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

[Prof. Warren]

The FF could actually use a break. Robinson is doing ok but it's clear that Marvel has a hard time getting a handle on the FF these days.

[Cel]

Do you know the history of Isaac Perlmutter? He is a man who will not only cut off his nose to spite his face , but use a chainsaw to do it.

That's the only thing that makes me think there's some truth to this. I've heard quite a few stories about the reclusive Mr. Perlmutter doing some things that seem more based on a personal whim or desire than anything else.

[jphamlore]

An alternate explanation is that putting characters on hiatus is a regular part of Marvel's and Disney's playbook and it just happens to be the Fantastic Four's turn.

Disney is a company that pulls classics from distribution threatening parents that they better buy them now or their children might miss them their entire childhood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disney_Vault

Marvel "killed" Thor and he didn't have a regular book for years.

Marvel "killed" Steve Rogers and replaced him with Bucky.

Marvel "killed" Peter Parker in both the 616 and Ultimates universes and replaced him in the 616 universe with a supervillain posing as Spider-Man.

Marvel has tried top-tier creators such as Waid, JMS, Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch, and Hickman on Fantastic Four. Most recent efforts have portrayed Reed Richards as almost literally a god which in my opinion might be something of a problem in a team book that is supposedly about a family. Hickman is the recent writer who in my opinion struck the best balance, but his story might as well be the final Fantastic Four story. It is long overdue for a hiatus.

[Peter Parker]

This seems a bit too far fetched. FF is too much of an icon at Marvel for them to cancel it.

was too much of an icon. Ask any 12-year old boy who the Avengers are, or Spider-Man. Now ask them who the Fantastic Four are... Years of bad, or very high-concept stories (Hickman) and poor movies have erased those characters from anything but Marvel old folks.

[Super-Cyke]

It's so ironic to me, that with the Fox deal, the x-men in the real world are outcasts to marvel due to the Disney ownership

Part of me wants to see Fox continue succeeding with the X-films (DOFP was so good!) part of me doesn't want the Fox X-films to drop in quality after DOFP saved the franchise. So I wouldn't mind seeing X-Men Apocalypse finish off the Fox X-movies and then perhaps Disney acquire the FF/X-film rights, but I don't know how that would happen

[Overhazard]

I very much doubt this is true, if it is then marvel is cutting off it's nose to spite it's face. Granted everything I know about business could fit in a thimble, but I know that much.

[Darkhawk]

I love how Brian Cronin was just writing about how the "Marvel killing Wolverine to kill X-films" rumours are a load of bull. Where does CBR get their information? Jeeze.

[DebkoX]

Makes no sense as to why they would. The film would probably have people wanting to read comics, why would they cancel it?

Sounds like BS.

[Super-Cyke]

I very much doubt this is true, if it is then marvel is cutting off it's nose to spite it's face. Granted everything I know about business could fit in a thimble, but I know that much.

Disney may disagree though. If you asked Disney, if they had the option to completely rid Marvel of properties that Disney can't get anything from, you think Disney would say "Oh no, we wouldn't embrace that"

It's like marrying someone but never truly having them. Like they need to spend weekends with an ex. Who wants to be in that sort of a relationship?

[Irving Forbush]

Do you know the history of Isaac Perlmutter? He is a man who will not only cut off his nose to spite his face , but use a chainsaw to do it. And this situation has happened recently, in the last month or so.

Do you know Mr. Perlmutter personally Rich? Have you ever met him or spoken to him directly? I mean, a lot of people employed by marvel have never met him. I'm very curious as to what basis you make this statement about his personal character on.


Anyway, One gaping hole in this conspiracy theory:

Apparently Marvel forgot to give this memo to Gazillion Entertainment, the developers of the most excellent Marvel heroes Action Rpg. The one that is written by Brian Bendis, that's stories are co-ordinated with marvel editorial for the next 12 months at least, and that consults with marvel at least several times a week for approval of the weekly changes to the game.


You see, last week was X-men Week. X-men events all week long. Psylocke debuted as a new character for sale. Marvel was involved in this up until the last minute, as just a few days before the character was put for sale the devs still weren't sure what final costume would be her default,the jim lee bikini thing or the x-force costume, marvel makes this decision for them.

Two weeks prior? The Invisible Woman was put in the game for sale. As were more Future foundation costumes in the store. New Ben Grimm Fear Itself costumes went in this month too. Most telling though in all this, two short days ago the lead dev confirmed the next character for sale will be Reed Richards, that he's currently half completed and probably going to be in July. Art was provided to demonstrate some of his powers. Sorry Rich.

