"Fantastic Four" May Live On-Screen, Disappear From Comics

[Alvarez]

No, but it's 100% in line with the claim that they are.

What it tells me is that Marvel is either hesitant to promote said properties

Which is the point (or at least one of them)

Oh come ON...cutting out MAJOR Marvel characters from a big-time deal like the 75th? That's not a "mistake". No way in you-know-where does a major promo piece get designed like that with such glaring omissions unless it's deliberate.

Oh, and that mystery figure on the left that several people thought was Ant Man? I'm guessing Star Lord.

Like I said, I'm not gonna make any conclusions until we get actual word from Marvel.
I refuse to by whole heatedly into anything that comes from Bleeding Cool or any so called "scoop" journalism sites.

I like to have 100% confirmation before I start calling foul.

[RobinFan4880]

WRONG. wait all you like. the rest of us will be mobilizing and demanding answers.

No one is mobilizing a boycott effort except you. Everyone else is jazzed about Guardians of the Galaxy because it looks amazing.

i will be boycotting gotg this summer in response to this behaviour.

The comic does not sell. It needs a break to make the audience yearn to read FF comics once more. It makes sense to split the team up and distribute the characters across the MCU.

Oh, and that mystery figure on the left that several people thought was Ant Man? I'm guessing Star Lord.

The guy in front of Falcon with the wavy orange hair is Star Lord. The small guy in front of Black Widow in blue with the ant helmet is Ant-Man.

[Tiamatty]

Like I said, I'm not gonna make any conclusions until we get actual word from Marvel.
I refuse to by whole heatedly into anything that comes from Bleeding Cool or any so called "scoop" journalism sites.

I like to have 100% confirmation before I start calling foul.

Exactly. I absolutely refuse to trust any statement that includes the phrase "anonymous sources." Maybe it turns out to be true, maybe it doesn't, but I do not trust "anonymous sources" as a rule.

[ShadowDemon]

I thought we were talking about wavy hair guy to begin with...the very next image posted was some weird Pym "Wasp" costume...

[Alvarez]

The guy in front of Falcon with the wavy orange hair is Star Lord. The small guy in front of Black Widow in blue with the ant helmet is Ant-Man.

Yeah, I didn't think anyone was having trouble figuring out who was who.
Ant-Man just has a color swap.

I thought we were talking about wavy hair guy to begin with...the very next image posted was some weird Pym "Wasp" costume...

What was being talked about was how Ant-Mans costume had it's color inverted.
Then someone went on to post Pym's Wasp outfit because it was their favorite of his outfits.

[DrewHLMW]

I wonder how long poor ol Reed & Sue have left.

All our fav and famous couples are gone Pete/MJ, Bruce/Betty, Steve/Sharon, Thor/Jane, Tony/Pepper? (I'm only familiar with Iron Man in the movies), Scott/Jean, Scott/Emma, Wanda/Vision, Hank/Janet, Kitty/Colossus

even DC have done away with all thur best couples Clark/Lois, Bruce/Selina, Hal/Carol, Barry/Iris, Dick/Kory.

the time of the fantastic four is ending........in divorce just like everyone else :'(

Marvel/DC why do you hate happy superhero couples dammit!!!!!

[RobinFan4880]

What was being talked about was how Ant-Mans costume had it's color inverted.
Then someone went on to post Pym's Wasp outfit because it was their favorite of his outfits.

The wasp outfit was posted as an example of Pym actually getting a great looking costume, rather than the dull ones he has had before and since (especially his new inverted one, which I am sure is modeled after his new movie suit).

[Alvarez]

The wasp outfit was posted as an example of Pym actually getting a great looking costume, rather than the dull ones he has had before and since (especially his new inverted one, which I am sure is modeled after his new movie suit).

And I agreed with that. lol.

[Lee Stone]

I can see this happening.
Marvel's "First Family" may become a casualty of corporate warfare.

On the bright side, if the movies do well, Marvel could relaunch the book to capitalize on the success.
If it doesn't then they may get them back sooner than later.

[HsssH]

For those thinking that if FF gets put on hiatus then maybe storyline will continue in Invaders - don't hold your hopes for that. So far Invaders seams to be one of the bigger Marvel Now flops as far as sales go with fourth issue selling around 22k units, fifth one probably sold below 20k (since drops for previous issues were rather sharp) - land where Marvel tends to cancel series.

As for these rumours, I find them plausible. People like to mention how it wouldn't make any business sense to cancel it but its important to understand that FF isn't selling much. Even during Hickman's run most of the buzz was generated by certain someone dying and there being polybags. Marvel at that moment also tried to build up franchise a bit with more marketing going, relaunching as FF and even launching a second title, but sales dropped fast, Foundation got axed and Fantastic Four relaunched (due to, I think, all time low sales for FF title). But even now we are approaching situation where title might need another relaunch in 8 months. Yes now its selling around same level as Iron Man or Thor or Cap America but its still hot after its relaunch and sales are likely to drop in next few months to the same spot they were before relaunch - not something that Marvel really wants. Realistically speaking money earned from FF isn't that important to Marvel. To Disney? They probably aren't even aware that such title exists.

