Marvel finally realizing it's current universe isn't so hot... 0

[aerischan]

1 hour ago, SquareChaos said:

I don't see a real appetite for going back to the super simple stories of yesteryear... and that often means a world stage, and large scale human interactions will be a central part of your story.

I don't know about that. I'm really enjoying SuperDad Superman and MaLois at the moment. Given the current turmoil in our world, I find it refreshing to see Pa and Ma Kent family values, albeit modernized in the form of Lois and Clark.

Lol, I just read someone post in another forum, there's no greater minority in superhero comics than happily married couples especially ones with kids.  

Edited February 10, 2017 by aerischan

[SquareChaos]

It's very difficult to have happy times and still convey a real sense of conflict I think. 

[Doktor]

5 minutes ago, SquareChaos said:

It's very difficult to have happy times and still convey a real sense of conflict I think. 

Hence the need for cultivating a new crop of competent writers & not just a bunch of hacks that happen to have a bunch of tumblr fans. A good writer can do that. Most of the current writing staff at Marvel aren't good enough to do it.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Doktor

[SquareChaos]

On 2/9/2017 at 10:54 AM, Nexus said:

 

50 minutes ago, Doktor said:

Hence the need for cultivating a new crop of competent writers & not just a bunch of hacks that happen to have a bunch of tumblr fans. A good writer can do that. Most of the current writing staff at Marvel aren't good enough to do it.

Yep, I agreed with you on that the first time you mentioned it. 

 

I'm not a true believer these days though, the Big Two is no longer a place for great character driven stories, other publishers do it much better. Now they're testing grounds and test audiences for the next television or money property.

 

 

Edit: On mobile and no idea why I ended up quiting Nexus here from another thread, oh well! Ignore that bit please.

Edited February 10, 2017 by SquareChaos

[drotto]

I started reading comics because of the X-Men.  Those characters are my first comic love, and my list of favorite comic characters is still about 70% X-Men.  Reading this news gives me hope, but I am trying to figure out when they lost the magic, and how they can manage to merge some of the classic comic feel with a more modern bent.  I do not want to say DC has beat them to the punch, but for the first time ever for me, DC seems to be telling better stories that are more engaging and just plan fun.  So my thoughts on what went wrong.

1. This hinges a little bit on the political bent and well as the overly dark tones that many comics seem to have taken.  While comics were always good at putting moral lessons and subtle political ideas in their stories, it was never in your face.  Plus, the messages being given were positive messages of acceptance and inclusion.  They were presented in positive uplifting stories, and lacked the anger and pessimism that have dominated more recent stories.  Keep some of the messages.  Do not be so overt with your politics that it could offend some readers (the old never came across as offensive).  Stick to universal themes.

2. Get a sense of humor and fun back.  Comics have been about escapism, and when they drift too dark, or draw from real world depressing events they lose that very important aspect.  The comics should follow the movie universe and lighten up some. I read comic to escape, not to be constantly reminded of all the World's ills.

3. Stop forcing diversity for the sake of diversity.  Characters that have become popular over the years and have stood the test of time have gotten there organically.  They have grown a fan base by being in good stories, and being well written.  Now instead of creating new characters to appeal to a wide audience, the editors seem to have a check box, and any new, promoted characters must fit certain criteria , and these characters are being given top billing without paying their dues. Just write good characters old or new, but see what becomes popular rather than forcing new ones based purely on diversity on the readers.

4. Tied into number 3.  X-Men already have a very wide and diverse range of old characters to draw upon.  Use them. For years the X-Men have had a large stable characters that were; Black, Hispanic, Gay, female, Asia, Native American, different religions, etc. Many of these already have a fan base that would love to see them come back.

5. Trusting new artists and writers, and giving them the latitude to try new things.  Some may work, others will not.  But when you do find that winning combination like Claremont and Bryne, or Claremont and Cuckrum, try and stick with them.  The constant rotation of writers and artists hurts books.  Much of what the X-Men so great for so long was a certain degree of consistency. You do not need to shake things up every year or two.

6. Just give us character driven stories, without being forced to dovetail into the next be event.  Give the books some independence again.

 

I am sure I could come up with more.

[Doktor]

And to repeat it for the 4 billionth time, get Brevvort back to just being the company continuity cop. Stop letting the guy have say over things involved in publishing. He's the one that had the brilliant idea of books having "seasons" like it was a tv show. And go back to legacy numbering. I'm tired of buying freaking divider cards every time X-Men or ASM or whatever decides it needs to relaunch into volume 37 or whatever it is these days. For 45 years, nobody was "scared" to jump onto a book just because it was issue 368. They just had a learning curve to catch up on & if the writers had any talent at all (and this was before "recap pages" existed), they could use a panel or 3 to pretty much cover all the relevant info on the characters in the book for anyone who was picking up their first issue. It might seem a little like useless exposition to longtime readers, but nobody ever got that upset over it. And within 2 or 3 issues, they were totally following 99% of what was going on.

Edited February 10, 2017 by Doktor

[Mercury Man]

Also- the movies.  They are hot.  They are cash cows.  People can't get enough.   Suppose a kid new to this, wants to look more into this comic book world, and walks in to a shop looking at the Marvel New Releases....Well no Tony Stark as Iron Man....Wolverine is not Logan, Bruce Banner??  Where is he??  Thor is a female, but here kid the real Thor is 'Unworthy'.   Steve Rogers, oh he's Captain America, but he is tied into one huge....long....ongoing WHAT IF Story that seems to never want to end.   You like Spiderman?  Great which one??   If I were a kid today new to Marvel Comics, I would be so confused. 

