2 Spideys in the name of Diversity or the gradual decline of Marvel Comics?

[fastballspecial]

USM was in the crapper when they switch to Morales. I thought they were just going to kill the title all together, but they didn't.

 

The re-launched helped the numbers, but I think eventually couldn't hid the fact that buyers had tired of the title and really the Ultimate line all together.

 

[Prince Namor]

Those numbers are not representative of the truth.

 

The Original Ultimate Spider-man with Peter Parker was a break-out hit that not only sustained that success but actually surpassed sales of the ASM. And I say that as NOT a fan of the book. But... the truth is the truth.

 

Even by issue #15 it hadn't lost steam and was still selling a stellar (especially for the time) 80,000 copies a month.

 

Look here, as even by the 30 and 31st issue, it was the 7th and 8th best selling comic, almost doing ASM numbers.

 

By #51, it had surpassed ASM and was poised to break the 100,000 mark (though the #50 anniversary issue already had!)

 

By issue #77 it had cooled back down to 80,000, but that is still a heck of a run for a title featuring an alternate universe character.

 

The first Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-man, got an immediate jump on ASM, but as you can see, even by issue #2, the numbers fell quickly.

 

The second Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-man, didn't far near as well...

 

While the return of Peter Parker dominated. Keep in mind that's ASM #2 vs USM #1

 

It really doesn't bother me what Marvel is doing here... they're doing what they do well... shake things up, see what happens.

 

In the world of comics it's never very long before things settle down and go back to much of the same old same old.

[krighton]

need some pie charts and spread sheets to make sense of all this

[fastballspecial]

We also entered the speculator age where 1s print run is huge and the orders plummet after that.

 

I'm not saying USM wasn't a huge hit because it was, but by the time Morales came around readership had really fallen off.

 

[Jaydogrules]

Those numbers are not representative of the truth.

 

The Original Ultimate Spider-man with Peter Parker was a break-out hit that not only sustained that success but actually surpassed sales of the ASM. And I say that as NOT a fan of the book. But... the truth is the truth.

 

Even by issue #15 it hadn't lost steam and was still selling a stellar (especially for the time) 80,000 copies a month.

 

Look here, as even by the 30 and 31st issue, it was the 7th and 8th best selling comic, almost doing ASM numbers.

 

By #51, it had surpassed ASM and was poised to break the 100,000 mark (though the #50 anniversary issue already had!)

 

By issue #77 it had cooled back down to 80,000, but that is still a heck of a run for a title featuring an alternate universe character.

 

The first Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-man, got an immediate jump on ASM, but as you can see, even by issue #2, the numbers fell quickly.

 

The second Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-man, didn't far near as well...

 

While the return of Peter Parker dominated. Keep in mind that's ASM #2 vs USM #1

 

It really doesn't bother me what Marvel is doing here... they're doing what they do well... shake things up, see what happens.

 

In the world of comics it's never very long before things settle down and go back to much of the same old same old.

 

Nice. Thank you for putting this together.

 

It definitely tells the tale of the tape in black and white. (Seriously, no pun intended there ).

 

-J.

[Prince Namor]

We also entered the speculator age where 1s print run is huge and the orders plummet after that.

 

That's been going on for at least 25 years.

#1's do big numbers, #2's do nearly half that.

 

I'm not saying USM wasn't a huge hit because it was, but by the time Morales came around readership had really fallen off.

 

Readership is UP. PP/ASM is doing 40,000 more copies a month.

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

Those numbers are not representative of the truth.

 

The Original Ultimate Spider-man with Peter Parker was a break-out hit that not only sustained that success but actually surpassed sales of the ASM. And I say that as NOT a fan of the book. But... the truth is the truth.

 

Even by issue #15 it hadn't lost steam and was still selling a stellar (especially for the time) 80,000 copies a month.

 

Look here, as even by the 30 and 31st issue, it was the 7th and 8th best selling comic, almost doing ASM numbers.

 

By #51, it had surpassed ASM and was poised to break the 100,000 mark (though the #50 anniversary issue already had!)

 

By issue #77 it had cooled back down to 80,000, but that is still a heck of a run for a title featuring an alternate universe character.

