Superhero Comics Breaking the Fourth Wall in Their Final Issue!

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Oct 11, 2017

In their latest look at recurring comic cliches, CSBG spotlights comic books that break the fourth wall in their final issue!

In Drawing Crazy Patterns, I spotlight at least five scenes/moments from within comic book stories that fit under a specific theme (basically, stuff that happens frequently in comics).

Today, we look at superhero comic books that broke the fourth wall in their final issue.

One of the earliest examples came in Doom Patrol #121, in an odd bit where the writer of the comic, Arnold Drake, was edited out of the story (because he was leaving DC Comics for Marvel at the time), so it was editor Murray Boltinoff and artist Bruno Premiani that talked directly to the readers after the Doom Patrol seemingly blow up...

I love the end bit (by the way, click here to enlarge the page) where they say that only a sudden sales spurt can save the comic, but they tell the readers this IN THE FINAL ISSUE!! Huh?!?! How does that make any sense?

The final issue of Beast's solo feature in Amazing Adventures was a reprint of his origin story from X-Men, but it is introduced and followed up by a framing sequence of the Beast saying goodbye to his readers...

John Byrne famously had She-Hulk break the fourth wall on the cover to his first issue of Sensational She-Hulk #1...

And with her final issue, Sensational She-Hulk #60, she threatens to pay off that threat...

Go to the next page to see how the actual cancellation is handled within the comic itself (plus two cancellation puns by Peter David)!

In the actual comic book, it is the Marvel Movers who show up to take everything down...

In the final issue of Peter David's Captain Marvel run, he reveals that Rick Jones knows that this is the final issue, because while Captain Marvel had cosmic awareness, Rick has COMICS awareness!

Finally, David was at it again with the final issue of another She-Hulk series, where Mallory Book canceled a planned project involving She-Hulk that she was doing for a group called the Fourth Wall. It leads to a hilariously silly pun for the end of the book...