Fantastic Four Appreciation 2018

[JackDaw]

Part of me wishes Fantastic Four sold better. But ultimately, don't want better sales at price of altering fundamental make-up of team, and emphasis on family unity.

Reality is surely that in its long history it's never been anywhere near cancellation level..the recent long absence was down to Marvel playing commercial politics.

And it's provided a ton of great to good reading material. There's three glittering runs...Lee/ Kirby, Byrne, Hickman...that I'd put above 99 percent of other super hero runs. Put it in context...what main continuity Superman run in last 50 years has been at same level as any of those three? And below those three..there's a host of good material.

Yes..there's a case..for some fine tuning, and I'd like to see a chunk of that done along lines Crimz has suggested (e.g. Show Sue doing other stuff now kids are a bit older, power Ben up, etc)...but the basic structure is eminently fine.

[Crimz]

Part of me wishes Fantastic Four sold better. But ultimately, don't want better sales at price of altering fundamental make-up of team, and emphasis on family unity.

Reality is surely that in its long history it's never been anywhere near cancellation level..the recent long absence was down to Marvel playing commercial politics.

And it's provided a ton of great to good reading material. There's three glittering runs...Lee/ Kirby, Byrne, Hickman...that I'd put above 99 percent of other super hero runs. Put it in context...what main continuity Superman run in last 50 years has been at same level as any of those three? And below those three..there's a host of good material.

Yes..there's a case..for some fine tuning, and I'd like to see a chunk of that done along lines Crimz has suggested (e.g. Show Sue doing other stuff now kids are a bit older, power Ben up, etc)...but the basic structure is eminently fine.

The family dynamic and exploration is the thing that should never be taken away or changed. Take that away and it's no longer the Fantastic Four.

[Crimz]

Fantastic Four #2 is at number 8 in sales and sold around 85,540 units

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomi...8/2018-09.html

[Havok83]

Fantastic Four #2 is at number 8 in sales and sold around 85,540 units

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomi...8/2018-09.html

Not too shabby. The next highest team book ias Avengers at 65K and 58K. If FF settles at about 50K, I would say they are in good shape

[Oberon]

Something to consider:

All comic books sell little when compared to their movie iterations. We don't believe that incredible movie revenues for Iron Man, Avengers, Dr. Strange, X-Men, etc have contributed much to comic sales/readership. Correct me if I'm wrong. Point me to that.

So getting (finally) a great FF movie will not change that, but it will def add to their interest level as a property. Quite frankly some think that Avengers will be phased out or move background, if the FF and related movies become big in Phase 4 or whenever.

Everything goes around and comes back.

so the FF doesn't need to worry about comic sales, yet.

[runguy]

Something to consider:

All comic books sell little when compared to their movie iterations. We don't believe that incredible movie revenues for Iron Man, Avengers, Dr. Strange, X-Men, etc have contributed much to comic sales/readership. Correct me if I'm wrong. Point me to that.

So getting (finally) a great FF movie will not change that, but it will def add to their interest level as a property. Quite frankly some think that Avengers will be phased out or move background, if the FF and related movies become big in Phase 4 or whenever.

Everything goes around and comes back.

so the FF doesn't need to worry about comic sales, yet.

I agree. If the FF movies do well that also bolsters the chances that the comic will be integral to Disney/Marvel and that in turn should keep the comic going.

Having said that now that the Eternals have a script and a director you can bet a new comic will be launched (I hope that brings Hickman back to the fold

[CaptCleghorn]

The family dynamic and exploration is the thing that should never be taken away or changed. Take that away and it's no longer the Fantastic Four.

Exactly. With every book, there are facets of it that make that book, that book. FF has the combination of family and cosmic adventure. Now you can certainly have incredible (yep, I went there) FF adventures with only family or only cosmic, but as a whole in the long run, the book needs both, or it's not the FF.

[Crimz]

January solicits are out:





FANTASTIC FOUR #6
DAN SLOTT (W) • AARON KUDER (A)
Cover by ESAD RIBIC
Variant cover by BILL SIENKIEWICZ
MARVELS 25th Cover by ALEX ROSS
MARVEL 80TH VARIANT COVER BY PHIL NOTO
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VARIANT COVER BY PASQUAL FERRY
HERALD OF DOOM!
• GALACTUS HAS RETURNED TO DEVOUR THE EARTH……and only one man can save us: DOCTOR DOOM!
• And where is that agitator, Reed Richards and his meddlesome family? What are they doing?
• They’re locked in battle against the brave new hero of the Latverian people, VICTORIOUS!
32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99




MARVEL TALES: FANTASTIC FOUR #1
Stan Lee, John Byrne (W) • Jack Kirby, John Byrne (A)
Cover by Jen Bartel
VIRGIN VARIANT COVER BY JEN BARTEL
Explore exciting moments in the Marvel’s First Family history and celebrate Marvel’s 80th Anniversary with the return of MARVEL TALES! This anthology series shines a spotlight on fan-favorite characters, features timeless stories, and highlights some of Marvel’s most impressive talent from the past eight decades. Reprinting the birth of Franklin Richards in Fantastic Four Annual (1963) #6, the first appearance of Namor the Sub-Mariner in Fantastic Four (1961) #4 and a special Invisible Woman story in Fantastic Four #245.
96 PGS./Rated T …$7.99