 

The first Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-man, got an immediate jump on ASM, but as you can see, even by issue #2, the numbers fell quickly.

 

The second Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-man, didn't far near as well...

 

While the return of Peter Parker dominated. Keep in mind that's ASM #2 vs USM #1

 

It really doesn't bother me what Marvel is doing here... they're doing what they do well... shake things up, see what happens.

 

In the world of comics it's never very long before things settle down and go back to much of the same old same old.

 

Nice. Thank you for putting this together.

 

It definitely tells the tale of the tape in black and white. (Seriously, no pun intended there ).

 

-J.

Maybe you should look again. In each list you'll see that there are other Ultimate books surrounding Ultimate Spider-man on the sales charts, suggesting that it was the Ultimate line in general that was popular. Who was in the Spider-man costume doesn't seem to have as much of an effect on where Ultimate Spider-man sales were compared to the popularity of the Ultimate line in general.

[Jaydogrules]

Those numbers are not representative of the truth.

 

The Original Ultimate Spider-man with Peter Parker was a break-out hit that not only sustained that success but actually surpassed sales of the ASM. And I say that as NOT a fan of the book. But... the truth is the truth.

 

Even by issue #15 it hadn't lost steam and was still selling a stellar (especially for the time) 80,000 copies a month.

 

Look here, as even by the 30 and 31st issue, it was the 7th and 8th best selling comic, almost doing ASM numbers.

 

By #51, it had surpassed ASM and was poised to break the 100,000 mark (though the #50 anniversary issue already had!)

 

By issue #77 it had cooled back down to 80,000, but that is still a heck of a run for a title featuring an alternate universe character.

 

The first Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-man, got an immediate jump on ASM, but as you can see, even by issue #2, the numbers fell quickly.

 

The second Miles Morales Ultimate Spider-man, didn't far near as well...

 

While the return of Peter Parker dominated. Keep in mind that's ASM #2 vs USM #1

 

It really doesn't bother me what Marvel is doing here... they're doing what they do well... shake things up, see what happens.

 

In the world of comics it's never very long before things settle down and go back to much of the same old same old.

 

Nice. Thank you for putting this together.

 

It definitely tells the tale of the tape in black and white. (Seriously, no pun intended there ).

 

-J.

Maybe you should look again. In each list you'll see that there are other Ultimate books surrounding Ultimate Spider-man on the sales charts, suggesting that it was the Ultimate line in general that was popular. Who was in the Spider-man costume doesn't seem to have as much of an effect on where Ultimate Spider-man sales were compared to the popularity of the Ultimate line in general.

 

Your interpretation of the data appears to be rather myopic.

 

Miles Morales cannot carry a title and has already been the "star" of two that have been canceled.

 

Peter Parker has carried up to five titles at one time a month, if I'm not mistaken.

 

Reason enough why Miles Morales will always be an unnecessary also-ran.

 

Marvel will really need to (and likely eventually will) give him his own name if they insist on trying to turn this character into "the next 'Spider-Gwen'" (a character which is also not new or original and is, ironically, yet another iteration of Spider-man. )

 

 

-J.

 

[Broke as a Joke]

Not that this has anything to do with Miles Morales, but does anyone remember when Marvel gave us two Thing's in Fantastic Four? That was truly awful. Spiky Ben Grimm and some female Thing that looked like a human turd. I think the title never recovered from that run, as every longtime reader I knew jumped ship at that point.

[dupont2005]

When Spiderman is replaced with the Green Goblin, no big deal, they're both white. When Captain America is replaced with Bucky, no big deal, they're both white! When Batman is replaced with Azrael, no big deal, they're both white. When Robin is replaced with Tim Drake, no big deal, they're both white!

 

But Miles Morales? Marvel has gone too far.

http://www.cosmicbooknews.com/content/stan-lee-stands-white-spider-man-says-create-new-characters

The co-creator of Spider-man disagrees with what you just said.

 

From the article -

 

Now Stan Lee sets the record straight and says they should leave the characters alone and just create new ones.

 

"I wouldn’t mind, if Peter Parker had originally been black, a Latino, an Indian or anything else, that he stay that way,” Lee told Newsarama. “But we originally made him white. I don’t see any reason to change that.”

