The Four Color Media Monitor

The Times-Record published quite an insulting piece about the Fantastic Four's return - and unfortunately being delivered to Dan Slott for scripting - where they dredge up the pro-SJW obfuscations and hint what they really think of Lee/Kirby after they'd gone to all that trouble to conceive them in the first place. Let's first focus on this part about why FF was cancelled 3 years ago and the cast went into limbo:

Eventually, though, the FF’s star began to fade. “Amazing Spider-Man” became Marvel’s best-selling title in the late 1960s, both Stan Lee and Jack Kirby had left the title by 1970, then the X-Men became the publisher’s superstars for a decade or two. In 2015, Marvel canceled “Fantastic Four” outright.

Not for the usual reason, though — “Fantastic Four” wasn’t setting sales charts on fire, but it was doing well enough. Rumor sites like Bleedingcool.com ran speculative stories about Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter not wanting to give free publicity to characters whose movie rights were owned by Twentieth Century Fox, a rival to Marvel Films.

While Marvel hasn’t ever confirmed that story, even some creators thought it was true.

“I think it’s pretty common knowledge at this point that Marvel isn’t publishing ‘Fantastic Four’ because of their disagreement with Fox,” one-time FF writer Jonathan Hickman told Newsarama.com in 2017. “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.”

So it may just be coincidence that “Fantastic Four” is returning to print just as Disney is in the process of acquiring the FF film rights from Fox. Or not.

I think it's entirely possible the FF was cancelled out of Perlmutter's flawed notion the series would give publicity to the movie, when it's the other way around as modern practice has resulted in. Now that Disney might buy out a lot of Fox movie properties, that's why they're backing off the embargo against the FF, though the terrible writers employed by Marvel today are just why a return of the Four is hardly a celebration. Oh, and speaking of terrible writers, look what this fluff piece says about one of them:

That will change in August, when for reasons not yet known, the team will re-form and “Fantastic Four” will reboot with a new #1. It will be written by Dan Slott, a fan favorite coming off a long, successful run on “Amazing Spider-Man,” and Sara Pichelli, an Italian artist known for “Runaways” and “Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man.”

So a man who insulted/harassed fans, blocked thousands of people he hated on Twitter, and even wrote fanfictionish tripe to troll the audience is literally a fan-fave? Wow, tell us about it. Last time I looked, Slott bolted from Twitter - hopefully for good - and certainly hasn't been plying his bad trade there. When the columnist gets around to commenting on Fresh Start, what could've made a valid argument about their constant event-marketing is sabotaged by social justice propaganda:

Which would be a lot more interesting if Marvel hadn’t done the exact thing four other times in the last six years. The publisher pitched “Marvel NOW!” in 2012, “All-New, All-Different Marvel” in 2015, “Marvel NOW! 2.0” in 2016, and “Marvel Legacy” in 2017. The changes introduced in these schemes weren’t usually very important or long-lasting, with Legacy in particular little more than a label on a nice trade dress.

Another complaint about “Fresh Start” is that it will have the effect of returning a lot of characters to their original conception — meaning a lot of white guys displacing women and people of color. For example, the female Thor recently died, and the Odinson will return in “Thor” No. 1 in June. Steve Rogers is once again Captain America, as of his “Legacy” reboot last January, with fill-in Sam Wilson, an African-American, trading the shield for his Falcon uniform. After being thought dead and replaced by black teen wunderkind Riri Williams, Tony Stark will reclaim the armor in June. Bruce Banner returned as the Hulk in a recent “Avengers,” a name used for the last few years by his cousin, Jessica Walters, and Asian teen Amadeus Cho.

If the FF had been replaced wholesale by what they consider a more diverse roster, the writer would've doubtlessly wanted that kept in place at the real team's expense till the end of time. For now, this says all we need to know about what he really thinks of Lee/Kirby and company of the past - dinosaurs whose creations, white or otherwise, no longer carry any value and must be replaced by their ambiguous ideas of what a "diverse" cast should be. No mention of what a dreadful personality Riri was given, or how reprehensible the Captain America stories with Sam in the costume were. Why, there's not even any mention that Jane Foster was the female Thor, and something tells me any complaint about her passing has nothing to do with the waste of a well-written lady. Rather, it has what to do with social justice pandering, and when Jason Aaron was working on it, he even put in an anti-Gamergate jab.

All of these characters remain in the Marvel Universe, and their stories aren’t over. But “Fresh Start” will dramatically reduce the number of titles headlined by women and/or people of color. Given the success of “Black Panther” on screen — and the ethnic diversity of 21st century America — that seems remarkably tone-deaf and backward-looking.

Umm, Black Panther's solo is still being published, regardless of the misfortune of having Ta-Nehisi Coates as scriptwriter. And if you want a book starring a character of Hispanic descent, why not Firebird/Bonita Juarez? Though maybe Marvel should consider doing it as a miniseries as was done in the 80s/90s to test if the market wants an ongoing, and not heading straight for an ongoing proper, because that only confirms how hasty they are with their short-range schemes. In any case, titles that were cancelled, like the Iceman-as-gay propaganda and the America solo, were put to rest because...nobody was buying them! That doesn't mean there aren't still some scrap piles out there that they still waste funds publishing. The Muslim Ms. Marvel book, last time I looked, was still going, presumably because they simply have to appease bad ideologies and other SJW advocates, no matter how dismal numbers got by this point. But all they're doing is making themselves more of a laughing stock, trying desperately to find a leftist audience that doesn't care for them either.

Not all of it is bad news, though. The new Avengers lineup looks interesting, with the Big Three (Thor, Iron Man and Captain America) joined by Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Dr. Strange, Ghost Rider and She-Hulk, all written by fan-favorite Jason Aaron. Acclaimed writer Ta-Nehisi Coates will not only continue on the relaunched “Black Panther,” but will bring his unique talent to “Captain America” in what will surely be a future classic. And as you’d expect, soon-to-be movie star Captain Marvel will receive a new title (and possibly a new origin), while Ant-Man and Wasp will star in a miniseries timed to their upcoming film.

On which note, I think the Ghost Rider they're currently using is still one of the diversity-pandering creations, so what's his whining about? But again, why is Aaron also considered a fan-fave, when artistically speaking, he hasn't done any better than Slott? And putting Coates on Captain America after some of the offensive things he said about Americans during 9-11 in Between the World & Me, is just as galling. Speaking of which, here's a picture quote from the book where he wrote his shocker:
The Federalist has more about Coates. What could he have in store for Cap from a political perspective, one has to wonder? At the end of the Times-Record article, it says:

And there’s more to come — while 17 first issues have been announced for May and June, late summer should bring more. For example, the X-Men titles are relatively untouched by “Fresh Start” so far, which will surely change.

But most fans will probably forgive Marvel if many of those relaunches don’t live up to the hype. Bringing “Fantastic Four” home is good news enough.

Sorry, but we most certainly won't forgive them, and with these kind of writers given the assignments, that's why reviving the FF was probably better left undone. Without decent staffers to give oversight and writers with good taste to helm the projects, we can't feel enthusiastic about any of this stuff. The most truly awful part of the article has to be their indirect slight to Lee and Kirby's creations, white or otherwise.

Labels: Avengers, Black Panther, Captain America, Fantastic Four, Hulk, Iron Man, islam and jihad, marvel comics, moonbat writers, msm propaganda, politics, Thor