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  • I don't post Marvel teasers often, as they are usually so oblique and impenetrable that they're pointless. But I have a few observations this time:

    * I'm always a sucker for a big Alex Ross group shot. That's what induced me to post this.

    * DC is the publisher that always emphasized legacy (before the misstep of "New 52"). Looks like Marvel is figuring out how useful it is.

    * There are plenty more "generations" that aren't in this shot, including multiple iterations of Captain America. Still, these are the big ones.

    * Interesting how the original Avengers are so well-represented. Even Wasp and Ant-Man, who are not pictured, have legacy characters carrying on their names. Heck, Hank Pym had legacies in three different identites: Ant-Man, Giant-Man and Goliath!

    * Black Widow, Falcon, Angel, Vision and a few others have stealth predecessors -- Golden Age characters with the same names who are not acknowledged as antecedents.

    * Note that all but two of the above are white men replaced by not-white men. (And those two are white women replaced by not-white men.) That's not a complaint, just an observation. And Bleeding Cool says this summer will feature the return of the originals in many cases, so it may be moot.

    * And call me Captain Obvious, but note how the Avengers have become the central characters of the Marvel Universe. Just a few years ago the X-Men -- especially Wolverine -- were ubiquitous. And Spider-Man was the company mascot. But now Marvel pushes Captain America and Iron Man out front all the time. Spider-Man is still there, but not central any more. And FF and X-Men have just evaporated.

  • I think they've thrown the Fantastic Four away for good.



  • Mark S. Ogilvie said:

    I think they've thrown the Fantastic Four away for good.

    No. the minute if/when Marvel gets the movie rights back, the FF will make a yuge comeback.

  •   I doubt it.  The FF are from another time, another marvel and I can't see anyone at marvel taking the concept of a family of explorers and adventurers and making it work.  Look what they've done with Johnny, he's having an affair with Medusa.  First Ben's girlfriend and now Crystal's older sister.  What ever future marvel is moving forward to I don't think that anyone at the company has the heart to understand what the FF was and even if they do I don't see how they can make it work in an mu where Captain America is an agent of HYDRA and everyone fights everyone else every other year or so.

    The Baron said:



    Mark S. Ogilvie said:

    I think they've thrown the Fantastic Four away for good.

    No. the minute if/when Marvel gets the movie rights back, the FF will make a yuge comeback.

  • They'll still bring them back if/when they can. It's too big of a property for them to ignore.



  • The Baron said:

    They'll still bring them back if/when they can. It's too big of a property for them to ignore.


    Yes. It's all driven by the movies. Marvel is a movie studio first and a comic publisher second. I'm sure they would like to at least regain shared rights to the FF the way they did with Spider-Man so they can start making their own FF movies. We would then see an FF comic back on the stands.

    That doesn't mean it would be an FF comic that understands and pays tribute to what some older readers perceive as the FF though.
  • The FF are imbedded in comics readers' DNA. Comics creators, too, who never miss a chance to do their version of the FF wherever they're working, like Astro City, The Incredibles and Noble Causes.

  • If and when Marvel makes peace with Fox it will probably be like they did with Sony, as a shared venture. Before they make a movie they need to figure out why the other movies haven't been hits.

  • Excellent point, Richard. Especially since Sony failed with Spider-Man -- Spider-Man! -- and the instant that Marvel Films touched it, he turned to gold. And now Spider-Man: Homecoming is not only on the schedule, but it is widely anticipated. (Unlike, say, Amazing Spider-Man 3 would have been.)

    I think people on this board have a pretty good idea why Marvel Films does so well with Marvel properties, while Fox and Sony do not. I doubt Hollywood bigwigs are savvy enough to explain it -- you don't get to where they are unless you find the most facile explanation for everything and follow the leader at every turn -- but we know, don't we?

  • Maybe that's the problem. It seems like Marvel Studios hires the right people and gets out of the way.

    Reading Clark's article on movies that weren't made, it was said that Spider-Man 3 was probably hurt by forcing Venom into the story at the insistence of management. I don't know if it was also their idea to make the pre-Sandman Flint Marko into Uncle Ben's shooter, but I really hated that.

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