 

While Bendis apparently believes kids aren't allowed to pretend to be a hero of a different "color," Stan Lee thinks that one of Spider-Man's stengths is that his costume enables anyone to potentially identify with the Web Crawler.

 

"What I like about the costume is that anybody reading Spider-Man in any part of the world can imagine that they themselves are under the costume,” Lee said. “And that’s a good thing.”

 

Lee continues that it's not about being anti-gay or anti-black, and even mentions what may fans have stated, which is they wouldn't want to see the black characters changed as well.

 

“It has nothing to do with being anti-gay, or anti-black, or anti-Latino, or anything like that,” Lee said. “Latino characters should stay Latino. The Black Panther should certainly not be Swiss. I just see no reason to change that which has already been established when it’s so easy to add new characters. I say create new characters the way you want to. Hell, I’ll do it myself.”

"The creator of Whitewash Jones disagrees with what you just said"

[Prince Namor]

Maybe you should look again. In each list you'll see that there are other Ultimate books surrounding Ultimate Spider-man on the sales charts, suggesting that it was the Ultimate line in general that was popular. Who was in the Spider-man costume doesn't seem to have as much of an effect on where Ultimate Spider-man sales were compared to the popularity of the Ultimate line in general.

 

It was the popularity of Ultimate Spider-man that led to the other Ultimate titles getting created, not the other way around. It was a breakout hit from the beginning. And the amount of popular competition is actually a point in it's favor as it continued to sell throughout the competitions rise and even after the competitions fall.

 

And both Spider-Gwen and Silk have managed to hold their own titles with respectable numbers (Gwen averaging over 100,000 for #2, 3 and 4 - Silk averaging 50,000+ for #2, 3, and 4) while Miles Morales on multiple occasions has not.

[GeeksAreMyPeeps]

Maybe you should look again. In each list you'll see that there are other Ultimate books surrounding Ultimate Spider-man on the sales charts, suggesting that it was the Ultimate line in general that was popular. Who was in the Spider-man costume doesn't seem to have as much of an effect on where Ultimate Spider-man sales were compared to the popularity of the Ultimate line in general.

 

It was the popularity of Ultimate Spider-man that led to the other Ultimate titles getting created, not the other way around. It was a breakout hit from the beginning. And the amount of popular competition is actually a point in it's favor as it continued to sell throughout the competitions rise and even after the competitions fall.

 

And both Spider-Gwen and Silk have managed to hold their own titles with respectable numbers (Gwen averaging over 100,000 for #2, 3 and 4 - Silk averaging 50,000+ for #2, 3, and 4) while Miles Morales on multiple occasions has not.

I am not contending that Ultimate Spider-man was a popular title at one point. The point of contention is whether the popularity of the title was due to the identity of the character in the costume, and I think the available data show that it was not. Yes, the title was very popular at first, and Peter Parker was in the costume. But I think that was because the concept of the Ultimate line was very popular (and speculation on the part of some that it might end up replacing the regular Marvel Universe probably helped with sales to a point). But, the popularity of the line fell, and the sales data show that. That's the entire line, including Spider-man which still featured Peter Parker. The numbers continued to fall for all titles by the time Miles Morales took over as Spider-man. So if someone wants to cling to the idea that the problem was Miles Morales vs. Peter Parker, I think the point needs to be addressed why the sales of *every other Ultimate title* fell as well.

[Doktor]

If we want to be intellectually honest here, the Ultimate line died after Ultimatum. Everything after that was Marvel putting it on life support. They tried to breathe new life into it with Miles & essentially making it a bit like the M2 line from the 90's where they added legacy characters mixed with some of the old ones, but it didn't work. Miles or the kid Wolverine or any of the rest of the next-gen Ultimate Marvel characters didn't help that. But if Miles was any significant draw though, enough to really be a marquee character, his book would have sold significantly more relative to the rest of the line. How do we define that? It looks to have done 30-50% above the rest of the line outside of #1. But that's like being the prettiest turd in the bowl.

