The Four Color Media Monitor

Here's another item related to the cancellation of the FF's ongoing series, an interview on CBR with Brevoort, where he babbles about ushering in his new post-Secret Wars universe along with Jonathan Hickman, the latter who says at least one decent thing about how they're ending the FF's run:

Hickman: Yeah, and that was a conversation in the room. Something that was absolutely talked about was should they die? I had absolutely zero interest in telling that story. [Laughs] Because it runs completely contrary to everything that I feel about that franchise and everything that I feel about those characters. So we got to where we wanted to get to.

I'm willing to say that's a lot more respectable than how DC's writers/editors/artists have gone about their business over the past decade, killing off decent heroes and co-stars, or worse, turning them into villains. But then, now that I think of it, this is the FF they're talking about, once major players until modern PC reduced them to a shambles, and unlike most minor players, they probably don't think it's as easy to kill off or villify majors. But does that mean their contrived storytelling will work? The short answer is "no". All that aside, Brevoort admits that it's not like they've canned the FF altogether:

Now, there are some people who will look at this ending and all they'll see is Marvel putting Reed, Sue, Franklin and these other characters on a shelf because of movie rights. Is that fair? Is this really a shelf?

Brevoort: It's a shelf in that the Fantastic Four as a unit are now split up. Ben and Johnny are in "Guardians," "Inhumans" and "Uncanny Avengers," and there isn't a "Fantastic Four" title. None of these characters are dead, though. Therefore, the future will inevitably and invariably get to a point where we'll see more of Reed, Sue, Franklin, Val, Dragon Man and the Future Foundation. We will get to that point. I don't know that we'll get to it quickly. Maybe we will. Maybe we won't. Hopefully we'll get to it when you least expect it so their reappearance on the Marvel stage can have some resonance to it.

If that occasion has Brevoort as one of the engineers, then it won't be worth looking forward to. As I've said before, the MCU ended long ago, because staff like him, who turned out to be truly awful, made certain of that. So long as men like him are there, a reunion/revival won't be worth awaiting. It may be unfair to put them on a shelf, yet could only be expected when these terrible gatekeepers bring it down to the low level they've forced it onto.

I would read a book with the status quo of those characters making and exploring universes.

Brevoort: And potentially, maybe we will do such a book. We shall see.

Hickman: I don't think there's anything negative about the ending at all. I think at the end of the day, the idea of one of the best franchises that Marvel has never appearing again is ridiculous. Why would you not want more of that at some point?

The ending already reeks of editorial mandates, so there is something negative in that. The FF in itself is a fine creation by Lee and Kirby. But with hack writers and editors like Brevoort on board, I would not want "more" coming from them. Certainly not from staffers who continue to insult the intellect with the following:

Brevoort: That said, and this is another conversation we've had in retreats and elsewhere, and I think we've even talked about it if not in these "Secret Wars" chats, then in other recent chats about previous event books. "Fantastic Four" has been one of those books that, for a number of years, has been effectively taken for granted. It's been considered stodgy, or old school, or some people see it as a thing that's there and people are comfortable because it's there, but they're not particularly passionate about it.

So we're not going to have that book for a while. We didn't have a Thor book for a while. We did "Avengers Disassembled" and Thor went away. For a couple of years, there was absolutely no Thor book, and when Thor came back, it was a huge book. It continues to be a huge book to this day. I think that absence was part of what made people cherish its return, and then it was just having great talent to execute that return. If the same sort of thing happens with Fantastic Four that would not be the worst thing in the world.

So now he's insulting the audience - inside and outside comicdom - by putting words in their mouth and claiming they consider it "dated". By that twisted logic, just about every Marvel/DC creation could be dismissed as "stodgy", all because it was created at a time when people were far more creative and actually wanted to entertain. And if they're not passionate about FF any longer, it's simply because the stories they've churned out over the past decade have been bottom of the barrel, written by some of the worst writers ever to litter comicdom. We've had J. Michael Straczynski, Brian Bendis, and even Mark Waid wasn't much of a big deal. Why else do they think people lost interest? Because they no longer trust Brevoort and his ilk to deliver. Their presence alone signals it's bound to be a fiasco.

And if they're cancelling FF because sales are low, Cosmic Book News asks if they're going to do the same with plenty of other titles that sell abysmally, including the most recent Capt. America, Daredevil, Iron Man, Punisher, Thor and Iron Fist books. They sell around the same amounts as the FF has, yet they don't seem to be awaiting curtain calls anytime soon, and are bound to be relaunched even quicker than FF could be. Nope, it's editorial mandate that's determining everything here, right down to the licensed merchandise.

The cancellation of FF is obviously based on biased, but at the same time for the best, because these clowns in charge don't know how to script or market the products, and if they continued with the series, they'd only make it worse, replete with crossovers. I don't expect any good to come of the Thing and Human Torch's roles in other series either.

Labels: bad editors, Fantastic Four, marvel comics