Is Marvel Canceling the Fantastic Four to Screw Fox?

By on Thursday, May 29th, 2014

Yup, you read the title right.  Marvel may cancel their longest running title, the title that launched the Marvel Age, to screw Fox.   

Here’s the deal: Fox owns the movie rights to both Fantastic Four and X-Men.  When Fox bought the rights, Marvel was in major bankruptcy drama and Fox got a total steal.  Essentially, Marvel makes very little money off the success of the Fox movies and cannot get the movie rights back unless Fox stops making the movies, which they never will.  Meanwhile, Marvel Studios are making craploads of money off their Marvel Cinematic Universe which includes the Avengers flicks and the upcoming Guardians of the Galaxy movie.marvel 75th aniversary magazine 2

What this means is- often the Marvel will promote the Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy comics over other properties, especially other properties owned by other studios.  And by promote, I mean shove these licenses down fans’ throats.   This is why we Marvel has pimped the Avengers, Thanos, Ultron and the Guardians of the Galaxy at the last few  Free Comic Book Day events.  This is why the Fantastic Four and the X-Men aren’t on the Marvel 75th Anniversary Magazine cover.  And this is why the Inhumans somehow have a comic being published and are being ushered in as mutant replacements.

Bleeding Cool‘s Rich Johnson reports that a Marvel source has informed him that Marvel plans to cancel all Fantastic Four titles in both the Ultimate U and the 616 to screw with Fox.  The team would instead only guest star in other titles.  Bleeding Cool also reports that Marvel is taking down the Fantastic Four artwork that hangs in the Marvel offices.  The first cancelled title is rumored to be Ultimate FF, a title that was launched only last month.  Here is the August solicitation that may be the last issue:

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

thing sad

Do I believe it?  Absolutely.  Marvel is bringing in Scrooge McDuck levels of cash with their Marvel Cinematic Universe flicks- waaaaaay more than they are making off comics.  Of course, they will never cancel the X-titles because that franchise sells itself, but they won’t go out of their way to promote the X-Men like they do the Avengers.  Marvel can easily cancel Fantastic Four, a comic that is not a top seller, and fill the rack with another title to promote some other Marvel Cinematic Universe property.  Marvel is very patient in promoting titles they think can make money in the theaters, look at the Guardians.  Heck, Marvel can just make a new family comic starring similar astronauts hit by radiation.  That’s how they are turning “the miracles” into the new mutants.

Jay Deitcher is a writer and licensed social worker from Albany, NY. He is currently taking MFA courses at the College of St. Rose. You can read his other work at JayDeitcher.com.

S#!T Talking Central

  • Pat Kolp

    That’s stupid, and would be childish of Marvel to do that.

  • bryan David Woodbury

    I think its time to do that anyways…Ben joins New Avengers, Johnny can go to Uncanny Avengers Reed stays with Illuminati and Sue can start her own team with She Hulk, Ant man, Black Panther and Silver Surfer as they watch over the Foundation kids and power up Franklin.

  • TheMan

    It’s just business..

  • Marvelover

    I dont know about Ultimate FF, but I know the new FF title in Marvel Now isn’t that great. Its good, but I definitely wouldn’t care if they canceled it.

  • Johnson Carlos

    This is great news. I hope this is true. If that’s what it takes to get the X-Men and Fantastic Four back, then so be it. I could live without the X-Men and FF for a while.

    • MarvelFan_1

      Terrible idea, flat out terrible, if Marvel had all the X-Men etc handed back the studio would be bogged down with demand and we wouldn’t be getting GoTG or Ant-Man, Dr Strange or the Inhuman’s.
      Juggling the Mutant world, the main Avengers / Marvel Earth and Marvel cosmic is to much material for one studio and they could never balance and link those worlds together, they don’t even in the comics most of the time.
      Fox have stepped up their X-Men film quality and Marvel are doing fine as they are.
      The FF on the other hand ………….. (new cast sucks)

      • The_Eternal_Dalek

        Who said anything about Marvel doing anything with the X-Men? All I see is someone not wanting Fox producing more films. Marvel wouldn’t just dive in with a reboot (unless they had a great deal of pressure from “the people above”).

