Memorabilia: 1994

• Toy Biz re-released some of their previous action figures with minor modifications. One was the Invisible Woman (shown at right with Daredevil, Punisher, and USAgent); this time without color changing paint. These were sold under the Marvel Superheroes series.
• Ron Perlman was the owner of both Marvel Comics and Revlon Cosmetics. In a stroke of (some say luck, some say genius; I say it was just a stroke) he opted to have some of his supermodels pose with some of his super heroes. After a regular photo shoot, Marvel characters were drawn in (poorly) around the models. The Thing and the Hulk appeared with Kate Moss, Christy Turlington with the Silver Surfer, Elle MacPherson with Magneto and the X-Men, and Bridget Hall with Iron Man. Trust me, they're not worth looking at.
• The Voyager Company released Comic Book Confidential, a video documentary on comic books, on CD-ROM. The original film was shot by Ron Mann in the late 1980's, and only briefly touched on any mainstream comics. The CD version, however, includes essays on Jack Kirby and Stan Lee and Fantastic Four #51 "This Man, This Monster" in its complete form. I believe this gave the basis for the Toy Biz CDs that came out the following year.
• Acclaim created a Spider-Man video game for use with several home systems. With certain power-ups, Spidey could call one of the FF for help for a brief cameo. Mr. Fantastic dropped off extra supplies, the Invisible Woman covered him with her force field (which actually looks like Spidey got a armor power-up), the Thing stuns everyone in the vicinity and the Torch goes nova to cause severe damage to all the bad guys. The game's alright, but the cameos are pretty lame.
• Fleer released a 150 card set of Marvel trading cards under the Flair Marvel title. The Fantastic Four appeared on several cards:
  • #1 Thing
  • #18 Invisible Woman
  • #43 The Trial of Mr. Fantastic
  • #126 Final Confrontation
  Power Blast
  • #17 Invisible Woman
• Fleer also took over the Marvel Universe title from Skybox this year.
  • #191 Human Torch
  • #192 Invisible Woman
  • #197 Thing
  Power Blast
  • #9 Thing
  Suspended Animation
  • #2 Human Torch
  • #3 Invisible Woman
  • #7 Thing
• Pizza Hut ran a Marvel Super-Heroes promotion. If you bought a kids' meal, you got a super-hero plastic cup and a special edition comic book (four sets of four heroes each). The Human Torch appeared in the comic that talked about drug addiction and the Thing was in the one on racism and bigotry.
• The Marvel Action Hour was first aired in September of 1994. It was done relatively poorly and, consequently barely survived its premier season. Ron Friedman was the story editor, Beau Weaver played Mr. Fantastic, Lora Alan voiced the Invisible Woman, and Chuck McCann was the Thing. Brian Austin Green, who played the Human Torch, recorded his original song "Flame On!" for the Mole Man episode. (It was bad!) Green Jelly wrote "It's Clobberin' Time" for the series, which is as bad. The first two episodes featured Dick Clark and Gary Owens.
  The episode titles and original air dates were:
  • The Origin of the Fantastic Four - Part One (9/24)
  • The Origin of the Fantastic Four - Part Two (10/1)
  • The Incursion of the Skrull (10/8)
  • Now Comes the Sub-Mariner (10/15)
  • The Silver Surfer and the Coming of Galactus - Part One (10/22)
  • The Silver Surfer and the Coming of Galactus - Part Two (10/29)
  • Super Skrull (11/5)
  • The Mask of Doom - Part One (11/12)
  • The Mask of Doom - Part Two (11/19)
  • The Mask of Doom - Part Three (11/26)
  • The Return of the Silver Surfer (12/3)
  • The Mole Man (12/10)
  • Behold the Negative Zone (12/17)
• A company called Oz licensed several Marvel characters to be used on ceramic coffee mugs. The ones I know of include an Art Adams Thing, a collage of Marvel heroes (including several FF members), a collage of Marvel logos (including the Fantastic Four and 4 logos) and a collection of then-current corner boxes pictures (including the oft-used John Byrne FF).
• With the new cartoon out, Toy Biz launched a new line of action figures specifically for the Fantastic Four. The first set included: Black Bolt, Thing, Mole Man, Terrax, Mr. Fantastic, Silver Surfer, and Dr. Doom. These were vast improvements over their previous attempt at the Fantastic Four.
• Toy Biz also released several sets of "Premium Collector Caps" under the Marvel Action Hour title during the height of the Pog craze. The different sets were:
  • Hero Pack
  • Fat Slammer Set
  • Metal Slammer Set
  • Skull Pack
  • Skull Tube
  • Battle Set
• Toy Biz also released their "deluxe" ten-inch line of action figures. These were essentially the same sculpting as their five-inch counterparts. The FF figures were Dr. Doom, Human Torch, Thing, and Silver Surfer.
• A Fantastic Four pillow case was produced by Marvel using the cover and various panels (in no particular order) of issue #1. I expect that accompanying sheets were made as well, but I have not seen or heard anything about them.
  
