Final Issue of "Fantastic Four" Listed for 2015

[Mark]

Personally think that cancelling Fantastic Four is a very solid business decision. Think about why Marvel movies do so well. For me it's because they have a huge data base of knowledge of what does and doesn't work as a story. It's like public storyboarding on a massive scale over three generations, with enormous levels of feedback. The more the stories tap into that knowedge, the more they succeed. And they have writers who know how to do it.

Now the FF are old fashioned. They feel very 1950's even if they were created in the 1960's. Reed Richards always has a metaphorical pipe in his mouth, and Sue Richards always lives in his shadow. The Thing and the Torch are a bit two dimensional, and none of them resemble a modern family. They need updating to work for a modern cinema audience, and the same goes for the comic. If Bendis or Grant Morrison or someone were to actually come along and succeed in doing that, the formula would be instantly taken by Fox, for free, and duplicated. The film would be a success and Disney wouldn't ever get the rights back. So best thing to do is step back, wait, let the movie bomb (as it surely will) and then make them an offer.

It did have an old fashioned feel once, but no longer. I don't doubt that marvel wants the movie to bomb and they way FOX is marketing and producing the movie almost seems to say that they want it to bomb as well. I've never seen a movie so badly publicized and the fan base so badly miss-handled.
But I don't think that the FF need updating, I think that if you aren't the X-men, the Avengers or Spider-Man then you are lost in the shuffle. Everyone's an Avenger these days and those X-men who aren't X-men aren't X-men anymore are Avengers. It's easy to be an Avenger, easier to be an X-men since there are so many different teams with each brand. But the FF is limited to that family. Writing for them, marketing, making the stories interesting without repeating the past or just making them part of some big event is very, very hard. Plus there is the movie rights and the money to consider. When all is said and done nothing matters as much as the All Mighty Dollar. So to heck with fans and what they want, marvel is ruthless enough to toss the characters into the trash bin for a few years in the hopes that FOX fails or something else happens to the studio and marvel can get the rights back.

[teepee]

But I don't think that the FF need updating.

Well personally I agree - I thought the best 2 runs of FF were Simonson and Hickman, writers who really got that the FF were all about science fiction and big concepts, something that never goes out of fashion. But the chances of Fox getting that are just zero. And Marvel has other cosmic titles these days that are more interesting.