 

The only thing that that proves though is that nobody cared about the Ultimate line & nothing Marvel could do at that point was going to change that. The question is though: did nobody care enough to make it sell because it was an AU title? Or did nobody care enough to make it sell because it was an AU title with a knock-off character? And consequently, will anyone care enough to make him sell if he's now in the "universe that counts"? I lean towards "nope, nope & nope" personally

[Prince Namor]

Maybe you should look again. In each list you'll see that there are other Ultimate books surrounding Ultimate Spider-man on the sales charts, suggesting that it was the Ultimate line in general that was popular. Who was in the Spider-man costume doesn't seem to have as much of an effect on where Ultimate Spider-man sales were compared to the popularity of the Ultimate line in general.

 

It was the popularity of Ultimate Spider-man that led to the other Ultimate titles getting created, not the other way around. It was a breakout hit from the beginning. And the amount of popular competition is actually a point in it's favor as it continued to sell throughout the competitions rise and even after the competitions fall.

 

And both Spider-Gwen and Silk have managed to hold their own titles with respectable numbers (Gwen averaging over 100,000 for #2, 3 and 4 - Silk averaging 50,000+ for #2, 3, and 4) while Miles Morales on multiple occasions has not.

I am not contending that Ultimate Spider-man was a popular title at one point. The point of contention is whether the popularity of the title was due to the identity of the character in the costume, and I think the available data show that it was not. Yes, the title was very popular at first, and Peter Parker was in the costume. But I think that was because the concept of the Ultimate line was very popular (and speculation on the part of some that it might end up replacing the regular Marvel Universe probably helped with sales to a point). But, the popularity of the line fell, and the sales data show that. That's the entire line, including Spider-man which still featured Peter Parker. The numbers continued to fall for all titles by the time Miles Morales took over as Spider-man. So if someone wants to cling to the idea that the problem was Miles Morales vs. Peter Parker, I think the point needs to be addressed why the sales of *every other Ultimate title* fell as well.

 

Why'd it sell 86,000 copies when it got rebooted (after the 'end' of the Ultimate Universe) and outsell regular Spider-man again?

 

 

Whereas when it got rebooted with Miles, it barely registered?

 

[spideysenses78]

I was done with the Ultimate books long before Ultimatum. But yeah, people were fed up with the stupidity of Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum. I'm all for diversity in books if there are going to be good stories behind it. Doing it just to pander to a group of people in order to bring more readers in is just sad.

[revat]

I was done with the Ultimate books long before Ultimatum. But yeah, people were fed up with the stupidity of Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum. I'm all for diversity in books if there are going to be good stories behind it. Doing it just to pander to a group of people in order to bring more readers in is just sad.

 

aren't 95-99% of decisions made by companies designed to bring in more customers?

[Doktor]

I was done with the Ultimate books long before Ultimatum. But yeah, people were fed up with the stupidity of Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum. I'm all for diversity in books if there are going to be good stories behind it. Doing it just to pander to a group of people in order to bring more readers in is just sad.

 

aren't 95-99% of decisions made by companies designed to bring in more customers?

 

This is accurate, but I'd rephrase his statement as "doing it to pander to a statistically smaller group of people that this character could potentially resonate with in order to bring in potential new readers while potentially alienating an even greater number of existing readers is just sad".

 

You can look at it as pure statistics. Roughly 30% of the population identifies as either black and/or Hispanic. The Caucasian population is roughly 62%. The other 8% is a mix of other non-white, non-Hispanic, non-black racial identifications. I don't think anyone is arguing that targeting the black/Hispanic demographic as an under-served portion of the population is a NOT good idea. But targeting 1/3 of the population for a new product while subtracting a product that has existing appeal to the other 2/3 of the population is a risky endeavor. The potential gains have a risk of being outweighed by potential losses, statistically speaking.

 

The thought process that Bendis mentioned essentially boils down to "the likelihood of this 30% of the population buying increases if the star character has the same skin color as them". It however ignores the converse of this thought process, that the same increased likelihood is already applied to the 62% of the population that is presently targeted by the book. And therefore, for every 1 person to start buying a book because of that thought process, 2 people are likely to stop buying a book because that thought process no longer applies to them. If the reason the new person buys is because of similar racial identification, wouldn't there necessarily be the risk that someone 2 people are already buying it because of the similar racial identification in a population twice the size? I believe so.

