Marvel has been releasing preview images this week to announce the next big story for one of their flagship titles, Fantastic Four, and specifically the return the of currently left-for-dead Human Torch.

The images started on Monday with a simple “4” over a picture of the Earth, possibly signally a return of the original line up. We got a bit of a change up with Tuesday’s image, which showed the current team, complete with Spider-Man, in their Future Foundation uniforms. Wednesday brought us the big one though, with a big beautiful image of the original team, complete with Johnny Storm. Wednesday’s teaser was drawn by Marvel Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada. The only words in the announcement were a simple “Coming November 2011.”

Universal Studios has released the first official official trailer for The Thing, the prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter scifi-horror film of the same name.

Watch the trailer here below and check out the official synopsis for the film.

The studio recently released the teaser poster and the new trailer appears to be the mostly the same footage that was shown at the film’s panel at New York Comic-Con in October 2010 (minus the opening cafe scene that was shown).

The film, which hits theaters on October 14, 2011, stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, Ulrich Thomsen, Eric Christian Olsen, and Trond Espen Seim.

Not much has been heard about Universal’s much talked about prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 sci-fi horror classic The Thing, itself a remake of 1951’s Howard Hawks-produced The Thing from Another World, since it was bumped from its original Spring release date to make way for Fast Five. There hasn’t even been an official trailer released yet outside of a teaser that screened at conventions last year (which you can watch below; also, here’s our footage description and panel coverage from the 2010 New York Comic-Con). On top of all this, the studio also decided to name the prequel The Thing as well, because they don’t want to create any confusion apparently.

Hoping to stave off the cloud of doom that hangs over this new Thing, Universal has released the first official poster and it looks….interesting. (Check it out here below.) In fact, the poster definitely looks like one for a Thing movie so I guess the studio did their job. It’s a simple yet creepy piece with the logo (strongly reminiscent of the 1982 film) taking up most of the poster space and a mysterious individual inside the logo sprouting some strange looking appendages on their left hand, which brings to mind the fate of one of the characters from the Carpenter film.

For those of you who do not read comic books and do not follow Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four, it’s been known for a while now that the series — which debuted in 1961 and has spawned two Hollywood movies — would be ending at issue #588, and that one of the elite four members would die before it was all said and done.

Who exactly would perish, however, has been a guarded secret, and only now is it being revealed whose story ends right before the Fantastic Four comic series ends.

Obviously if you do read these comics, you don’t want to know the answer to this question, so DO NOT continue reading. For the rest of you, click on over to the other side to find out if it’s Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, The Human Torch, or The Thing whose fate has been sealed.

Check out Episode 20 of the Flix of Doom podcast, the official movie podcast of Geeks of Doom, with hosts Empress Eve and Justin Vactor.

This week, we’ll be discussing the 1986 film Highlander, as well as the latest news and box office results.

Full Episode Guide is here below, along with player.

Listen now!

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