Hot Thing Summer: Regal's Fantastic Four trading card set

Let me tell you a little bit about the Regal Cinemas 4DX theater experience. It's like you're on a roller coaster, but you still have to watch a movie, and also you get misted with water every few minutes. If you can manage to not be forcibly ejected from your seat during a screening, you get some trading cards afterwards. Maybe? Or was that just me? In any case, I braved the mechanical bull that was the 4DX theater in early May for one reason and one reason only: because there was some Fantastic Four: First Steps promotional merchandise to be had.

The start of Marvel's summer movie season was its Thunderbolts* film, released at the beginning of May. On this same day, the company put out a social media advertisement that showed off Fantastic Four trading cards, and not much context. I eventually figured out that these were real, and that you could get them at very specific Regal Cinemas locations. I looked it up and learned that there were only two of these 4DX locations in the entire state of Pennsylvania, but what do you know, both of them were about an hour away from me. Did I immediately get my car keys? No, I waited several whole minutes to do that.

I thought that the Thunderbolts* movie was pretty good. The Fantastic Four teaser in the post-credits scene is a little confusing after having seen the First Steps movie, but whatever -- I saw the Pogo Plane (they're probably not calling it that) and I liked it. I was one of five people in the fully automated theater, wearing 3D glasses and being jostled around in my seat as chairs all around me were seemingly filled by ghosts, but I was determined to get those cards. I got them, and, um, I might have talked myself into getting a few more packs on the way out. Listen, I deserve this.

The packs were pretty nicely made. They felt like the wax packs of yore and they maintained the retro theme that much of the FF advertising had throughout the buildup to the movie. The back of the package had the company branding on it and there were five cards inside, with all four members plus H.E.R.B.I.E.

The backs of the cards are all the same, with the "4" logo and movie date. These cards were really great and boy, am I glad that I found some locally and didn't have to pay to buy 'em on eBay after the fact. I got to keep a sealed pack and open one up. This was a great success.

This happened to be Free Comic Book Day weekend, so I grabbed the very first Fantastic Four FCBD title in the event's 25-year history, which means it was a big day. Around this time, Diamond filed for bankruptcy, and the Free Comic Book Day brand is owned by them, so maybe this was also the last FCBD? At least with that specific title and logo? Who knows.

A few months later, there were four more First Steps promo cards to be had, these ones from Topps at their Comic-Con booth in San Diego. They released one each day of the show, from Thursday through Sunday.

And in the months since, Topps has put out a bunch of sets that include some FF movie cards. Most of them use the standard promotional art and images, and they're hard for me to keep track of. The trading card industry shares a lot of the same ills as the comic book industry, in that it's caught up in another dumb speculation boom, and thus there are variants and shiny, metallic versions and, like, pop up versions or whatever. I picked up a Thing card from eBay recently and it has 82/125 stamped on the back, and I'm thinking to myself, is this good? Do I care about this? And then I settle on, "well, this is dumb," and then there's a voice that whispers in my ear, "it's the same with comic books and variant covers" and I try to suppress that as much as I can. Ah hem.

Anyway, the Regal cards were a great promotion, and I was happy to chase them down. I'm not sure if it would have been better with a stick of gum included.

Hot Thing Summer never ends: Fantastic Four cereals

You might be asking yourself, "Jeff, it's been months since you've posted anything. Are you okay?"

I'm fine, thanks.

You might also be asking, "Can you really call this post 'Hot Thing SUMMER' in December?"

Yes, I can. Hot Thing Summer is here. It is eternal. Let's look at the media/merchandizing blitz that surrounded Fantastic Four: First Steps. This one's about the General Mills cereal tie-ins. There's a lot of 'em.

Going into spring and summer of 2025, I knew that Disney and Marvel were going to market hard for the FF movie. Maybe it was to make up for the years that they pretended the characters didn't exist, or maybe it was because Disney was hoping that the Fantastic Four could bring Marvel's movies back to Avengers-level heights. Either way, the sheer amount of items with the FF brand that showed up this year, especially leading up to the movie, was pretty staggering. A lot of it was fun, and I tried to keep up with it all, as much as I could. The General Mills cereals were maybe the first of the deluge that was to come, and MAN, was I excited to see it.

This led to me taking pictures of cereal boxes at different grocery stores, and lining my cart with these things. Some people gave me strange looks. They didn't get it.