 

Targeting an underserved demographic with high-profile characters is a smart business decision from a statistical POV. But doing so at the expense of a demographic 2x the size is not smart business IMO.

[natevegas]

There is a solution to all this. Make 25 new spider-man's from other "ultimate" universes.

 

One for every ethnic minority group and even throw in some special interest group spider-man's to boot. They'll all be swinging around the same 616 and the bad guys won't even bother to show up to cause problems as they'll be defeated easily. By this point what makes Spider-man (Peter Parket) unique will have go by the wayside and readers will move on to unique brands.

[LarrysComics]

There WILL be a best of both worlds solution.

 

Amazing Spider-Man & Miles.

 

It's a win-win...

[revat]

I was done with the Ultimate books long before Ultimatum. But yeah, people were fed up with the stupidity of Ultimates 3 and Ultimatum. I'm all for diversity in books if there are going to be good stories behind it. Doing it just to pander to a group of people in order to bring more readers in is just sad.

 

aren't 95-99% of decisions made by companies designed to bring in more customers?

 

This is accurate, but I'd rephrase his statement as "doing it to pander to a statistically smaller group of people that this character could potentially resonate with in order to bring in potential new readers while potentially alienating an even greater number of existing readers is just sad".

 

You can look at it as pure statistics. Roughly 30% of the population identifies as either black and/or Hispanic. The Caucasian population is roughly 62%. The other 8% is a mix of other non-white, non-Hispanic, non-black racial identifications. I don't think anyone is arguing that targeting the black/Hispanic demographic as an under-served portion of the population is a NOT good idea. But targeting 1/3 of the population for a new product while subtracting a product that has existing appeal to the other 2/3 of the population is a risky endeavor. The potential gains have a risk of being outweighed by potential losses, statistically speaking.

 

The thought process that Bendis mentioned essentially boils down to "the likelihood of this 30% of the population buying increases if the star character has the same skin color as them". It however ignores the converse of this thought process, that the same increased likelihood is already applied to the 62% of the population that is presently targeted by the book. And therefore, for every 1 person to start buying a book because of that thought process, 2 people are likely to stop buying a book because that thought process no longer applies to them. If the reason the new person buys is because of similar racial identification, wouldn't there necessarily be the risk that someone 2 people are already buying it because of the similar racial identification in a population twice the size? I believe so.

 

Targeting an underserved demographic with high-profile characters is a smart business decision from a statistical POV. But doing so at the expense of a demographic 2x the size is not smart business IMO.

 

I definitely see the logic in your argument, and I agree that it is risky, and may very well not work out.

 

But at the same time, we can only see what is happening right now with what's been revealed by Marvel. We don't know what their long term plans are.

 

I don't think it would unreasonable to think that the following scenario is what they're hoping for:

 

1. RIght now, ASM sells about 100,000 per month. Over a whole year, lets be conservative and call it a million per year.

2. If they change to miles, they estimate they might lose 30,000 asm readers (very significant) who were previously buying monthly. But guess what, I'd say at least 5,000 of those readers will move their money to another Marvel title. Although certainly some might stop buying comics all together and some might put their money with competitors

3. And they might estimate to gain about 10,000 NEW COMIC READERS, and about 5,000 previous comic readers who weren't reading ASM but now want to see what the hype is about.

4. Here's the thing with the 10,000 NEW COMIC READERS, most comic readers don't buy just one comic, and those comic readers will most likely come from an untapped market, who will hopefully tell there friends, who will most likely become NEW COMIC READERS, etc, etc.

5. You KNOW the 1st issue will sell well at least, they can make an event out of it

6. YOU KNOW when peter comes back that. the first issue will sell well and they can make an event out of it.

 

I'm not saying they aren't using 'diversity' as a strategy, they are. But the strategy isn't a liberal agenda, its a well-thought out, researched, vetted way to ATTEMPT to grab hold of a relatively untapped market. Does that mean it will work? Who knows? Are there good arguments against doing so? Of course. But ultimately, I'm pretty sure there's plenty of good reasons (and bad reasons) for this strategy, and while race is probably a major factor in the strategy, its not the driving force behind the strategy, which is the same as always...creating financial opportunities.