That's not all though. Just yesterday, Doctor Doom is confirmed as a team up character (also available in future foundation costume) for pre-order on the front page of the website, as of this morning it was the top story. It was publicly stated by the devs - again, just yesterday he'll be a fully playable character later in the year, but that he has to have certain story lines resolved first that are coming. They confirmed, again just this last week, that the silver surfer is coming later this year as well.

It's been hinted at very very very strongly that secret invasion, with those allegedly banned skrulls is going to happen in the game this summer too.

Ben and Johnny have been in the game for a while, are both free characters you can choose at the games start, and have half a dozen or so costumes each for sale in the store right now. They take chase costumes in and out of the store on a weekly basis, if marvel had a problem why aren't those costumes being taken down to discourage promoting fox's movie? The game had four patches this week preparing for next weeks mega event, they could have taken the characters themselves out of the game at any of those times if Marvel wanted to bury them. and that's not even touching on the various x-men in the game. Gambit's got a new costume next week. Magneto's on the way as a player character. Rogues coming this year. Havok was confirmed again this week. And so on, and so forth. I'm sure I'm leaving a lot of it out, as this conspiracy theory just looks silly from the point of view of someone active in that game.

Don't take my word for it. You can go browse up the dev posts in the Marvel Heroes forums, there's a feature that pulls their posts up to help you. Or go to the recent AMA that the devs did on Reddit this week. I'd be happy to post the links here in a later post, I don't want to come across like a shill for the game though in my first post on these forums.

So...How come Marvel didn't tell this to them Rich? The nature of this game is such that designing a character is fairly expensive even by video game standards as each character in the game has unique game mechanics. Much, much, more expensive then designing promotional art or trading cards. Reed's going to probably be one of the most internally expensive characters in the games history because of his powers and the animation required for this. Sue and Psylocke required the hiring of new voice actors. They just spent a ton of time re-tuning the x-men characters, wolverine was totally reworked just last week. This isn't just stuff that's planned months back, this is stuff that marvel checks off on every step of the way. Whenever a characters model is finished they show it to the playerbase, but note that it still is depending on marvel approval, which typically happens 2-3 weeks before each launch. Marvel's had no qualms about taking direct control of game content to create synergy with comics, Nova's been ready for almost a year but has been held off for release until an upcoming, undetermined event in the comic (and if you want a REAL conspiracy... take note that the Devs won't confirm or deny which Nova it's even going to be at this point...)

The playerbase of this game is rather large compared to the audience for the comics, let alone trading cards. Because of the studio founder's history in the development of diablo I and II, there's a lot of action rpg fans who play the game and don't really know too much about the Marvel IP. Surely if Perlmutter wanted to bury the FF to spite Sony, this is where he'd start, it's getting them quite a bit more publicity then the comics or trading cards do.

[WeaponX]

Man, I pity those who are affected by this rumor/news directly. I'm talking about the artist, of course. For all we know, he might be panicking at the thought of losing his work and money for the next few months and calling everybody at Marvel just to confirm the news, instead of concentrating on putting his best work out in the next issue.

Also, can you guys check out the updated article at the source? It might just be me, but I feel like the writer of that article might have a bit of an attitude problem, going so far as to update his article just to comment on Brevoort's tumbler response. Additionally, he's quoting CBR's article now, as if it would convince people he's on the right track more easily. Even if he ends up being correct, I wouldn't trust a guy who would bring his personal feelings into a "professional" news article.

So you wouldn't take it personally if a Marvel creator came out and encouraged people to not go to the site you made? Doubt it. As far as I view Tom is the one taking a professional article too seriously. And Bleeding Cools record of predict things like Wolverine's death right way before Marvel spoiled the storyline themselves makes Tom's statement look all the more self serving.

[a0040pc]

I can't believe this is happening. Fantastic Four is the series that launched Marvel towards being the company we know today. Without the Fantastic Four others like the Avengers, Spider-Man and the X-Men would probably never have been given the chance. I admit that I'm not the Fantastic Four's biggest fan but even they deserve much better than this. The series shouldn't be stopped because of some playground bickering. I find it funny as well that Marvel won't promote the X-Men anymore although it is one of Marvel's biggest franchises. Even if they don't get the rights for the films they still make a lot of money on games, toys and other merchandise. Hopefully very soon everyone involved in the matter will begin to listen to the voice of reason.

[Anarchist]

I can't say how much fuckin' Bleeding Cool irritates the hell out of me.
Why are these fame-hungry dumbasses still considered a credible source?

[DebkoX]

I can't say how much fuckin' Bleeding Cool irritates the hell out of me.
Why are these fame-hungry dumbasses still considered a credible source?

Sometimes they're right ;D;D;D

[OBrianTallent]

Quite frankly, I dont think Marvel really has anything to worry about. From what I've read and heard, I am not expecting this FF movie to be the success that Fox is hoping for...making too many changes to the concept and removing recognizable traits and concepts from the brand.