The first box to show up in my area was Cheerios with the Human Torch on the front. These appeared more than a week before any others, leading me to think that the other three would be difficult to find. What I think actually happened was that stores got all of them at the same time, but because Cheerios is a popular cereal, they probably moved through their stock a little more quickly, so Johnny Storm made his debut while the others were still sitting in stockrooms. Still, it was a harrowing few days of searching different stores for the right box of Reese's Puffs.

General Mills released the four main characters on four different boxes: the Torch on Cheerios, the Thing on Reese's Puffs, Mr. Fantastic on Cinnamon Toast Crunch, and the Invisible Woman on Lucky Charms. But there were a few others out there, limited to different stores.

First, Galactus got his own retro-style box of Cocoa Puffs, exclusive to Walmart stores. Since Walmart has stores all over the country, this wasn't too hard to find.

Trix, with H.E.R.B.I.E. on the box, was a different story, and I found some more out of luck than anything else. This box was exclusive to Kroger-brand stores, and there are currently zero of those near me. But I took a trip to the Pittsburgh area at the beginning of July, and I made the very irresponsible decision to drive from there to Morgantown, West Virginia to search the Kroger stores that surround the WVU campus. On my second stop, I found Trix in Giant Size (an absolutely enormous box), and let me tell you, I felt pretty good about myself.

Now, Kroger is not a regional store, but they don't have locations all around the country. I later learned that the same company that owns Kroger also owns Ralph's, which is a grocery store I visit in San Diego to get cheese (presumably other things) after a long day at Comic-Con. Did Ralph's also get H.E.R.B.I.E. boxes? Who can say? They didn't have any when I visited during the convention.

I learned from this experience that cereal boxes come in a lot of different sizes. I knew all about regular and family size, but many shops also stock giant size as well as mega size, which I guess you get if you have to feed an entire summer camp. Mega size should not exist. It is an abomination.

Anyway, I started seeing the Fantastic Four on different sized boxes, and I very reasonably thought, "I'll just get one of each, like, regular size box and that'll be that." This was a good thought. The fronts all looked the same, no matter the size.

And then I found a giant Reese's Puffs with the Thing on the front, and I knew it was all over. This was the Giant-Size Fantastic Four. I grabbed it.

It had been decades since I had tried Reese's Puffs, and now I was buying every box I could find. Whatever you paid for the license, General Mills, it was worth it.

I ate some. It was as I remembered, which is to say, there's no way it's good for you. But it was Thing Cereal, so I ate it, just as Ben Grimm would have wanted.

The backs of the boxes were all pretty much the same, though they each had a different phrase to decode.

A few days before Comic-Con, Walmart released yet another version, this one a retro, online-only Lucky Charms with a Human Torch toy inside. This one was product placement directly from the movie; Johnny eats some on screen and shows off the toy. His version had a line of dialogue, but in our universe, it's simply a tiny plastic standee (the base is on the other side of the card):

These boxes cost around $25, as I guess Walmart tried to recoup some of their advertising money, but the art on the back of the box might have been worth it:

Again, this was screen specific, but regardless, the designer did a really nice job with the art and overall feel. That's a Silver Age Human Torch if I've ever seen one.

So that's seven different boxes, most of which came in different sizes. If you made it about two paragraphs into this post, you know that I'm obviously a collector, but it would be pretty impractical to keep maybe two dozen unopened cereal boxes, so I swallowed hard and flattened them all to store them (I kept an unopened Reese's Puffs for display; I have some standards). Then I was faced with the question of, "what do I do with all of these bags of cereal?" So for a few weeks, I gave a lot of people unboxed bags of cereal and had to repeat the same story each time I did. But it was worth it.

These were fun to chase down, and they took up a lot of space in my head (and in the guest bedroom) for a big portion of the spring. I still have another bag of Thing Cereal to eat before it goes stale. Of all the tie-in food products, these might have been the best, but they certainly weren't the only ones. I'll show off more of 'em later.

Let's talk about that trailer

You know I'm talking about that newly-released Fantastic Four: First Steps trailer! AND NOW I MUST DISCUSS IT!

Years ago, Marvel surreptitiously de-emphasized their Fantastic Four and X-Men lines in a roundabout attempt to regain the film rights to their wayward franchises. They stopped publishing Fantastic Four altogether for years, even though the Thing, the Human Torch and Dr. Doom showed up in titles like Uncanny Avengers, Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel 2-in-1 and Infamous Iron Man. I knew the point of this embargo, but I still thought at the time that no single movie would be worth doing without the comics for so long. So, after seeing Marvel and Disney's new teaser trailer for this July's Fantastic Four movie, have I changed my mind?

NO! NEVER!

I'll never forgive them for it. That being said...boy, am I excited for this movie. I loved the trailer and I can't wait to see the whole thing later this year. It seems that the folks behind this movie finally learned the lessons about what didn't work with each of the previous versions.

There were a few things that stood out to me, and hey, this is my blog, so let's talk about them here.

I'm starting off with the Thing. You all knew this! Let's start by saying that I like it. It's a comic-accurate Thing with a thick brow and I can't wait to see him run through a wall. I know that sometimes studios will release a trailer before the visual effects are completely finished, so I wonder if this is the absolute final version of Ben Grimm for this film. If it is, it's pretty good, even if it's slightly more cartoony than I had expected.

I want to see this guy in blue trunks. I like the uniforms and I understand that the consistency among the four main characters is visually important. But give me this guy in the trunks. At some point. Do it.

I did think that the Thing's voice would be lowered a bit, but maybe Marvel wanted to do something more to distinguish this Ebon Moss-Bachrach version from the Michael Chiklis version.

H.E.R.B.I.E. looks...good? I don't know that they had to R2D2 the little guy's voice, and it's one of those tropes where people in the film can understand what he's saying while the audience doesn't. But we all know that the FF has translators sewn into their suits, so there's an in-universe explanation for it! Please send me my No-Prize.

Did they finally get the visual for Sue's powers right? You bet your buns they did. So glad to see (or not see) it!

TRENCHCOAT THING. Trenchcoat Thing!! This is a requirement for the movie to be good. I'm glad to see that they got my letters.

How much of an effect did Alex Ross's work, and the Marvels series in general, have on the look of the movie, including Johnny's powered-up form? Ross paints in that photo-realistic style, so maybe it's a coincidence. But the Torch here made me think of Ross's art more than anything else in the trailer.

There were several things in this trailer that made my heart beat faster, and this is one of them. These are versions of the Ben Cooper Thing Halloween costume. They're pretty much exact copies. I absolutely love this, and I really, really hope that some company makes and sells new versions of these again this year. Also make them in adult sizes and I will wear one. If they make them before July 25th, I'll buy one and wear it on opening night.

The Fantasticar should be a flying bathtub, but I will also accept this four-wheeled version. Maybe it flies? Splits up into four individual components? I'm excited to see it in action.

John Malcovich's appearance was the most out-of-place part of the trailer, but I guess if John Malcovich is in your movie, you should put him in the trailer. Maybe he'll be the Mole Man, hiding away on Monster Island? He kind of looks like one of the Council of Reeds here. I know that parts of the Hickman/Eaglesham "Solve Everything" storyline were adapted in the film. Who can say?

Others have said it, but it bears repeating: I'm glad they decided to use an apparently comic-accurate Galactus in this movie.

I'm buying the soundtrack the day it comes out. I assume you all figured as much. I was very happy when the choir's "Fantastic Four!" line was part of the theme music that played in the background. Thank goodness that the powers that be decided that it was time to lean into what makes the comic and the concept so wonderful. So Galactus looks like he has a bucket on his head. Who cares? So the team wears matching blue jumpsuits. Perfect! So the Thing and H.E.R.B.I.E. make dinner. Give me more of this!

It looks like they're going to make it fun, bright, and optimistic. Sign me up.

I'm hoping that there'll be a Super Bowl commercial for the movie - maybe even something different from this teaser. I'm also hoping to start seeing toys in stores before too long. Let's get some new Thing fists! It's been a long, long time coming for this movie. I'm going to enjoy it.

You can't punch out the Thing - unless it's the 2002 Thing punch-out

As you might expect, I keep an eye out for weird promotional stuff when I visit the comic shop. A few years back, Marvel gave out handfuls of glowing, bouncing eyeballs as a promotion for their Original Sin series, and they gave out vampire teeth for the recent Blood Hunt event. Maybe one day, we'll be able to make an entire Marvel face? Anyway, I don't know how I missed Marvel's promotional punch-out cards from way back in 2002, but luckily, eBay came to the rescue, as it often does, and I was able to grab a stack that included the Thing.

