Mark Waid fired from Fan 4

[Guest Steviekick]

Mark Waid’s writing gig on Fantastic Four seemed like the perfect fit in many ways both for Marvel and Waid. It was a popular writer on a book that needed some love, and Waid had said he was enjoying his run tremendously. Well, that’s over. Mark Waid has confirmed for Newsarama that issue #508 will be his last.

The decision came at the end of last week, according to Waid. “Friday, I received a call from Marvel informing me that FF #508 would be my last issue,” Waid told Newsarama. “I'm very disappointed, but, hey--it's Marvel's sandbox, not mine.”

Waid began his run on the title with last August’s much ballyhooed issue #60, which was priced at $0.09, a promotional “one-upping” by Marvel of DC’s recent $0.10 issue of Batman, and Waid’s first comic work following his no-compete clause from CrossGen, which had expired. Joining Waid on his run was former Flash collaborator, Mike Wieringo. Under the two, the series gained critical and commercial acclaim, and climbed upwards in the Top 300 selling comics list, as calculated by Diamond.

Perhaps the team's most anticipated storyline to date, "Unthinkable," featuring the return of a slightly re-imagined, and exponentially deadlier Dr. Doom began recently, and discussion of the arc has been burning up messageboards in regards to Doom's upcoming "unthinkable" act.

”I wish I'd had a longer run, and I'll admit I was surprised at being so abruptly fired,” Waid told Newsarama. “A few weeks ago, Bill [Jemas] phoned and tried to convince me to jettison our high-adventure approach and everything else we've been doing in favor of making the FF a wacky suburban dramedy where Reed's a nutty professor who creates amazing but impractical inventions, Sue's the office-temp breadwinner, the cranky neighbor is their new "arch-enemy", etc. Editor Tom Brevoort and I discussed that option at length; ultimately, I apologized and explained that I didn't feel it was something I could write nor something that played to any of my strengths--a radical revamp like that was just too much of a departure from what I was originally hired to write. I simply, honestly, couldn't even wrap my head around the idea. Still can't. And when word came back, ‘We'll use that concept somewhere else. Tell Mark to keep doing what he's doing,’ all seemed well.

”But -- they're not my characters. Ultimately, my job is to sell the publisher something he wants to publish. So, in a good-faith attempt at bridging the gap, Tom and I put our heads together and - kind of to our surprise! - figured out a logical way to deliver a run of stories following ‘Authoritative Action’ that could temporarily ‘suburbanize’ the series without completely changing the FF's personalities beyond recognition. To be honest, we were kinda proud of ourselves for being play-along guys and assumed we were good to go for the long haul, but our effort was, in retrospect, pointless. It would seem the decision to replace me was made the moment I failed to get with the program. Still--Bill's company, his prerogative.”

Fantastic Four #508 is the final issue of the six-part “Authoritative Action” arc which begins in August with issue #503, and should end (barring double ship months) next January. As reported previously, Howard Porter is illustrating the arc.

As for the art side of the series after issue #508, while not knowing of Waid’s departure for sure when asked about his future with the series on Saturday (the artist was at the Heroes Convention in Charlotte, NC), Wieringo indicated that if Waid were leaving the title, he most likely would be as well.

The departure of Waid will come at a slightly odd time – as it has stated in the past, Marvel likes to shine up the comics versions of it characters in time for when the movie versions are coming out. As Marvel claimed in it’s first quarter report, it is projecting a (yet uncasted, and currently in rewrite) Fantastic Four movie to be released in November of 2004. While the likelihood of a heavy CGI movie being cast, shot, post-produced, and up and ready for release in a little under 17 months is…well, really neither here nor there for this discussion, if Waid’s replacement is brought in for a radical direction change for the series, there would be little time to produce that many monthlies to be collected into trades for the film’s release, barring the series double-shipping between February and October of 2004.

Shortly after this article was posted, Mark Waid posted a response (see below) stating that it was his understanding that Marvel President Bill Jemas will be the new writer on the series following his departure.

--from Newsarama.com

 

----------------

This is very upsetting to me, as I really think Waid/Wienrigo's recent run on Fantastic Four has been the best the title has been in way too long. I hope they don't do anything too stupid with the title.

[Guest El Satanico]

“A few weeks ago, Bill [Jemas] phoned and tried to convince me to jettison our high-adventure approach and everything else we've been doing in favor of making the FF a wacky suburban dramedy where Reed's a nutty professor who creates amazing but impractical inventions, Sue's the office-temp breadwinner, the cranky neighbor is their new "arch-enemy", etc.

What the hell...

 

I'm not a big comic book guy and only know of Fantastic 4 by way of the cartoons. Even I'm sickened by such an idiotic idea.

 

Who the hell would come up with the idea of taking an established name in Fantastic 4 and turn it into rubbish like that. I hope whoever it was got fired as well.

[Guest starvenger]

Shortly after this article was posted, Mark Waid posted a response (see below) stating that it was his understanding that Marvel President Bill Jemas will be the new writer on the series following his departure.

Bill Jemas = Vince Russo...

[Guest Vyce]

Are they fucking serious?

 

I mean......no really....

 

ARE THEY FUCKING SERIOUS?

 

Fantastic Four is one of the CORE. It is one of THE Marvel books. It was there at the very beginning. THIS is how they want to fuck it up?????

[Guest ShawnTybalt]

From my impressions, the wacky suburban fare is right in tune with the upcoming movie, hence the crappy ass revamp.

 

Thanky you. Good day.

[Guest Goodear]

Are they fucking serious?

 

I mean......no really....

 

ARE THEY FUCKING SERIOUS?

