Social Media Reacts To… The Cancelling Of The Fantastic Four

Posted on | by Rich Johnston

So, yes, on Sunday we ran a story about the Fantastic Four comic book being cancelled by Marvel next year. Response was swift online.

The #SaveFF hashtag adopted for those who wanted to save the TV show Flash Forward was pulled back onto the frontline.

Some were angry. Some with Marvel…

Some with Fox…

Some despaired.

Some were happy.

 

Others were resigned.

Some rejected the conspiracy.

Some were cynical.

 

 

Some were cynical in other ways.

Some were funny,

Some were blatantly unaware of trademark and copyright law.

Some wanted to congratulate Bleeding Cool

Some were blatantly amazed,

Others on Reddit weren't so kind.

Zthe27th: If their isn't a relaunch by the movies release I will be in shock. From a story, marketing, and financial perspective it just makes sense. This article is just fear mongering without providing any other reason for a big final issue.

Though I did like this.

TheLAriver: It's not."Fear mongering" is a term that relates to stuff like war, injury, and disease. He reports rumors about comic books. Anyone who experiences legitimate fear about Fantastic Four being cancelled is hugey overreacting.

And I had to concur with this.

The Bleeding Cool message board were naturally abuzz.

bewareofgeek

I SHOULD be a Fantastic Four fan. It's the only Marvel comic that is well positioned to satisfy my "pulp adventure/science hero" jones.
The problem is, nobody seems to want to WRITE it that way. Every writer tears them apart, and goes over the same tired plotlines:

Reed is an obsessed know-it-all who needs to learn to open himself to his family.
Sue proves that she's more powerful than the others think.
Johnny is an immature hedonist who must learn responsibility
Ben has angst about his condition.
Franklin's powers come back, and everybody panics.
Doom returns, more dangerous than ever. Again.
(About the only new plot we get is "Val does something extremely brainy, which either makes things worse or saves the day")

And now we're getting word that the new FF movie will be more "grounded".

F#ck grounded. Give me wild adventures in exotic locales, not Yet Another Doom Arc, or "The FF disband".

In other words, give me the Fantastic Four, not "Four Generic Superheroes Who Are Related"

I've said all along that, as a strategy to stick it to Fox, canceling FF is pointless, because it will have zero impact on the success of their FF film franchise. But, conversely, there's really no point in getting all lathered up at Perlmutter because, as the write-up indicates, cancelling FF will also have minimal impact on Marvel's bottom line. I don't pay much attention to sales figures, but I would guess that if they'd wanted to cancel FF based purely on the numbers, they probably could have justified that a while ago. If all they've been doing is dragging the carcass of the FF around out of some sense of tradition, then maybe shutting them down for a while is a good thing. Take some time, step back, and figure out a way to do something with them that might actually get readers excited about them again. Seriously, I wonder how many of the people who–predictably, inevitably–will be eviscerating Permutter online over the next few days actually buy FF comics.

Chris Metcalfe

So we can expect a follow up story tomorrow about Tom Brevoort going absolutely apeshit at Rich over this, right?

Not quite. Marvel's Tom Brevoort pointed out on Tumblr that all things will pass, posting these previous "final issue" covers of the Fantastic Four.

tumblr_inline_nczj768iG21r3swmi tumblr_inline_nczjdasLQ01r3swmi

Along with the advice

Stop reading rumor sites, and really, stop reading rumor sites and then running here to ask about them in either terror or anger.

Remember folks, the only person allowed to read rumour site is Mr Brevoort. Because only he can handle it. So let's give him the last word, responding to CBR's re-reporting of our story.

 

About Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.

twitter   facebook square   instagram   globe