The Four Color Media Monitor

CBC News tells that they're desperate to raise sales for one of the books they themselves discouraged everyone from reading with their horrible crossovers:

Marvel Comics executive editor Tom Brevoort said Wednesday that one of the members will die in an issue to be released in January.

[...]

"I think we've given plenty of hints as to who may die — perhaps too many, in that every one of our lead characters is left in a dire, life-threatening situation the month before," Brevoort said.

Members of the Fantastic Four, including Sue Storm or the Invisible Woman and Reed Richards or Mister Fantastic, have died in previous storylines. But Storm's death turned out to be a ruse and Richards was rediscovered in another dimension.

Marvel said this time it really is the end for someone.

And I say that's a laugh, and I wouldn't buy it anyway. It doesn't even matter if it's just Willie Lumpkin who passes away; they've driven this whole charade into the ground, and nobody should be falling for this insult anymore. (By the way, why do they say "or"? Don't these clowns know that Sue Storm/Invisible Woman and Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic are one and the same person? The correct word should be "alias", or "aka".)

"Anyone that's ever lost a family member can tell you that surviving [and] moving on is a process," Hickman said in a release from Marvel.

"So the Fantastic Four will do that in the same manner we all do: some will get angry, some will grieve, some will want to get even. And all of this grows out of events in one of the four cities."

Yes, I get the picture - this is just part of their newest abomination, "Fear Itself". Regardless, it's clear they're doing this all for the sake of sales, and killing characters is not helping anyone who's ever been through these kind of experiences in real life. The issue, 587, should be avoided in protest, and with sales fading as they are today, it probably will sell less than previous stunts, but it still remains to be seen.

Update: it's even worse than what the above article tells - this one from the Worcestor Telegram, which draws mainly from the AP, says:

This time, however, Marvel is adamant, noting that once the current story ends in No. 588, the Fantastic Four will cease to exist.

And so will Marvel as a comic book publisher, if they keep this up; it's only a matter of time before it really has a shuttering effect on their publishing system. They've replaced Matt Murdock in his own book with T'Challa, and that's likely what they'll do here too, switching the main cast with a bunch of third-tier protagonists, all because they allegedly can't carry a title on their own, so instead Marvel baits-and-switches for the sake of short-term sales jumps.

Update 2: to matters even sadder, the site of BetUs and by extension Robot 6 are making things worse by aiding and abetting this kind of disrespectful abuse of famous franchises. It's bad enough that DC did it with Jason Todd. Why are they making it worse by acting as though this is something to celebrate?

Labels: bad editors, Fantastic Four, golden calf of death, marvel comics, msm propaganda