 

Fantastic Four is one of the CORE. It is one of THE Marvel books. It was there at the very beginning. THIS is how they want to fuck it up?????

Oh please, when was the last time The Fantastic Four was the least bit relavent or even newsworthy? The title has been on cruise control since forever and needs something to actually attract attention to it again. Get the right writer on this and it could turn into something really fun instead of the usual FF storylines of a) Doom's back b) Ben turns Human Again c) Reed invents something that could prove bad in the wrong hands...

[Guest HellSpawn]

I think that crappy idea of Neighboors pissed with the F4 was made before.

 

I think the 1st one was after Doom (? Not sure) took off Baxter Building of the street.

[Bored 0]

This is partly why I stopped collecting comics as the editors just won't let the writer write what they want. The editor's job should be to check for spelling and continuity errors and maybe occasionally suggest storylines but only in the case of when readers of the book are not liking the current direction of it. Besides its Mark F'n Waid and his reputation should speak for itself and it was also over editing that sabotaged his brief run on the X-Men about six years ago, back when I was still collecting.

 

This Bill Jemas sounds like another Tom DeFalco who was just about the worst editor-in-chief and writer in Marvel history.

[Guest swilk]

That sucks! I stopped reading FF at #50, but I've been reading Unthinkable. Waid has done a fantastic (I know, I know) job of revamping Doom as a world class sorcerer.

 

This is partly why I stopped collecting comics as the editors just won't let the writer write what they want. The editor's job should be to check for spelling and continuity errors and maybe occasionally suggest storylines but only in the case of when readers of the book are not liking the current direction of it. Besides its Mark F'n Waid and his reputation should speak for itself and it was also over editing that sabotaged his brief run on the X-Men about six years ago, back when I was still collecting.

 

This Bill Jemas sounds like another Tom DeFalco who was just about the worst editor-in-chief and writer in Marvel history.

 

The editors also rewrote parts of Captain America #16 (Vol 2.) behind Waid's back, so he said see ya to that title too

[Guest starvenger]

This is partly why I stopped collecting comics as the editors just won't let the writer write what they want. The editor's job should be to check for spelling and continuity errors and maybe occasionally suggest storylines but only in the case of when readers of the book are not liking the current direction of it. Besides its Mark F'n Waid and his reputation should speak for itself and it was also over editing that sabotaged his brief run on the X-Men about six years ago, back when I was still collecting.

Actually in this case I don't think that the editor had much say in either decision (directional change, Waid's firing). So far as I know Tom Breevort is one of the better editors around, and does a good job of being the buffer between creative teams and management. Couple that with the fact that Marvel released a statement from EiC Joe Quesada (it's at Newsarama) and you can probably see how I think that Breevort was "out of the loop" on this one.

 

This Bill Jemas sounds like another Tom DeFalco who was just about the worst editor-in-chief and writer in Marvel history.

Actually if you look at it Marvel probably had it's best sales when DeFalco was at the helm. His major fault was probably that he was not very proactive. Well that and he let his buddies write while editing other books. Harras was probably worse as an EiC.

 

Jemas isn't an editor, or EiC, but he's a very proactive president - which can be good at times, but can also become bad, which it seems to have become in this case.

[Guest HellSpawn]

I do believe Harras and his boys made worst decissions on their time as EIC.

 

With DeFalco Marvel got X-Men (by Lee), X-Force (Liefeld) and Spider-Man (By Todd). All Marvel's Best sellers.

 

Of course, he was not King MIDAS, and probably Sassquath will came here and bash me for praising DeFalco, but, I still think Harras was Worst.

[tekcop 0]

Shortly after this article was posted, Mark Waid posted a response (see below) stating that it was his understanding that Marvel President Bill Jemas will be the new writer on the series following his departure.

Bill Jemas = Vince Russo...

He much worse. So much worse. If not for Joe Queseda (who's not the greatest himself) Marvel would probably be sunk because of him.

[Guest Steviekick]

Wasn't the Ultimate line and Origin partly Jemas' idea? He also had a big part in establishing Marvel's presence at bookstores through an increase in trade paperbacks, as opposed to traditionaly having the monthly titles.

[Guest Vyce]

Wasn't the Ultimate line and Origin partly Jemas' idea? He also had a big part in establishing Marvel's presence at bookstores through an increase in trade paperbacks, as opposed to traditionaly having the monthly titles.

I don't have much of an opinion about Jemas on the promotional side, but frankly, the guy needs to be more of a management individual and stop thinking that's he's some scary talented creative genius.

 

The man should NEVER be allowed to write a comic, especially not one as important as Fantastic Four.

 

I honestly think Gerwitz could produce a better F4 comic than Jemas.

[Guest starvenger]

Wasn't the Ultimate line and Origin partly Jemas' idea? He also had a big part in establishing Marvel's presence at bookstores through an increase in trade paperbacks, as opposed to traditionaly having the monthly titles.

Yes, yes and yes, but with conditions:

 

- The Ultimate line has been very successful, but it comes on the heels of other less successful alternate universes. If it had failed, would Jemas be blamed for it?

 

- Origin was plotted by Jemas, Quesada and Paul Jenkins, and scripted by Jenkins. But it often seems like Jemas was the sole creator on the writing side.

 

- I give him and Quesada full credit on the TPB initiatives. They saw what was going on with manga books and jumped all over that.

 

My main problem with Jemas is that, like Russo (or McMahon for that matter), he's gotta be in the middle of everything. Sometimes, it's good, and sometimes it backfires. I admiire his guts, but there are times when he does things that you just can't believe. The FF/Waid deal is one of those times...