        I would point you in the direction of the Spider-Man television rights, which were sold back to Disney in 2009 (in exchange for “less creative input” from Marvel, now they have none whatsoever following further deals). In the five years since Marvel have begun to make a move into television with the MCU. Are they making a Spider-Man television show? No. Are they using the franchise? Yes, they are using characters from the franchise in the MCU that would otherwise not be accessible if they were going through films (such as the Kingpin in the upcoming Daredevil series). Perhaps it is because Sony and Marvel get on a lot better than Marvel and Fox (there are even rumours of a crossover at the moment, which has become impossible with Fox now). From what has been said it appears they have similar intentions with the Fantastic Four, who have countless characters (especially from the cosmic side of the things) that would be very useful for Marvel’s ever expanding universe.

        Marvel are committed to introducing a new property into films every year for the foreseeable future. Films like Guardians of the Galaxy, Ant-Man, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, The Inhumans, Ms Marvel, etc. are all seemingly on the way, can you blame Marvel for wanting to supplement that list with characters like the Silver Surfer?

        • MarvelFan_1

          Quite frankly I don’t know how Fox swung exclusive property rights for Silver Surfer and Galactus anyway?? Surfer has his own comic for gods sake.
          Marvel have held firm over Quick Silver, can’t understand why they don’t have rights to Surfer who essentially has nothing to do with the FF?

          • The_Eternal_Dalek

            The problem is Marvel drew up 30+ franchises back in the 90s and then sold them off over a five year period sold them off, all with a “reversion timer” (although never consistent between franchises) that would ensure if they were never used they would return to Marvel (at which point they would be resold on to another company).

            When they drew up the franchises again in the mid-90s they decided to include the Silver Surfer in with the Fantastic Four. Most of their characters were included in a franchise, a select few were included in two if they had a really good cause for it (like Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch coming under both “The X-Men” and “The Avengers”, or the Skrull race coming under both “The Avengers” and “The Fantastic Four”). Marvel chose to include Surfer in with the FF and now are suffering the consequences of that decision. The fact they were such big franchises probably is what drew the studios in to these ones, and why those three are the only ones left out there. Indeed, the ones who Marvel did separate out by themselves are the ones who came back (with the obvious two exceptions, the “Namor” franchise was one of the few, if not the only one which hit a reversion timer but then got resold on before Marvel decided to stop selling, and the “Deadpool” franchise, because Fox acquired it as well later on and used him in Origins: Wolverine, although it seems likely he could revert due to problems with production of his own solo film and with X-Force).

    • William Cookston Igou

      Yeah, I grew up an X-Men fan, but have really loved the Marvel cinematic world. I never thought I’d get that much into the cosmic heroes and avengers, but they did it! Not so happy with the past decade of X-Men, I’d be willing to wait until they can treat the titles right, and fix continuation and comic/movie alignment. Still waiting for an epic X-Men battle.

  • Alexander Ramos

    But cancelling the comic now won’t stop fox. they still have 40+ years of stories to use. So explain how this helps them get the movie right’s back?

    • Edgedy

      That’s easy, because comic books readers won’t buy them, which makes it so that those specific individuals won’t be as motivated to go to the movies. This has more to do with indoctrinating a new generation of comic readers, and if they don’t see the comic they’re less inclined to be a ‘fan’ of the series.

      • Max Zeks

        It’s the other way around, comics are dead. Movies make a few ppl turn to comics. Fox couldn’t are less there are no more FF comics. That crazy jew made another shit decision. And FF fans are to pay.

  • Droppo

    Fantastic Four has been bad for a while. They need to bring in a whole new creative team to work on it or go ahead and cancel it. They need a new editor, writer, penciler, inker, and colorist. Everything. And they could try reading John Byrne’s FF run back in the 80’s to see what a quality FF magazine can look like.

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