Preview: FANTASTIC FOUR #642

FANTASTIC FOUR #642

(W) James Robinson (A/CA) Leonard Kirk

THE COUNTDOWN BEGINS

• THE INVADERS meet the FANTASTIC FOUR as the hunt for REED RICHARDS and the missing kids of the FUTURE FOUNDATION continues.

• Meanwhile the mastermind behind everything unveils his ultimate plan.

• But how does FRANKLIN RICHARDS factor in?

• Guest starring JIM HAMMOND, NAMOR, THE NEW CAPTAIN AMERICA and...DOC GREEN?

Rated T+

Item Code: NOV140807In Shops: 1/21/2015SRP: $3.99

Sigh..... this looks cool, but this series should not be ending.

Looks like a royal rumble

Sue is going to destroy these guys.

Looks great! Stupid Fox/Disney quarrel. Enjoy it while we can.

@cerial442: lol it's only ending for a sales bump. It has nothing to do with the quarrel.They will relaunch post secret wars. This is the stupidest rumor and theory ever. And I don't blame you. So cancelling Avengers And New Avengers is because of rights issues? God damn this rumor lol.

James Robinson and Leonard Kirk are a fantastic team, (pun intended). Haven't enjoyed a Marvel book this good in such a long time. It's sad the series is temporarily ending, but I hope Robinson and Kirk continue on the series when the book relaunches.

LOL, Fox Abattoirs can put out their abominable counterfeit Fantastic Four film and rename it "Chronicles 2"

@bigman1227: The difference between that is F4 are also not aloud to have toys or posters made about them anymore.

Sad that it's ending, but I am sure it will only be temporary. Hopefully they don't take too long to come back.

Also what does Sam think he can do? Throwing the shield like it would do anything. lol

@bigman1227: Telling artists they aren't allowed to draw any Fantastic Four character sketches at certain shows, cancelling and forbidding companies to make toys characters that are part of the rights to the Fantastic Four, not allowing any of the characters to be featured in the Secret Wars poster is plenty of evidence.

It's not for a sales bump. It isn't a top seller, but sales better than other series that are continuing. If Fantastic Four comes back it will feature characters Marvel owns the movie rights too.

I think it's a good move on Marvel's part to stop promoting the characters that other companies own the movie rights to. Perhaps it will hasten the demise of some of these movie franchises and we can get them back home and have them done right. I liked the first two Spiderman movies. There are a couple of X movies that didn't suck. Other than that, the Marvel stuff that's not being made by Marvel Studios is AZZ!!!

@edblank: Then that makes the comics not matter, and if that's the thing, why bother publishing and just make movies? Fantastic Four have always been a part of Marvel history.

X-Men 3 and Wolverine Origins sucked, but the rest of the X-Men movies have been great. I'd say they were better than Iron Man 2 and the first Thor film. The Incredible Hulk movie does not hold up compared to the other Marvel films. The first season of Shield was a failure creatively. So not everything Marvel Studios makes is gold.

@cerial442: I agree with a lot of your points, but think of it like this: why would you promote a franchise that Fox Studios has basically raped the first two times, and the third will (arguably) be much worse.

How is Namor in this, he just died. Marvel just loves continuity don't they...

@bigman1227: I don't have high hopes for the film, but the comics will not have an effect on the success of it. Amazing Spider-Man was the biggest selling comic of last year and the movie didn't do so hot financially.

So as a reader and fan of the Fantastic Four, I'm being punished because Fox is making crappy movies.

As an X-Men fan I'm being punished because Fox is actually making good X-Men movies again. I don't want the diet soda version of mutants, the InHumans. The X-Men aren't being cancelled, but they are being downplayed.

@captainmarvel4eversaid:

Sigh..... this looks cool, but this series should not be ending.

QFT. You still think it's because some idiotic executive thinks Marvel shouldn't be publishing comics they can't make films out of?

This probably takes place before the current events in Hickman's Avengers & New Avengers. Also you might want to put a spoiler block on, that's still fresh news.

