Men were just too popular comics to cancel, the Fantastic Four… wasn’t. So both comics would be dropped.
There was flimsy evidence to back it up. That the Marvel 75th Anniversary project had no Fantastic Four on the cover, despite being Marvel’s first superhero team, and the core of the modern Marvel comic. I was told that Fantastic Four imagery had been taken down at Marvel’s offices. And then certain very chatty people in the past suddenly clammed up when this was mentioned.
Well, this morning another shoe on the caterpillar dropped. An artist who I have been asked not to name, told me,
I do a number of sketch card projects for Upper Deck and Rittenhouse using Marvel characters. The most recent projects from both companies, one billed as Marvel 75th Anniversary, gave specific guidelines to NOT use any FF characters or supporting cast such as Dr Doom, Galactus, Surfer, Skrulls etc…
So… what do we think?
Another source close to Marvel tells me that this is all coming from Marvel CEO and largest Disney shareholderIke Perlmutter, who has been known to take these kind of things very personally indeed.
Also, it’s worth pointing out that Marvel has a very different relationship with Fox than it does with Sony.
UPDATE: From another artist, here comes the instruction sheet received by sketch card artists.
There are strange rumors floating around regarding Marvel and whether they might put Fantastic Four and Ultimate Fantastic Four "on hiatus" until after Fox's Fantastic Four film comes out. Bleeding Cool initially reported that Marvel might put the titles on hold in order to not promote the film, and then published another article, reportedly showing that artists for sketch cards were told not to draw the FF or related characters.
It's hard to know if any of this is true -it seems to me like it would be cutting off one's nose to spite one's face. I don't think the comics do very much to promote the films, and considering most titles sell less than 100,000 copies, it seems like Marvel would only be hurting themselves. But I'm interested to see how this might play out. It's no secret Marvel Studios (and Disney) would like to get all their characters back, and especially the FF and their related properties. The Fox films have not done very well, financially or critically. I doubt Marvel needs to 'help' Fox fail -they seem capable of doing that all on their own.
I had somehow lost track of the fact that FOX is the studio that currently has the FF franchise, which TOTALLY explains why they've cast it straight out of their "younger, hotter, hipper" handbook. I guess the success of other franchises in going with more-or-less true-to-source casting is still something they'll just sneer at. Surely they don't assume that THAT'S why the earlier two films were so disappointing? Because they didn't make it young, and hip, and "relevant to youth culture" enough? I'm afraid the that the Baxter Building 90210 or 21 Yancy Street approach is now just as far out of date as anything else kids are seeing today.
Now, Marvel may be looking for any reason to sort of pull the plug on their FF books anyhow-- it seems like they've been in perpetual sales trouble for about 10 or 15 years now, although I couldn't guess at how they're selling currently. But at one point a few years ago there was a LOT of conjecture about how they could go about cancelling their longest-running (but badly under-performing) title w/out it being a PR fiasco.Well, these are movie studios we're talking about, which are charting their own respective courses for the Marvel characters. Perhaps a little competition is good for them, particularly if it makes them work harder on their product. Neither studio is going to bat it out of the park every time; for instance, while Marvel Studios is riding a nice wave with Avengers and Captain America, I don't think anyone is going to claim that the Hulk films were similarly well received. By contrast, the X-Men: Days Of Future Past film has received very good word of mouth, and First Class was nicely entertaining, as well. Perhaps the publishing arm of Marvel would be better served rooting for their characters on the big screen no matter which corporate logo presents them.
May 31, 2014 at 9:08 PM
Anonymous said...
Yeah, I heard that rumour about the FF books too. Not sure what to make of it whether it's true or not.
Personally, I hope that Marvel Studios gets back all the respective characters under their wing. The critical and commercial success of the Avengers, Iron Man and Captain America films shows that they 'get' these characters and know how to make a blockbuster film while staying true to their comicbook roots.
I know that Fox has the franchise rights to the FF and X-men, while Sony has Spidey. When Disney bought over Marvel, I was initially sceptical but it looks like the people at the mouse house were smart by keeping their hands off creatively and hired the best people (like Avengers director Joss Whedon who clearly loves comics) to oversee and develop these properties in the best way.
Also, I think it's good that George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney. While some people might question such a move, let's remember the underwhelming continuation of the last three Star Wars films. Personally, I think George Lucas ran out of juice creatively. For me at least, it's a shame that it took a new stable of writers after all these years to bring back Luke, Han, Leia and the gang.
If this is,well good ridence.I hated this new Beboot Fantastic Four since the get go,from the stupid cast to the whole Black Johnny Storm,if they are one and the same project.
Aaaaaand of course it's Disney, now, and they're not known for their good will towards any kind of competitor. . .