The set came unpunched and in the size of credit cards. Perhaps I'll keep one in my wallet and try to pay with it, and if anyone balks at the idea, well, I can always clobber them, and then blame the Thing for the litigious results.

The set I picked up came with Dr. Doom and the Fantastic Four, minus the Human Torch. Sorry, Johnny. The cards have a color bleed that makes Sue's face look very weird, but I get it. Thankfully, the set had more than one Thing, so I didn't have to stay up at night and fret over whether I would actually build the model or not.

It also came with a number of other popular Marvel characters. A lot of the Spider-Man and X-Men character art, since this was 2002, used images of the characters' Ultimate counterparts instead of the regular folks.

To build the tiny figures, you match up the (extraordinarily tiny) numbers on the cards and insert the pieces into their corresponding notches. There are front and back illustrations, so you get the whole 3D experience with these.

These were weird promos that I missed the first time around, but they're pretty fun and the Thing stands up pretty well on his own. Now I have like four doubles of the Hulk card. Who wants 'em?

This Ink Runs Cold and the 2024 San Diego Comic-Con

 

Well, hey, I guess it's time for my yearly "yes, I'm going to Comic-Con" post. This year seems like it'll be a return to the enormous shows of 2019 and earlier, with lots of star power and big, flashy events both on the show floor and outside of the convention center. And it looks like Marvel will bring their Fantastic Four cast to Hall H in anticipation of next year's film. Am I excited? Yes! Do I think I'll be able to get into Hall H to see the Thing? No! But you never know what Comic-Con magic will be in play.

Unlike most previous years, I won't be stationed at a specific booth for this show, but I will be making a few stops to sign books on different days.

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Z2 Comics is debuting their new Motörhead graphic novel, No Remorse: The Illustrated True Stories of Lemmy Kilmister and Motörhead at Comic-Con, and I...somehow? have a story in the book that I worked on with artist Jeff McComsey. I'll be signing copies of the book with other contributors on Sunday at 2pm at booth 1529.

 Sister Powers: Summer Vacation will also debut at Comic-Con this year, from Keenspot Entertainment and artist Mario Wytch! Keenspot has booth 2635 on the show floor, and I'll be at their booth most days to sign copies with Mario.

Artist Scott Morse recently announced This Ink Runs Cold, a sci-fi/crime anthology that he'll be drawing, in part, on the show floor at Comic-Con, while the convention is taking place. I submitted a story and found out earlier today that it made the cut when Scott posted the above image. Don't worry that my last name is misspelled (or perhaps we're just using the historic spelling). It's...it's me, I promise.

We're still working out the details, but Scott has asked those of us who'll be at the show to stop by while our pages are being drawn. This'll happen between Friday and Sunday at the Allen Spiegel Fine Arts booth, #4701 on the show floor. I'm hoping that there'll be a livestream or some other documentation happening as the pages are created, because this is a really fun idea and I hope others want to watch it come to life.

My contribution will be a story titled "Blood Brothers." There are plans to publish the book shortly after the convention, so I hope to see it in print before too long.

I've got about 24 hours before I have to head out to the airport, so I'm glad that I'm using some of this precious time to update the ol' blog. It's important!! I believe it! See you in San Diego!

My first "Helmet Thing" original comic art (please congratulate me)

In the early-to-mid-'90s, the Thing wore a helmet. This "battle damaged" Thing redesign made him, I suppose, both more extreme and more X-TREME, which fit for the time (though the helmet was originally designed by Jack Kirby and made a very brief appearance in the early issues of the Fantastic Four series). And while I hated the look at the time, I've come to feel a bit of nostalgic appreciation for it, though, to be clear, I NEVER EVER want the character to adopt the look again.

I've never been able to find any helmet Thing original artwork - at least, nothing I've been able to afford - but that streak came to an end recently when I managed to grab a page from Marvel's Cage series, which ran from 1992-93 and starred former FF member Luke Cage. Let's take a look at it! 

This is a great page for the following reasons: it's full of action, it prominently features the Thing, all of the dialogue balloons and sound effects are still pasted to the page, and most importantly, THE THING IS WEARING HIS HELMET.

Here's the cover to the issue from which this page comes. The Cage series ended with issue 20, so this is one of the final pages from the series.

