Marvel Is Bringing Back the Fantastic Four
It’s sort of hard to believe they ever canceled it in the first place, but it’s now been almost three years since the Fantastic Four comic ended, with April 2015’s Fantastic Four #645. Though Marvel denied it, the widespread rumor (which was later essentially confirmed by one of the book’s creators) is that Marvel stopped publishing FF as part of a beef with Fox, who holds the rights to make Fantastic Four movies, and whose latest effort at that time, 2015’s Fantastic Four from director Josh Trank, was more painful than a trip to the Negative Zone. Reed and Sue Richards were written out of the comics following Marvel’s Secret Wars crossover, Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm found new homes with the Guardians of the Galaxy and the Inhumans, and life went on without Marvel’s First Family.
Now, three long years later, Marvel’s former flagship title is coming back in a new series, announced today via Twitter:
The new book will be written by Dan Slott, who’s coming off a lengthy run on the Amazing Spider-Man comic, and illustrated by Sara Pichelli, who’s produced great artwork on books like Ultimate Spider-Man and Runaways.
As a movie and comic book nerd, I immediately have to wonder what this portends for the future of the Fantastic Four onscreen. Obviously there was never (and will never be) a sequel to Trank’s FF, but with Disney inching closer to purchasing Fox from News Corporation, it is increasingly possible we could see a new Fantastic Four (or even the previous cast; it wasn’t their fault the movie was a nightmare) in the MCU. And if the FF comic was pulled because of intercorporate beef, there’s no reason to hold them back now. The new Fantastic Four launches this August.
Gallery - Behold Fantastic Four’s Awful Product Placement: