The Four Color Media Monitor

Newsarama ran an interview with a few writers for Marvel, such as Jonathan Hickman, who gave some clues the cancellation of Marvel's breakout hit from the Silver Age was put to rest more because of disputes with Fox studios than because of bad sales per se:

The concrete “whys” of the Richards family’s absence have been a matter of speculation since they left the Marvel Universe in Secret Wars, but as it turns out, the actual reason for their disappearance from Marvel's publishing line may be exactly what some conspiracy minded fans have said all along - 20th Century Fox's ownership of the franchise's film rights - but maybe not for the reasons they may expect.

"I think it’s pretty common knowledge at this point that Marvel isn’t publishing Fantastic Four because of their disagreement with Fox," Hickman explained. “While it bums me out, I completely understand because, well, it isn’t like they’re not acting out of cause. Fox needs to do a better job there.”

Hickman’s reasoning seems to imply that Marvel did indeed drop the FF because of the Fox films – not necessarily for financial reasons, but because the most recent reboot was both critically and financially unsuccessful, and failed to reflect well on Marvel's comic books. Marvel still publishes an entire line of X-Men comic books, for example, despite Fox also controlling that franchise's film rights.

If they were talking about the comics, wouldn't that be Hickman's fault, along with James Robinson? Because from what I could tell, there wasn't much to write home about in their offerings, other than changing the FF's costumes to red at one point. Not to mention the constant stream of crossovers made it impossible to provide decent storytelling anyway. And, while cancelling the FF is probably better than allowing a whole bunch of hack writers to turn out monstrosities that could've easily been political as anything else they've published of recent, it's idiotic to act as though a movie's failure warrants the ceasing of the title. There's tons of films based on great novels and plays that didn't fare well at the box office, and that was no justification for stopping their printings and scheduling for theater auditoriums. Still, because of the horrible storytelling effects the FF have been put through in the past decade, right down to the awful crossovers, that's why the series' cancellation is for the best, rather than see a lot of money and trees continually wasted at the behest of awful editors like Joe Quesada and Axel Alonso, who've been exploiting the MCU for all their agenda-laden ideas.

Bleeding Cool also reminded about their own coverage of the subject, and how a certain executive in charge had responsibility that does more harm than good:

A specific instruction given by the Marvel Chairman Isaac Perlmutter that the comic be cancelled (though they were given the time to do it in the manner of their choosing) and all Fantastic Four licensing was cancelled immediately. Posters were even ripped down from the Marvel offices walls featuring the FF so that he didn’t have to see them when he walked through the offices. Marvel staffers, some of whom have never even spoken to Bleeding Cool before or since, got in touch to share their outrage and hoped that exposure would force change — but despite the story getting wide play across the media from THR to Comic Book to Cinemablend to Screencrush to Slashfilm to Nerdist to Collider to Forbes, though not wide enough for George to notice, there was no change.

It's also worth reminding there's been no change in the situation surrounding Spider-Man and Mary Jane Watson's marriage either, and Perlmutter hasn't been helpful on those issues either. Much as I'd like to admire his apparent conservative leanings politically, I think what we have here is a case of somebody who's proven a monumental failure in demonstrating his ability to lead a company, concern himself with whether they're maintaining decent storytelling directions with talented writers, and Perlmutter's allowing politically motivated productions like the Muslim Ms. Marvel to be greenlighted - presumably because he doesn't want to be seen as "islamophobic" - is just one more serious letdown. I'd say Perlmutter's problems stem from his apparent dislike of the creations and products he's overseeing at his end, and IIRC, he even indicated he doesn't like Stan Lee! Why? Besides, if he only cares about dollars in movies, then there's no point in being part of a company that once built itself on a respectable reputation.

And certainly, I was aware that there was a strain of thought at Marvel from some people that the FF comics were only published out of some kind of nostalgia and that the brand could do with a rest. But they were a minority view at the publisher and it took the edict from Ike Perlmutter to kill the first family of Marvel.

Really, they thought so? Umm, that could easily describe the situation with many more Marvel series now. But the answer BC's writer refuses to dwell on is that the a lot of their output in the past several years was only published for the sake of political agendas and the desperation of company wide crossovers for extra bucks. Besides, the FF was no more immune to leftism than any of the other ongoings and miniseries Quesada/Alonso were publishing, wasting tons of money in the process.

I'm not happy to say this, but I think Perlmutter should leave the company, along with all the terrible editors and writers he's allowed to remain in place at the expense of Marvel's storytelling cohesion. He's practically an embarrassment for conservatives because he puts so little value on the comics and more on the movies. He may not be as influential today as he was several years ago, but it's clear he's failed the company in the long run, and made himself out to be no better than the ultra-leftists running Marvel now.

Labels: dreadful writers, Fantastic Four, marvel comics, politics, sales