Scan of Fantastic Four Cover
Snobbery reaches its peak when you’re desensitized to the death of a superhero. Reading Fantastic Four: Marvel Must-Have #1 made me realize I’m not as big a snob as I thought. When I originally heard that one of the Fantastic Four died (surprisingly, I first heard about it in a column in the Arts section of The New York Times), my first thought was, “Oh this is just some gimmick to get us buying the comic and maybe ten months from now he or she will come back…” In case you’re out of the loop on Fantastic Four, I won’t spoil it by saying just who “died.” Then I purchased this awesome three-issue-in-one comic (for a retail price of $5.99, which is a really good deal considering buying them individually would be about $12) that shows events leading up to the character “dying” then the aftermath. Although on one level I saw it as an opaque marketing ploy, I was, nevertheless, highly, highly affected by these issues. I’d recommend you go out and pick it up and read it yourself before you let cynicism hold sway.
I love the cover too of Fantastic Four Marvel Must-Have #1, but why is Spider-man so much larger than Reed Richards, Sue Storm, and Johnny Storm–and why is The Thing covered up by the barcode?
I’ll have to say also, the marketing idea really worked–now I really want to start collecting the Fantastic Four, or the Future Foundation as they came to be known as.