Another big problem is that there isn't much reason for developing this franchise further. You can't make a movie out of it, if I'm not mistaken Fox also owns animation and TV show rights too. Attempt at creating a bigger franchise out of it (like Spider-Man or X-Men) that could move lots of issues every month failed. So whats left there to do? Why invest further into it? Sure it makes some money back, but thats not really how business works. You take your dollars and invest into things that have higher return rate. You might like or dislike what Robinson is now doing on FF but I think you won't argue that Hollywood guys would prefer if he was developing some solid plots for, just an example, Doctor Strange that Marvel would later be able to turn into tv show/movie/whatever and have much higher returns than they would from some FF trades.

At this point Marvel is just giving out story ideas for potential movies to Fox and not earning much in return. Why would you do that? Lets not forget that strong FF/X-Men movie franchise would be (and if Fox manages to maintain DoFP quality for next movies it is very likely) rather serious competition to MCU and cut into their movie profits.

Probably only thing that keeps FF in publication is their historic status of being key title in Marvel's early days.

On the bright side, if the movies do well, Marvel could relaunch the book to capitalize on the success.
If it doesn't then they may get them back sooner than later.

Honestly I can't imagine how hard FF movie would have to bomb that Fox would return rights to Marvel. It

[Mimepool]

I've been lied to too many times by Marvel editorial to ever give them any slack with respect to the denial of sourced rumors.

Remember when Peter Parker was dead for real and wasn't coming back? Yeah, editorial lies. It is their job.

Let's look at the facts - The Watcher is dead, Wolverine is gonna die. The current storyline is the Fall of the Fantastic Four. They apparently lost their kids and the Baxter Building. Thing is going to be on trial for murder. Johnny Storm is without powers. Mr. Fantastic is playing God in New Avengers (and may not be long for this world).

I have a feeling based on the domino that is the death of Xavier and now Wolverine that X-Men is in the spiral that will lead to the diminishment of the franchise in comic-form. Bendis is getting the last good crack at them and brought back the Original Five so if he kills them off the X-Men cease to be.

I see your point, but Xavier had been dead weight for the last years prior to his demise. He showed up every now and then, but he was far from being the crucial character he used to be.
Wolverine... well, he's been written to be more Avengers-sided than X-Men-sided (AvX proved that), so this would not be only an X-Men's loss but an Avengers' as well.

On the other side, there is a Magneto ongoing (who is an already huge popular character that has gained even more popularity due to Fassbender's Magneto. Even the way he's been written is similar to his vigilante approach from the new movies), Nightcrawler revived and has been given his own ongoing, O5 Cyclops is now going solo, AND there's a Storm ongoing coming soon. Not to mention Deadpool. If you ask me, the mutant side of Marvel is nothing but growing.

Although Marvel may want the X-Men cinematic rights so bad, they still know those characters are far too popular to dump them. Inhumans would prove to be nothing but a failed attempt of giving readers a surrogate "minority group" that lacks the decades of character development that the X-Men have had.

[Carabas]

Although Marvel may want the X-Men cinematic rights so bad, they still know those characters are far too popular to dump them. Inhumans would prove to be nothing but a failed attempt of giving readers a surrogate "minority group" that lacks the decades of character development that the X-Men have had.

The Inhuman thing is probably more to do with getting to use mutant-type characters in the movie-verse.

[ewayneself]

WRONG. wait all you like. the rest of us will be mobilizing and demanding answers.

In what way? I've written a letter, but what more can I do?

[Brian from Canada]

Marvel/DC why do you hate happy superhero couples dammit!!!!!

Joe Quesada answered this in the PBS documentary Superheroes: once you start making the characters more adult, they cross a threshold that makes them no appealing to kids and this is a kids medium.
He particularly hated the Peter/MJ marriage because he felt it took away from Peter's being a constant loser.

The other issue that's rarely talked about in the ends of these marriages is shock value.
Every so often, a major breakup is treated as "ground shaking," and the end of marriages is enough to get you noticed by the comic press.

[runguy]

Here's the latest from Brevoort:

"Is Marvel really cancelling Fantastic Four and not putting them in their 75th anniversary? "

"Plenty of questions about this, many belligerent ones mostly from anonymous posters.

So let me reiterate: I’m going to give priority to answering questions that come from an account with a name. And the belligerent questions just get trashed either way.

Anyway, there’s a lot of fear and crazy going on out in the world as people jump to conclusions and work themselves up into a lather. It was a good weekend for those that profit from such things, I expect.

We are publishing FANTASTIC FOUR. Next month, we will be publishing FANTASTIC FOUR. A year from now, assuming that it’s still selling well, we will be publishing FANTASTIC FOUR. Given enough time, anything can happen—we went a couple of years, for example, without a THOR series, as well as a year and a half with FF, AVENGERS, CAP and IRON MAN not being a part of the Marvel Universe. So anything can happen. But it probably won’t.

And for the couple of folks who punctuated their complaints by saying that they were dropping all of their Marvel books, and switching over to DC—well, first off, you must think that I’m a very simple man. But you can, as always, do with your time and money as you will. I will point out that if the purpose of your endeavor is to insure the continuation of FANTASTIC FOUR, then perhaps buying MORE FANTASTIC FOUR would be in better service to that goal than buying less. Just a thought.

Oh, and James Robinson sent me notes for the 75th Anniversary Special story that he is doing this morning. And as you’d expect, the Fantastic Four are at the core of it."