Mark Millar wants you to know that all isn’t as it seems with his Fantastic Four run:
One of the team is not who they seem in the first few issues. Does this tie into Secret Invasion? Only time will tell. But all will be clear in a few months time. In the meantime, watch for clues.
Not everyone is convinced, however, with one Millarworld fan writing:
“Mark Millar, current writer of Fantastic Four,who once said his next book with Bryan Hitch, was not going to be Fantastic Four, says that after years of event comics, his run will tie into Secret Invasion somehow. I hope your chair isn’t too fancy Mr. Millar, because I believe it could catch from your pants on fire.”
Millar’s response is interesting:
“Yep. we never once said we weren’t doing FF. I made no comment. As for Skrulls, all I said was one of the team will be revealed not to be who the seem. That can mean ANY NUMBER of things.”
While Mark definitely didn’t say that they weren’t doing Fantastic Four, didn’t he say that no-one had guessed correctly after someone had suggested FF? And didn’t Hitch say outright that it wasn’t Fantastic Four?
February 16th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
Oh, Graeme, who cares though? Hitch said “how about I just tell you…” or something like that as a prelude. This is barrel-scraping, and kind of petty, no? Everyone knows Mark Millar is kind of full of shit, but it’s not just a big load of durty, durty liez. More “bullshit”.
February 16th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
I don’t know, Graeme…did he?
Do you not have links verifying what you’re asking? Or are you just wanting others to attempt to prove you right?
February 16th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
The answers are:
i) oh, probably. Almost certainly.
ii) yeah, but there was a get-out preclause.
February 16th, 2008 at 11:15 pm
Duncan,
There always is a get-out preclause. If good ‘ol Graeme doesn’t cover all of his bases, he ALWAYS covers his butt.
February 16th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
Sorry, the answers to Graeme’s questions, I meant.
February 17th, 2008 at 12:36 am
There was a big deal made of how the Hitch denial of Fantastic Four was deleted from the board about when Marvel confirmed it was Fantastic Four. All evidence can disappear when you know or are the board mod…
February 17th, 2008 at 1:02 am
http://blog.newsarama.com/2007/02/28/agents-of-atlas-meet-the-avengers/?p=4964
February 17th, 2008 at 1:07 am
http://www.comicbookresources.com/columns/index.cgi?column=litg&article=2858
“LIES, DAMN LIES, STATISTICS AND BRITISH COMICS CREATORS
[Green Light]Mark Millar said that no one guessed his and Hitch’s big Marvel project would be “Fantastic Four.”
That’s a lie. Pretty much everyone guessed it. It was obvious, from the moment Joss Whedon asked Hitch “Now you’re going from the ultra-modern to the possibly least-edgy characters in the Marvel ‘verse.”
It was only Bryan Hitch saying, “From the Civil War stuff and current issues, I’d say FF is pretty edgy these days. Besides, I’ve always thought I’d be a poor fit for the Fantastic Four; too many greats in it’s history. Lest edgy in the MU? Millie the Model” and then “Okay, how about I just TELL you I’m not doing FF Would that be more specific?” that made people doubt it.
Some people are up in arms about being lied to, which is ridiculous. These are creators of fiction, they lie all the time. That’s what they’re paid to do. Admittedly, Mark has an industry reputation of bending the truth, but it all stems from the same desire and ability to create fiction and to tell the best story.
Talking of which, Tony Harris and Mark Millar are doing an Image project called “War Heroes.” Mark was meant to announce it at Chicago. It’s possible he may have not…”
So…can we get off Graeme’s back? Unlike Rich, I think lying in the real world is quite different that writing a fictional story. Real world personal interactions are not paid works of fiction.
February 17th, 2008 at 1:25 am
I recall reading what Hitch said and was left with the impression that it wasn’t Fantastic Four, which is what he obviously coyly intended. I don’t like being misled or lied to. It’s a cheap trick. It’s hucksterism.
But than again, we have to consider that we are dealing with the internet, where rules of propriety don’t seem to apply and people apparently feel the freedom to say whatever they want and often do, damn the truth.
The second thing we have to keep in mind is the use of the internet to hawk product. Millar and Marvel are professionals at using the internet to create talk and interest in their product. They tease and they lie. Joe Quesada mastered this art in his Newsarama column Joe Fridays. The whole thing with Speedball and Spiderman’s marriage was just purposeful distortion and misdirection.
Stan Lee was never so cynical as Quesada and Millar.
