Last week, Marvel sent a notice to retailers regarding the release of Fantastic Four #587. Our friends at Comic Book Resources got their hands on the notice and shared it with the rest of us. The notice stated the following:
Due to the expected mass media attention scheduled for Tuesday, January 25th, Marvel is allowing retailers who have received copies of Fantastic Four #587 to make it available that day. No other new Marvel titles with an on-sale of 1/26/11 may be made available that day.
I found this notice to be interesting for a myriad of reasons:
– It looks like news of the death in the Fantastic Four is planned to have some major media attention as early as tomorrow, January 25. Much like the Death of Captain America, it looks like we'll have a situation where the identity of the team member who's dying is going to be spoiled for a lot of regular readers, polybagged or not.
– This is a bold move to move away from the new comics on Wednesday mandate that rules the direct market. It also is the first move to take advantage of the advance shipping that many retailers are getting now by getting their books from Diamond a day earlier.
Regardless of the business ramifications of this, it's time for Fantastic Four fans to put on their seat belts and the hotly anticipated fate of one of the core Fantastic Four members will finally be revealed. This is probably a good time to remind you to go check out my post outlining the odds on who will die in Fantastic Four #587. To recap, the odds look like this:
- The Thing – ODDS: 1000 to 1
- Franklin, Valeria, Dragon Man or any of the other members of Reed's Future Foundation – ODDS: 100 to 1
- The Human Torch – ODDS: 48 to 1
- Mister Fantastic – ODDS: 10 to 1
- The Invisible Woman – ODDS: 2 to 1
Want to know my reasoning? Go read that post then! Who do you think is going to die? Are you going to go get the issue tomorrow if you're retailer makes it available?
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Its The Thing, he starts choking on a ham sandwich and no one can give him the heimlich because he’s so solid. Dies while everyone watches in horror.
That’s why you don’t break kosher.
Hurm.
Gonna have to not go on any comic sites (sans ifanboy) or look at the news all day tomorrow.
Thing is not in rock form. So that mean he could easily be killed?
so basically the Today Show or CNN will spoil it for me as i attempt to go about my daily routine. Rad.
10$ says no one dies (the wording in the solicit is a little sneaky) but that Reed is removed from the team in some manner.
Oh, well sure. I’ll just go to the comic shop two days in a row.
While I realize the intention of this is to get new readers, it seems remarkably shortsighted. “You can sell FF a day early, but you can’t sell the other books… so new readers would be told other new books *from this week* would require them coming back tomorrow.” Brilliant strategy there. I’ve seen quite a bit of retailers bemoaning this across the Web and the guys that run my shop have said they’re most likely not going to sell it early because it mucks up their system. While I dropped the title, I could never have seen myself going two days in a row to buy a book for the “luxury” of remaining unspoiled.
For the record, I very much enjoy the theory that 3 refers not to the number of survivors, but to the # of those that die.
It’s clearly the Human Torch; that Amazing Spider-Man cover from April gave it away, and Reed’s involved in Illuminati, Ben’s involved in New Avengers and Sue was killed off and brought back too recently.
This completely pisses me off. The media destroyed the Captain America thing for me, I lived on the west coast and by time I woke up at 9am my time news had broke and the first thing I heard was “You’re story just got spoiled by a media that doesn’t give a damn about comics or the concept of spoilers!”
Now this. My LCS isn’t open on Tuesdays and now I have to try to make it through a day without having it spoiled for me.
It’s almost like Marvel is going out of it’s way to piss me off lately.
I think the only reason the Death of Captain America meant anything to anyone outside of comics was because words like “Death” and “America” in your headline moves copies. I don’t know if they’re going to care about an FF member biting it.
@OttoBott Mainstream media needs to fill time and space just like anyone else. Marvel wouldn’t make a move like this unless they were certain they were going to get mainstream media coverage.
I’d say Sue just because she’s probably the only thing keeping Reed in check these days. Without her, Hickman can run wild with him and his ideas and make the line between genius and maniac a little more blurry.
I’m assuming iFanboy isn’t going to have a post discussing the death until everybody has a chance to read it spoil-free?
Note to self: Never include a number in my team name. That’s just daring the fates.
My money’s still on Ben. After all, Hickman gave him that day in human form, so surely the next move is to take him in the other direction and kill him off.
As for the early sale date? A move to get the internet community buzzing, without just losing the title in the shuffle of what is a MASSIVE week for new releases? Much as I love the current run, and I realise the characters have made it into 2 movies of their own, they may not garner quite the level of attention they would have done during their heyday. Who knows? I’m not sure I’ll be going out of my way for the one title a day early.
I’m very unenthused by this move. If they’re going to go mass media, what’s the point of polybag? As much as I have liked the title, I’m not going to the shop a day early. I don’t mind if I find out who is killed/dies, but I would be really bummed if I found out how before I hit the shop on Wednesday.