Matt Fraction, Mark Bagley & Mike Allred Team For "Fantastic Four," "FF"

[Robby Robot]

Here's the actual Fraction/Allred teaser from bleedingcool:

[Blade X]

The current market can't support 2 ongoing FF books. And while Alred is a critically acclaimed writer/artist with a small loyal fan following, there's no way in hell that his art will make an FF book sell. Add Fraction's usual boring as hell talking heads stories and the newly relaunched FF book is doomed to be cancelled very quickly.

[MattBearPig]

That Allred book looks mighty tasty.

[CSPDX]

Here's the actual Fraction/Allred teaser from bleedingcool:

Lol. Looks like a "male enhancement" advert...

But maybe that's just my sick sense of humor.

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

The current market can't support 2 ongoing FF books. And while Alred is a critically acclaimed writer/artist with a small loyal fan following, there's no way in hell that his art will make an FF book sell. Add Fraction's usual boring as hell talking heads stories and the newly relaunched FF book is doomed to be cancelled very quickly.

The current market has been supporting two books just fine.

[Static-Pulse]

Also, any of you hoping that Fraction is a good writer should check out the Thor appreciation thread; Fraction's held in a negative light because of what he's done (or more to the point, not done) to the character.

If the things Fraction's done to Iron Man are any indication, Reed is screwed. I don't give two tugs that he once wrote a comic called "Five Fists of Science," Fraction has repeatedly demonstrated in Iron Man that he doesn't have a clue how the mind of a genius visionary works.

"I made free energy, let's make cars!"

"I have a great idea, instead of using the dozen or three AI systems laying about, let's have people pilot our drones with an iPhone app!"

This is terrible.

[Expletive Deleted]

They didn't bother putting Allred's name on...?

Supposedly there's a second teaser with Allred's name and the word "Extended."

EDIT: Ah, page two. Nevermind.

[Ravin' Ray]

I wanna dream big with this. I really want F4 and FF to be so big they'll got their own forum here.

[tesh_karde]

This is terrible news.

While I love Mike Allred's art, having two of the most overrated talents working for Marvel on Fantastic Four -- Bagley and Fraction -- mean that it has a better-than-even chance of going to the dogs.

This annoys me like anything: we Fantastic Four readers have been spoiled by Jonathan Hickman's excellent writing and now we're getting karmic balance because Fraction is just really terrible. His last team book, X-Men, nearly went to hell and it's only been through the efforts of Kieron Gillen that the Uncanny X-Men became an interesting book again. Also, any of you hoping that Fraction is a good writer should check out the Thor appreciation thread; Fraction's held in a negative light because of what he's done (or more to the point, not done) to the character.

Even worse, Bagley draws like he should be doing Archie, not Reed Richards. I don't know why Marvel decided to poach him back from DC. Seriously, Marvel should have kept David Finch and Miguel Sepulveda instead of keeping Bagley around. Also, why not give Marcos Martin a chance to do the Fantastic Four?

Really? Finch over Bagley? I'm not a huge Finch fan. A lot of his men faces are just grimacing 90's style, and his bulky women are all built like men. Bagley is consistent, clean, and dynamic. He takes the best of old-style artists, and spruces it up with some modernity. But, to each his own I guess.

[tesh_karde]

Bagley did have a brief run on the Fantastic Four when Pacheco/Marin/Loeb were the creative team. Sometimes Pacheco co-plotted but other artists would step in. In fact, Bagley drew the issue where Doom midwived Valeria's birth. I met him at C2 E2 a couple of years ago and told him how much I liked his work on the title and he was surprised that anyone remembered it. He did a nice Doom sketch for me.



Fraction is real hit and miss for me, mostly miss. I dropped his Thor and Fear Itself was a bit of a flop IMO. I am trying to read his Defenders but have found it a bit of a bore quite frankly. I am 4 or 5 issues behind but just haven't felt like catching up.



I hope so but Hickman is going to be a tough act to follow. He covered just about every quadrant of the Fantastic Four lore and knocked it out of the park. He did his homework.


Bagley sketch

I have that Bags issue of Fantastic Four. I also have the 4 part (i think) mini he drew with Black Bolt in it. He also did those rad interconnected covers for the start of Waid and Ringo's epic FF run.

[tesh_karde]

Trust me: Gillen is one of the best writers Marvel has. He batted clean-up on Fraction's mess in X-Men, cleaned up part of Fraction's Thor mess via Journey Into Mystery, cleaned up JMS' mess on Thor. If there's anyone whom you should have confidence in, it's Gillen. The man can write -- just pick up JIM and you'll see. I'm pretty excited about his Iron Man, actually. Land is 50-50 -- some issues, I find that his art looks fine -- I see a bit of John Cassaday. Others, it's just rip-off city. So we'll see. But as far as Iron Man's concerned, writing should not be a problem.

What mess did JMS leave on Thor? The title was great when he was on it, and writers leave threads for other writers to pick up all of the time.

[Castel]

The current market can't support 2 ongoing FF books. And while Alred is a critically acclaimed writer/artist with a small loyal fan following, there's no way in hell that his art will make an FF book sell. Add Fraction's usual boring as hell talking heads stories and the newly relaunched FF book is doomed to be cancelled very quickly.

You do know that there is a Fantastic Four and a FF book for years now, do you ?

[CSPDX]

The current market can't support 2 ongoing FF books. And while Alred is a critically acclaimed writer/artist with a small loyal fan following, there's no way in hell that his art will make an FF book sell. Add Fraction's usual boring as hell talking heads stories and the newly relaunched FF book is doomed to be cancelled very quickly.

This is a specious arguement. You start with a predetermined outcome and make up reasons why it would be true. The facts should always lead to the conclusion. In this case, you don't even offer facts, only opinion the state the outcome as fact. Doesn't work that way.

Regardless, I don't think we have enough information to build a non-knee-jerk opinion of any of these book's chances in the market. All we have is the title and creative team. We haven't seen any artwork, have no idea what the cast looks like, and haven't heard what the premise of the book is. The last time Allred and an established writer worked on a Marvel comic was X-Force/X-Statix, and that had a very respectable run. One could argue about the merits of Fraction v. Milligan on a popularity or critical basis, or the difference in the market in the intervening 7 years, but it would be conjecture at best. The truth is there's just not information yet, and the best answer is wait and see.

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

You do know that there is a Fantastic Four and a FF book for years now, do you ?

I know right?

As of June, FF (an ancillary book) was ranked 64th of the top 100.

I mean that's really the biggest problem with his argument. FF sans the actual Fantastic Four has been going on ever since Johnny Storm returned.

[Blade X]

The current market has been supporting two books just fine.

Sales of FF started to take bigger drops once the main F4 book returned.

64. FF
06/11 #5 - 58,925 ( -2.7%)
07/11 #6 - 55,601 ( -5.6%)
07/11 #7 - 54,022 ( -2.8%)
08/11 #8 - 51,917 ( -0.2%)
09/11 #9 - 53,091 ( +2.3%)
10/11 #10 - 49,642 ( -6.5%)
10/11 #11 - 48,433 ( -2.4%)
11/11 #12 - 49,449 ( +2.1%)
12/11 #13 - 44,970 ( -9.1%)
01/12 #14 - 42,609 ( -5.3%)
02/12 #15 - 40,583 ( -4.8%)
03/12 #16 - 37,152 ( -8.5%)
04/12 #17 - 37,325 ( +0.5%)
05/12 #18 - 34,555 ( -7.4%)
06/12 #19 - 34,260 ( -0.9%)
6 mnth (-23.8%)
1 year (-41.9%)