February 17th, 2008 at 6:22 am
In this particular case, it sounds like all he’s saying is that someone on the team isn’t who they seem to be. If he hadn’t said anything more everyone would have thought that was a direct confirmation of Secret Invasion, since that is completely based off people not being who they seem. I took his statement to mean that the hint might not be Secret Invasion related and he was trying to at least get people thinking of other possibilities.
Either way, the phrase “only time will tell” is specifically *not* promising anything about Secret Invasion.
February 17th, 2008 at 6:49 am
Just because you are a fan of a comic does not mean you have the right to know everything that will happen, if that means telling a white lie or (GASP) give the wrong impression in order to preserve some suspense then so be it. I really shouldnt be amazed of how petty people can get over the smallest of things.
February 17th, 2008 at 7:33 am
fantastic three? which is a skrull? who cares?
February 17th, 2008 at 10:00 am
“Real world personal interactions are not paid works of fiction.”
Well, yes, Kevin - what we’re discussing is not, however, any way you choose to construe it either a “real world interaction” nor of any actual import whatsoever. I am glad Graeme reported this, because reading Millarworld is akin to having one’s soul shrivel into a hard block of rabbit poo and I must confess a modicum of interest having bought the first issue; I imagine it’s going to be one of the children, Franklin judging by the annoying way he mugged out of the panel early on, that is “not as he seems”.
That’s the only real nugget of news here, though; the rest is pretty much insinuation about… just some bullshit.
And, while I come from the same area of the world as Graeme, and know and like him as reasonably well as intermittent intertube comms allow, I don’t share this apparently Calvinist desire for The Truth. I do kinda wish Mark Millar could admit to himself that he was a - fairly constant - bullshitter, and either shut up or tease fair, but it’s beyond most of these West Coast boys.
I’m also not one of these nosepicking bellends that appears every time he does a post on Millar to accuse him of fixating, in the bad way, on the wee jobby but stuff like this, it seems to me, helps them make their case?
February 17th, 2008 at 10:25 am
I knew that post title would prove prescient in the end, though.
February 17th, 2008 at 10:56 am
“really shouldnt be amazed of how petty people can get over the smallest of things.”
Well, it’s pretty appropriate to be petty about the smallest things.
You wouldn’t want them being petty about big things; they should be quite grand about that.
February 17th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I don’t know. I think we need more pettiness about big things. If only for the variety.
February 17th, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Without pettiness, message boards and blog comment sections would be far less populated…
February 17th, 2008 at 3:07 pm
Tim O’Shea speaks the truth.
On the topic of truth versus lies: how difficult would it be for Millar and Hitch to avoid having to outright lie in order to market their product? It doesn’t take that much effort to avoid painting yourself into a corner where your most attractive option is to lie.
And…after that…how difficult is it to just come out with a mea culpa instead of insisting the lies never happened and deleting the thread?
February 17th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
Why not make both children unreal and have them disappear the way John Byrne made the Scarlet Witch’s children disappear forever in West Coast Avengers back in the 1990s.
February 18th, 2008 at 4:09 am
Well, you could also explain how a ROBOT had relations with a human and spawned some babies…the removal of the Vision/Witch babies was good storytelling at the time.
I still stand by what I’ve said–WHO CARES?
They still haven’t out and out lied–if you want to nitpick semantics–they aren’t giving us a Fantastic Four we’ve seen before–and if you really want to be assholes about it…if one of them isn’t who they say they are…then it’s not the FF–is it?
I agree with the poster earlier–who made the rule that we all had to be honest when we’re selling something? And who the hell are any of us to enforce it? If you’ve never EVER been dishonest in your life–then feel free to comment–otherwise, don’t..because being holier-than-thou in the midst of corporate machinations is a complete waste of time.
I think Millar and Hitch hemmed themselves into a fix and they found a way out–and the only feathers they ruffled…are apparently the two dozen people who are still bitching about it after-the-fact.
Their FF is pretty damn good–take some satisfaction in holding a good comic book for Christ’s sake.
February 18th, 2008 at 8:30 am
I was going to tie Mark Millar’s marketing tactics directly to the ENRON accounting scandal of 2001. But now that I’ve read Mr. Ekstrom’s “never EVER been dishonest in your life–then feel free to comment” guideline, I find my commenting fingers rendered ultimately nullified.
February 18th, 2008 at 10:34 am
I read Millar and Hitch’s first issue this weekend and they sure don’t look like the Fantastic Four to me.
Better get Morrison’s Skrull Kill Krew or Damage Control or…. oh, my head hurts.
February 19th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Oh jesus, Khuxfor, are you trying to pick an e-fight with Millar now? Do you have any other interstes besides Unions and Annoying Creators?