After months of speculation as to which member of The Fantastic Four would meet his or her end in Fantastic Four #587, shipping Jan. 26, Marvel has released preview pages and the character’s identity. Several mainstream media outlets released the information in the early morning hours of Jan. 25, hours before comics retailers, who were allowed to sell the issue a day early, had even opened their stores. Spoiler Warning: The images and text below reveal the character’s identity. If you don’t want to know this information, scroll no further.
According to Marvel Entertainment Senior VP of Publishing Tom Brevoort, the story has been in the works for more than two years. Fantastic Four writer Jonathan Hickman “came to us with a vision for evolving the characters and concepts introduced to fans 50 years ago in Fantastic Four #1, and, quite frankly, blew us away,” he added.
Following the death of The Human Torch in #587, Marvel will end the series with Fantastic Four #588, scheduled to ship Feb. 23, leaving the remaining team members to find their own way in the Marvel Universe.
In addition to the polybagged copies of #587, shipping Jan. 26, a special tribute edition of the issue, with art by John Cassaday, is scheduled to ship Feb. 2 and retail for $2.99.
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Wow! This is so earth shattering! No comic character has ever died before! Well except for… Captain America. The Punisher. Hawkeye. Mockingbird. The Angel. Mr. Fantastic. Iron Fist. Wonder Man. Bucky Barnes. Nick Fury. Superman. Flash. Metamorpho.Green Lantern. Green Arrow. Jason Todd.
(I’m only counting the characters that had actual funerals and there was at least one issue centered on the death of that character. I’m not counting who seemed to die but came back in the next issue or so.)
And this doesn’t include the bad guys like Kraven the Hunter who shot himself in the head.
So forgive me if I don’t grieve for Johnny Storm or the cancelled FF comic book, which has been canceled three times already.
Enough with “Keepin’ it REAL” already! We read comics to get away from reality.
I am betting that in a year to two years he will be back. The fans will demand it.
Richard Vasseur
http://www.jazmaonline.com
Remember when the team broke up, disbanded, I mean, the first time? FF No More!!! More or less. Sadly, I’ve no real interest as yet… I’ll keep an eye on The New Fantastic Whatever for a while (Jonathan Hickman’s pretty darn competent), but if it’s another $4 Marvel… there’s too much other good stuff out there.
Honestly, I don’t care. Being a longtime comics fan it’s just more proof that today’s writers can’t come up with any good story lines so they go for shock value. Or maybe I’m being too harsh on the writers and blame should be heaped on those in charge.
I’ve being reading comics since the late sixties and maybe they were “simple” back then and maybe I’m just looking back with nostalgia. But they were fun.
Oh wow. They killed the Human Torch. BIG DEAL. Didn’t they just KILL Captain America? They can still keep a Human Torch in the FF, because if my memory is correct, the original Torch is still alive somewhere in the Marvel Universe. Even if he isn’t, they can always borrow one of the thousands out there in the alternate realities that the FF always visits. Hey he just showed up one day and what the heck, since we were already short one member we agreed to make him a part of the team! Or is that too original an idea?
WHO CARES. This killing characters off for “SHOCK” value is getting old and stale. Anybody out there remember when they killed off Mister Fantastic and made Ant-Man part of the team? Or how about the time they killed off Doctor Doom and make Kristoff his replacement? THIS HAS BEEN DONE BEFORE AND DONE BETTER IN SOME CASES. Most often however, it (the story line) usually ends up being a major disappointment to the readers.
All I can say is, this is one of the main reasons WHY I stopped buying monthly comics almost a decade ago. Certainly the biggest reson was the increasing cost of the comics themselves, but one of the biggest secondary reasons was that creators (writers/artists/editors) had pretty much ruined all my favorite characters or were writing comics that took all the enjoyment out of reading them.
Somebody like Mark Evanier could probably give us an insight into how Jack Kirby would feel about this. Anyone know what Stan has to say? He generally stays away from criticizing Marvel, but i doubt he could be very happy about this.
This is one of the reasons, among the growing expense, that I am cutting almost all of my Marvel & DC books from my ‘pull list’ at the local shop. It seems that all the Big Two can do is come up with ways to kill off or otherwise ill-use characters that we older readers grew up with. In this case it really seems like a deperate attempt to get some interest going for characters who seem to have lost their audience years ago.
Was it reall necessary to kill off the Torch before ending the title? Couldn’t they just have the members, as each has done individually in the past, leave the team and go their seperate ways? Face it, Johnny Storm is not Captain America or Bruce Wayne and certainly not Superman. is this going to bring in any fans who don’t already buy FF? Pathetic!
It’s only fair. Everyone else on the FF has had a chance at being dead. Why shouldn’t Johnny get a turn, too?