[Abe]

January solicits are out:





FANTASTIC FOUR #6
DAN SLOTT (W) • AARON KUDER (A)
Cover by ESAD RIBIC
Variant cover by BILL SIENKIEWICZ
MARVELS 25th Cover by ALEX ROSS
MARVEL 80TH VARIANT COVER BY PHIL NOTO
GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY VARIANT COVER BY PASQUAL FERRY
HERALD OF DOOM!
• GALACTUS HAS RETURNED TO DEVOUR THE EARTH……and only one man can save us: DOCTOR DOOM!
• And where is that agitator, Reed Richards and his meddlesome family? What are they doing?
• They’re locked in battle against the brave new hero of the Latverian people, VICTORIOUS!
32 PGS./Rated T …$3.99




MARVEL TALES: FANTASTIC FOUR #1
Stan Lee, John Byrne (W) • Jack Kirby, John Byrne (A)
Cover by Jen Bartel
VIRGIN VARIANT COVER BY JEN BARTEL
Explore exciting moments in the Marvel’s First Family history and celebrate Marvel’s 80th Anniversary with the return of MARVEL TALES! This anthology series shines a spotlight on fan-favorite characters, features timeless stories, and highlights some of Marvel’s most impressive talent from the past eight decades. Reprinting the birth of Franklin Richards in Fantastic Four Annual (1963) #6, the first appearance of Namor the Sub-Mariner in Fantastic Four (1961) #4 and a special Invisible Woman story in Fantastic Four #245.
96 PGS./Rated T …$7.99

Well... That's exciting! (No smiley with hearts instead of eyes available on CBR... too bad...)

[SuperiorIronman]

Y'know, that might be an interesting twist.

That Victor only put the mask back on to free the people from the transitional government, but otherwise is willing to step-aside. And that once he does it's actually Victorious who takes the reigns as monarch who takes on the wrong traits from Victor. That would even tie-in well to the Galactus plot with Victor seeing as back in MTIO, a version of him pretty quickly stopped Galactus. But most importantly is that his counterpart told him he would always be the villain, and so here he proves his counterpart wrong by stopping Galactus heroically. Thereby keeping Victor's developments from Secret Wars 2015, Infamous Iron man, and Marvel Two in one. He may have an older looking suit on, but if the development remains then it boils down to an aesthetic difference.

Or maybe Victor could hijack the wedding and be looking to steal Galactus's power for himself and this run falls into the traps of prior runs.

[Iron Maiden]

Y'know, that might be an interesting twist.

That Victor only put the mask back on to free the people from the transitional government, but otherwise is willing to step-aside. And that once he does it's actually Victorious who takes the reigns as monarch who takes on the wrong traits from Victor. That would even tie-in well to the Galactus plot with Victor seeing as back in MTIO, a version of him pretty quickly stopped Galactus. But most importantly is that his counterpart told him he would always be the villain, and so here he proves his counterpart wrong by stopping Galactus heroically. Thereby keeping Victor's developments from Secret Wars 2015, Infamous Iron man, and Marvel Two in one. He may have an older looking suit on, but if the development remains then it boils down to an aesthetic difference.

Or maybe Victor could hijack the wedding and be looking to steal Galactus's power for himself and this run falls into the traps of prior runs.

I hope not! If the preview text is correct (and we've all been fooled/mislead by those at times!) it looks like Slott is following what Bendis developed. I can see Doom being convinced he is the only one that can take on Galactus. I have some theories that I'm mulling over about the trajectory Doom's life and purpose is taking but I'll add that to the Doom thread later. I'll just say that IMO it is the logical path of where the character should go if I had a say in it.

[CaptCleghorn]

According to his Facebook account, today is Joe Sinnott's 92nd birthday!

[Hypestyle]

when will there finally be some animated movies, including a CGI movie of the FF? If the Incredibles found an audience, the FF can, too. Even if these were high quality straight to DVD films like the DC Universe features, that would be a help for improving the profile of the group.

[mrbrklyn]

That's just untrue, it hasn't been popular or a bestseller in years. And the Lee/kirby run was decades ago, we are talking about the now. The Lee/Kirby run was great for it's time, but has definitely aged and can't be used to attract modern readers.

I am afraid it is true until they yanked it. It never failed because of sales, ever.

[mrbrklyn]

I agree. If the FF movies do well that also bolsters the chances that the comic will be integral to Disney/Marvel and that in turn should keep the comic going.

Having said that now that the Eternals have a script and a director you can bet a new comic will be launched (I hope that brings Hickman back to the fold

If they do an FF story on the scale of the Black Panther, then it will work. But the problem with the FF is that, unlike Spider-Man or Iron Man, it doesn't translate well onto the big screen. It would have to work with something like Dr Strange, but on a grander scale.