Fantastic Four #587

by Roger Ash

The mainstream media has gotten a hold of the story that one of the members of Marvel’s Fantastic Four will die in issue #587, something that has been known in the comics press for at least six months. So everyone and their brother is talking about it and has an opinion about it. Including me. So here’s my two cents based on my opinions, what I’ve read online, and discussions I’ve had with friends.

One of the main complaints I’ve read is that the death is just a gimmick to raise sales. Let me tackle this one in two parts. Doing this is an attempt to raise sales. Well, duh! Of course it is! Anything any company does is, in the long run, to increase sales and make money. If it isn’t, that company’s going to go away really quickly. But this is art, you say. Sure it is. But it’s also a business and Marvel has to balance what they think is best for the company with telling the best stories they can. And here’s a dirty secret: art is business too. Go to a gallery sometime and look at the prices they’re charging for the art on the walls and you’ll see exactly what I mean. The only time art is done for art’s sake is if there’s another source of income.

Now on to the first part of that statement: this is a gimmick. I don’t agree. For me a gimmick has nothing to do with the story or characters as they’ve been presented up to that point. It’s like someone says something like “Hey! Let’s have a 10-part series where the Impossible Man kills all the heroes in the Marvel Universe and replaces them with versions of himself! We’ll tie in all the books for the next 10 months and make a killing. It’s a gold mine, I tell ya!” Why would the Impossible Man do such a thing? Especially since he’s never shown any inclination to wipe out heroes before and he’s only been in one comic that I’m aware of in the past year. Because it’s a gimmick.

Fantastic Four #577. Part of the Four Cities story.

I don’t see the Fantastic Four story in that way. I’ve been reading Jonathan Hickman’s run on FF since near the beginning (I started with the Four Cities stories) and the stories have been building to this point in a very natural way. I think it’s one of the best-written books Marvel publishes. Plus, the story has been confined to the FF and hasn’t crossed into other books (forcing readers to buy books they usually don’t read to get the whole story). This is the culmination of an FF storyline, not an event. Sure, there is going to be some reaction to the death in other books, but the Marvel Universe is connected so that makes sense. Nothing happens in a vacuum. And the reaction books are not a part of the main storyline.

Am I happy that someone is going to die in FF #587? No, but as I said, it is a natural conclusion to the story Hickman has been telling since he started writing the book. Do I know who’s gonna die? Nope, but I have a guess. Before I reveal that, I’d like to talk in all caps for a moment, so cover your ears. I HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OF WHO’S GOING TO DIE. THIS IS JUST A GUESS. Sorry about yelling, but I wanted to make that clear. My guess as to who’s going to die is Ben Grimm, for two reasons. First, he is in human form at the moment so that makes him the most vulnerable of the team members. Second, Marvel is soliciting two new collections starring The Thing this month, Thing Classic and Thing: Liberty Legion. Why? There’s nothing out of the ordinary going on with the character. Or is there?

The one thing that really frustrates me about the discussions regarding FF #587 is that there are many, many people who are passing judgment on it before it’s even published. Granted, this is nothing out of the ordinary for the Internet. You can go to Amazon right now and find reviews for books that have yet to be published. You can find people condemning movies based on a 30 second teaser trailer. So it should come as no surprise that there are people writing about what a horrible book FF #587 is before they’ve read it. The thing is, I bet most of those people don’t even read the Fantastic Four nor do they have any intention of reading #587. They just like to complain and spew venom. Of those complaining about it who do read it, I bet most of them will hate it. Why? It’s my experience that if you go into a situation expecting to hate it, you’ll find a reason to hate it.

Promotion from Marvel for Fantastic Four #588, the final issue of the series.

Give the story a freaking chance, people! Read the comic and judge it on its own merits. That’s called “having an informed opinion”. If the Internet had been around when I was growing up, X-Men #137, which featured the death of Phoenix, would probably have been ridiculed mercilessly online instead of becoming a touchstone for a generation of comics fans. I’m not saying this story will have that same impact; that’s for time to tell. What I do think is that it will have a more difficult time reaching that status since Phoenix’s death was a shock and surprise, whereas this has been a known factor for months.

I’m intrigued to see how this story ends, and how Hickman and artist Steve Epting move the story forward afterwards in Fantastic Four #588 and then FF#1. Come back in a few weeks and we can talk about what happened.

Now, go read a comic!

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