What Happens Now That Marvel Has Cancelled

Marvel has seemingly become more aggressive in its promotion for the movies it makes itself while distancing itself from the ones that have been made by outside studios. Although Marvel Comics readers saw a big banner at the top of their comics for the recent releases of bothX-Men: Days of Future PastandThe Amazing Spider-Man 2, this may not be the case for the biggest non-Marvel Studios arrival of 2015:The Fantastic Four.Reported byBleeding Cooland confirmed by the solicitation of a future graphic novel, Marvel is going to cancel the ongoingFantastic Fourcomic series with issue #645 (a consolidation the previous legacy numbering with the new numbering of the series), apparently due to Marvel;s CEO displeasure with20thCentury Fox.IsaacPerlmutterSays No to All Things FFThis whole ordeal has reportedly arisen due to the actions of IsaacPerlmutter, Marvel;s current chief executive officer. The Bleeding Cool report details where some of his ire seems to come from:...As a result of Disney’s highest single shareholder and Marvel CEO IsaacPerlmutter’sanger with Fox Studios over negotiations regarding the film-and-related rights toThe Fantastic Four, that Marvel would cancel the Fantastic Four comic rather than provide any promotion, however small it might be, towards the Fox Studios film. Merchandise and licenses were scrapped and even Fantastic Four posters in the offices were pulled down lestPerlmuttersee one and have his ire raised. It may not have been logical, but it was a decision born of personal emotion. It was steadied by sense. X-Men wasn’tcancelled, for example as theXbookssell so well. But Fantastic Four? It may have been the first book of the Marvel Universe, but its sales have continued to drag, even after multiplerelauncheswith high profile creators. There would be less of a hit to the bottom line if this comic was dropped.It;s interesting to see, as the original article noted, that the same reaction didn;t arise toward Fox in regards to theX-Menfilms and comic titles. Even Diamond Select Toys, a retail partner of Marvel;s for many years,is apparently restrictedfrom creating new products based on the longstanding Marvel superhero team.Not to mention that this is ill-timed in the first place. While theFantastic Fourtitle has been cancelled and restarted before, it;s never happened for a reason like this one. The most recent restarts have been due to creative shake-ups. When Johnny Storm appeared to have been killed in the Three story arc,Fantastic Fourended its run in favor of a new title until Johnny;s return.Then, that returning title was cancelled along with a lot of other Marvel titles to make way for the Marvel NOW! initiative, which saw a series of familiar titles receive new number one issues (includingIron Man,SuperiorSpider-Man,Uncanny AvengersandGuardians of the Galaxy). Then,thatseries was cancelled for a new wave of Marvel NOW! titles and saw a new creative team come aboard the book. While normally I;d have hypothesized that a second relaunch within a year was due to struggling sales, the same thing happened with a healthy title:Daredevil.While it;s likely that cancellingFantastic Four;s was easier than cancelling either anX-Menbook or the long-runningAmazing Spider-Man(both for their sales as well as prominence in the Marvel comics universe), this seems an extraordinarily petty action-- especially considering the relative disparity between the films, their worlds, and the comics (as noted by our own John Gholsonspecifically in regards to the X-Men).What Does This Mean Going Forward?Hopefully instances like this will be minimal in the future. Whether that means some sort of more amenable partnership agreement between Fox and Marvel, or greater editorial oversight allowing for the publishing arm of Marvel to police itself instead of a billionaire figurehead, remains to be seen. This is the worst kind of loss for a comic book title, especially for devotedFFfans, that appears to be borne of a rather juvenile desire for vindication, not unlike a kid throwing a popsicle on the pavement to prevent another kid from getting a bite.WhileThe Fantastic Fourhas already proven to be a polarizing and somewhat troubled production from the sounds of things, you have to wonder what;s going on with it if the company that acts as the shepherd of the characters tries to yank as much support as possible for it ahead of time.As a comic book fan, I have to admit a lot of trepidation and concern for other titles now that this precedent has been set. What;s next?ChrisClowis a geek. He is a gamer, a comic book expert and former retailer, the Junior Editor atGeekNation.com, and a freelance contributor toThe Huffington PostandBatman-On-Film.com. You can find his weekly pieceComics on Filmright here at Movies.com. Check out hisblog