In the issue, Luke Cage has been possessed by the villainous Bogeyman, and the Thing and the Human Torch set out to free him from the nefarious influence. The battle takes the three to the piers of New York City.

If I had to guess, I'd say the Bogeyman was meant to be Venom-like in its portrayal. The villain tries to possess the Thing, but OH-HO! It's not to be because of his VERY IMPORTANT HELMET! Nice!

The page is pencilled by Scott Benefiel and inked by Frank Turner. The letters come from John Roshell and Comicraft - the company had just been founded a year earlier. This is a very early example of digital lettering in the comic book industry. In this instance, the letters were printed, cut out, and pasted to the art board. I think it really adds something to the artwork, though I understand why it doesn't happen anymore. 

In the end, our Fantastic Four duo are victorious, mostly because the Thing punched a lot (and very well). I guess Johnny keeps Luke Cage from flying off into the stratosphere by flying up to grab him.

There's just one editorial note on this page, next to the last panel, and it's a note for the colorist to make Johnny's forearms blue, as he's turned off his flame to that part of his body as he grabs his pal Luke.

This is a really great page that makes a unique addition to the collection. It's my first page of original art with the Thing in his helmet! This is a reason to celebrate.

The biggest and smallest books I own

I recently bought a very large book, along with some very small books, and WHAT DO YOU KNOW, they were both comic books. These have the distinction of being the biggest and smallest books I own, so let's take a look at these record-breakers. 

In 2022, Taschen published a number of early Marvel collections, reprinting 1960s issues of titles like the Avengers, X-Men, Silver Surfer and the Fantastic Four. These absolutely enormous collections, measuring 11 by over 15 inches, are an impressive sight, and they're shipped in boxes that include additional art.

The Fantastic Four volume weighs over 10 pounds and is 700 pages long, reprinting the first 19 issues of the series and the first annual.

The publisher scanned high-grade copies of printed issues of the book.

The version I got was limited to 5000 copies. I got it for a good price, lower than its original $200 price tag. It seems that they're getting close to selling out, as my numbered copy was 4,526. There's also an absolutely ridiculous $600 version that includes features like a Thing-themed book ribbon, which, okay, I will probably never be able to afford.

The books itself is lovingly designed, with a number of pieces beyond just the 20 collected issues.

There's an introduction by FF writer Mark Waid, and some almost-to-scale scans of Jack Kirby's original art.

The pages themselves are beautifully scanned and presented. This is, honestly, an expensive presentation piece or coffee table book; there are cheaper ways to read the first 20 issues of this series without having to lug out this monstrous version.

One nice feature is that the book includes all of the material from each issue, from cover-to-cover. This means that the letters pages and ads are part of this book, which is really spectacular. The Thing clobbers at a mighty scale in this book!

I've also made some headway into my collection of Marvel Mini Books from 1966. These tiny books reside on a display shelf I'm currently working on and I think they're looking good so far!

These tiny comics - smaller than a postage stamp but with actual original stories printed inside - were sold in gumball-like machines in '66, and there were six in total. Superman actually makes an appearance in the Spider-Man mini-comic! I'm still on the lookout for the Hulk and Millie the Model comics.

A few years ago, Abrams collected these mini-books and reprinted them in (relative) gigantic format. The stories themselves are pretty bland, as you might expect, and Millie's comic has the message of "don't ever get fat!" but I still find them pretty charming. Hopefully I can pick up the other two soon. And, you know, if the $600 Taschen Fantastic Four reprint goes on liquidation any time soon...just let me know. I have no reason to show the My Pet Monster figure in the picture, but I like it, so there it is.

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Oh! And they finally announced the cast for Marvel's 2025 Fantastic Four movie! I am very excited about this! I don't have much else to say except that they are almost certainly going to start filming this soon, and I really hope that some of it will be filmed in New York City, and if that's the case I am going to try really, very hard to be in this movie in some capacity. 

Lastly, here's some great Thing original art I picked up recently. This piece was created by the Inkwell Awards, a nonprofit comics organization. This year, the Inkwells took some pencils by Walt Simonson, printed out a number of blueline copies, and had different inkers ink them. The one I picked up has inks by Guy Dorian, Sr., who has done a lot of work for IDW, notably ROM. This is on 11x17 artboard and will look great...okay, absolutely anywhere, but specifically with one of my folders of Thing art. I almost didn't recognize Ben through his really sophisticated disguise.