@lvenger: I do, unless Marvel was just trying to pull one over on us, there was no other reason to cancel this book, it's been selling fine.

Mid 30,000s right?

@lvenger: I forget, all I remember is counting more then 10 other Marvel books that were underselling the FF, and none of those books were getting canceled when it was announced they were offing the FF.

The art looks gorgeous, especially the alternate covers. I'm excited for FF. I think their series being cancelled is a good thing. It will give the community an opportunity to miss them. For some reason, I always feel like FF is just there, like no one truly cares for what is going on with the FF. At least not the same way people care for Spider-Man, X-Men, Avengers, or Hulk.

I think it will work out fine at the end. (+)

The more FF stories they make in the comics, them more material they have for the film franchise. If they make another 20 years if FF comics they are just giving them ammo for 20 years of films. Once Marvel turns off the spigot, the other studios will have to come up with their own ideas at some point (I get that there are decades of comics to draw from). If the studios' original ideas are awful, the movies flop, Marvel gets her babies back.

I hate when the X-Men fans complain about how Marvel treats them. Try being a huge FF fan. At least you guys still have Uncanny X-men, X-men, All-New X-men, Magneto, Cyclops, etc.

@lvenger: You're right about the spoiler block, I fixed it. If this takes place before Hickman's whole run then that's really some weird continuity since his run started over 2 years ago.

@edblank: They aren't using any of the stories for the new Fantastic Four film. Only the characters. The movie sounds terrible and probably will be, but then again it might get lucky. They already have a release date for Fantastic Four 2.

Also if Marvel did get the rights back to X-Men, could they make a movie better than Days of Future Past? That film was great. X-2 wasn't really based on any existing X-Men stories and was also great.

Marvel was in such bad shape financially, the X-Men films and Blade actually saved the company.

So no the comics don't have a bearing on the films or vice versa. Marvel could keep publishing the comic (which sales are far from being bad enough to cancel the series) and nothing about the Fox films would change. It's one higher up CEO being petty is what all this boils down to.

Which lends credence to the whole Fox owning the FF movie rights theory.

Still, this issue looks good. The Invaders and Doc Green vs The FF is going to be a fun brawl.

Hmmm. I know for a fact that Marvel Studios can make a movie that will utterly destroy and X Men movie ever made. Marvel Studios was able to make Blockbusters out of Thor, Iron Man, and Captain America. These are characters I didn't give a crap bout before MCU. Falcon? They made Falcon cool. Think long and hard about that one. GotG.. you HAVE to know what I am saying here.

So just imagine what they could do with their BEST characters (Spidey, X Men).

You just said yourself: the FF movie is being made with little regard to the comic and it sounds terrible. This is exactly what I hope happens to all of the non Marvel Marvel stuff. DOFP was from the comics. Sinister Six is from the comics.

Canceled the Fantastic Four means that you throw in carbage your history of your universe and you are disrespectful for the vision of Lee&Kirby and for their fans and long time readers(like me - my favorite Marvel team/family)All because of a stupid fight for the movie copyrights between the companies(I DON'T TELL NAMES BUT YOU ALL KNOW THE STORY)when the title under Robinson's guidance is one of the best F4 series after Byrne's run....OK now you can published a 10th GotG titles and 5 more of Deadpool(he will die but he'll return in 1 month)

@edblank: The first Thor movie was a mess with any scenes that didn't take place in Asgard. Captain America got good an interesting due to Ed Brubaker writing the best run of the series 6 years before the movie even came out. GOTG was restarted in comic form over a year before the film came out and was selling really well.

There are good Marvel films, and there have been some bad ones. We'll see how Ant-Man goes.

But anyway, you want bad movies that cause a dislike with the general audiences so that when Marvel gets the rights those will also bomb due to disinterest? Case in point The Incredible Hulk film from 2008.

This doesn't take place before Hickman's run but during it. His "Time Runs Out" arc takes place 8 months in the future. The rest of the MU is still 8 months story time behind Avengers and New Avengers and have not caught up yet. That is why Namor is still alive here and able to die in Avengers #40.

Well this looks interesting.

My favorite book on the shelf.