• Roger Corman finshed production of his live-action Fantastic Four film. Directed by Oley Sassone, the film pits Dr. Doom (played by Joseph Culp) against Mr. Fantastic (Alex-Hyde White), the Invisible Woman (Rebecca Staab), the Human Torch (Jay Underwood) and the Thing (Carl Ciarfalio, voiced by Michael Bailey Smith). The story, written by Craig J. Nevius and Kevin Rock, loosely follows the group's origin and their dealings with Dr. Doom and the Jewler, a new villain highly reminiscent of the Mole Man.
  The film had actually been sub-licensed by Neue Constantin Productions so they wouldn't loose the character rights. After the $4 million movie was finished in less than a month, Neue Constantin bought everything and opted not to release the film at all; the idea being that if it's going to be done, it ought to be done right.
  After having seen a bootleg copy of the film, I would have to agree with Neue Constantin's decision. The effects were juvenile, the story was laughable, the editing needed help, and the costumes were just bad! I will give the actors credit, though: they did an excellent job for as poorly as the script was written. You really have to see this to believe how bad this is. (Mystery Science Theater 3000 would probably not riff this movie because it would be too easy!)
• Fleer also produced a Marvel Masterpieces tradng card series.
  • #52 Human Torch
  • #55 Invisible Woman
  • #73 Medusa
  • #76 Mr. Fantastic
  • #108 She-Hulk
  • #123 Thing
  
• Joshua Morris Publishing and Tormont Publications jointly released the Marvel Super Heroes Giant Game Board Book. The book consists of six board games, each based on a different hero or group (Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Hulk, etc.) and consequently utilized existing Marvel artwork of those characters. The games themselves are relatively straight-forward, but glued to the board (actually glued on the last page while the other pages have a die-cut for it) is an electronic set of dice. Each game is a double-page spread of the book which measures 23 by 15.75 inches when closed. It was produced and sold exclusively in Canada.
• Marvel released several phone cards depicting various Marvel heroes, including the Fantastic Four. Each card provided 10 minutes of calling time and a two minute greeting from the hero depicted on the card. Telecom was provided by GTS.
• Horizon released its vinyl model kit of the She-Hulk, sculpted by Glenn Hanz.
• When the X-Men cartoon was in its fourth season, they added the Pheonix Saga storyline. It spanned over five episodes with the last one, "Child of Light," featuring the Human Torch and the Thing. Actually, they were only seen in brief cameos saving New York City with no dialog.
• Creative License produced a short run of Hulk vs. Thing bookends. Each cold-cast porcelin figure (about 9" tall) was given an individual base that could be connected together to form a singular sculpture. It was sculpted by Randy Bowen after the artwork of Gary Frank. Very handsomly made.
• I'm not positive about either the production date nor the manufacturers of this last item, but there were a series of magnets sold in a case of nine. Each case came with two figure magnets (each about 3" by 2.5"), one "vs" magent, five thought or word balloon magents and one logo magnet. Each set was relevant to one charcter (i.e. Two Things, a Thing logo, phrases like "It's Clobberin' Time!," etc) Regarding the Fantastic Four related sets, there are sets for Thing, Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman and Human Torch. Silver Surfer, Galactus and Dr. Doom sets were also available.