Marvel's Tom Brevoort Denies Fantastic Four Cancellation Rumors

Marvel Comics will still be publishing Fantastic Four a year from now, according to Marvel Executive Editor/Senior Vice President of Publishing Tom Brevoort. The executive has once again taken to his blog to respond to rumors that have gathered steam over the weekend that the publisher was under pressure from CEO Isaac Perlmutter to discontinue publication of Fantastic Four and Ultimate FF because he reportedly feels that publishing them amounts to free promotion for 20th Century Fox, who are producing a film adaptation of the property. Fox is a direct competitor to Marvel's parent company Disney. Perlmutter is one of Disney's largest stockholders. Fox controls the film rights for both the Fantastic Four and the X-Men, although the X-Men have been generally considered "safe" because of their high sales in the comics. Sony controls Spider-Man's film rights, but they reportedly have a much better relationship with Marvel than does Fox.

In response to a number of fan questions on the reports (which originated at news and gossip site Bleeding Cool but have been reiterated with new information and additional anonymous confirmations at other sites), Brevoort had this to say (edited for relevance, as parts of the response are specific to his blog):

[T]here's a lot of fear and crazy going on out in the world as people jump to conclusions and work themselves up into a lather. It was a good weekend for those that profit from such things, I expect. We are publishing FANTASTIC FOUR. Next month, we will be publishing FANTASTIC FOUR. A year from now, assuming that it's still selling well, we will be publishing FANTASTIC FOUR. Given enough time, anything can happen—we went a couple of years, for example, without a THOR series, as well as a year and a half with FF, AVENGERS, CAP and IRON MAN not being a part of the Marvel Universe. So anything can happen. But it probably won't. And for the couple of folks who punctuated their complaints by saying that they were dropping all of their Marvel books, and switching over to DC—well, first off, you must think that I'm a very simple man. But you can, as always, do with your time and money as you will. I will point out that if the purpose of your endeavor is to insure the continuation of FANTASTIC FOUR, then perhaps buying MORE FANTASTIC FOUR would be in better service to that goal than buying less. Just a thought. Oh, and James Robinson sent me notes for the 75th Anniversary Special story that he is doing this morning. And as you'd expect, the Fantastic Four are at the core of it.

That's a more aggressive stance than he had taken previously, when he mocked the reports but did not actually deny them. There is, of course, still the out that he didn't actually say there were no plans to do so, merely that it's safe for the time being and, sales allowing, for a somewhat longer timeline. Asked simply, "Is Fantastic Four getting cancelled?" Brevoorts typical snark returned a bit, and he responded, "In the lifespan of the universe? Yes, at some point. Everything dies. But not this week."