ABSTRACT
Although the Fantastic Four has been an important part of the Marvel universe for several decades, Marvel ceased publication of the comic in 2015. About three years later, the comic went into publication again and a new Fantastic Four #1 appeared on 8 August 2018. In this chapter, we argue that this cancelation and subsequent republication have a lot to do with the corporate relationships between Fox, Marvel, and its parent company Disney. We trace the history of Disney, focusing on how the company came to value and protect its intellectual property. We then discuss the history of Marvel Entertainment as a film studio and its acquisition by Disney. We then outline the history of the Fantastic Four film franchise, identifying the problems related to the franchise and assessing how Disney’s acquisition of Fox relates to the recent publication history of the comic. We conclude that given these events, fan culture needs to maintain the critical perspective of political economy in order to exercise agency in the face of corporate interests.