[Lonzilla]

Marvel has a very long way to go before I'm back buying several titles a month again, Moon Knight is my only one at the moment. The Vision series was exceptional and different, separated from the current Marvel whatever it is they're doing schlock and if they're smart (doubt it) they'll try something as off the wall with another B-lister. It costs the same money as new issues, sometimes less, to grab random 70's Marvels from the back issue bins to read without having to feel like a writer's snide tweets are making it to the pages (Spencer, Latour ahem).

One thing from the article above is spot on, and it's what I've been saying for a while is, that the current crop of Marvel & Image writers like much of the entertainment industry believe that the country as a whole thinks as they do. They can view the November results as a wakeup call or retreat further inside of their isolated bubble. The bottom line is the bottom line and it's apparent that they are alienating more customers than they're winning over, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing such a drastic change of pace

[ygogolak]

21 hours ago, MadGenius said:

The current economics of the industry are such that Marvel can't really afford the true A+ talent, at least when it comes to writers. The BKVs and Ed Brubakers make more on their Image books than they ever could with Marvel.

Sure they could. Nobody is telling Marvel to put out 3,653 books a month. They have gone to a quantity vs. quality strategy.

[Carl Elvis]

28 minutes ago, Lonzilla1 said:

Marvel has a very long way to go before I'm back buying several titles a month again, Moon Knight is my only one at the moment. The Vision series was exceptional and different, separated from the current Marvel whatever it is they're doing schlock and if they're smart (doubt it) they'll try something as off the wall with another B-lister. It costs the same money as new issues, sometimes less, to grab random 70's Marvels from the back issue bins to read without having to feel like a writer's snide tweets are making it to the pages (Spencer, Latour ahem).

One thing from the article above is spot on, and it's what I've been saying for a while is, that the current crop of Marvel & Image writers like much of the entertainment industry believe that the country as a whole thinks as they do. They can view the November results as a wakeup call or retreat further inside of their isolated bubble. The bottom line is the bottom line and it's apparent that they are alienating more customers than they're winning over, otherwise we wouldn't be seeing such a drastic change of pace

Most creatives lean a certain way so that can't really be avoided, but why write about politics at all? That's just lazy and usually boring as hell. 

[starlord86]

19 hours ago, SquareChaos said:

Good points all - Brubaker is not back for sure. Hickman could be though right? He doesn't have an exclusive in the works as far as I know? Millar, I don't really see as a such a loss, but Gillen... yeah, maybe, but really it's Brubaker and Hickman that I think are the best talents out of that list when considering Marvel.

And I don't know that they can fix it. I think the article is awful rosy on DC personally. I'll believe either Big Two is writing character-first stories - not Intellectual Property-first stories - when they can go six to twelve months without a pointless universe wide cross over.

Personally I like Remender the most due to Uncanny X-force and Uncanny Avengers being one of my favorite Marvel Titles.  Also, another thing I failed to mention was the pandering to SJW's that some have already brought up. I take some heat for this at times. Yeah sure in a sense its always been sprinkled throughout some titles over the years but now it is worn on the sleeves of a lot of the books and is front and center. Entertainment, character development and story have unfortunately taken a back seat. 

 

 

 

[Mercury Man]

31 minutes ago, Carl Elvis said:

Most creatives lean a certain way so that can't really be avoided, but why write about politics at all? That's just lazy and usually boring as hell. 

Totally agree.   Aside from being entertained,  I don't like agendas in my entertainment dollar.   These writers feel like their political and social beliefs need to be yours.  I sometimes feel many of these new Marvel writers are now just preachers.  

[SquareChaos]

1 hour ago, starlord86 said:

Personally I like Remender the most due to Uncanny X-force and Uncanny Avengers being one of my favorite Marvel Titles.  Also, another thing I failed to mention was the pandering to SJW's that some have already brought up. I take some heat for this at times. Yeah sure in a sense its always been sprinkled throughout some titles over the years but now it is worn on the sleeves of a lot of the books and is front and center. Entertainment, character development and story have unfortunately taken a back seat. 

 

 

 

Hickman and Remember are my two favorites from the list, but in the Marvel system I think the two I mention are most valuable... As "architects" for lack of a better word. 

[fastballspecial]

I am not sure Marvel can bring the X-men back to any short of relevance anymore. I know understand why Spider-man fans hate Marvel so much. I never thought it would happen to the X-men, but it has. I just think the writers just don't understand the core themes within the X-men anymore.

Its embarrassing to read an X book now. I will never make fun of Spider-man fans again. I am getting the treatment they have been getting for years now.

 

[starlord86]

Anyone think the next event will be good? (I actually laughed out loud typing that) My expectations are sooo low. I obviously hope it knocks my socks off. The only book that I am over the moon about is Unworthy Thor and that's a 5 issue mini series, go figure  We need to buy up as many DC books that we can to help the cause

[Lonzilla]

One of my (many) problems with Marvel over the last 10-20 years, and it's really been overblown in the last few years, is the amount of books per team title, whether it's X-Men or Avengers. Amazing, Uncanny, Astonishing, New, All-New Occupy, yada yada. Hey Zeus, just pick one, stick with it and make it the only focus of the team of characters.

I'm dating myself here but back in the late 1970's when KISS was the ultimate rock supergroup and they did solo albums, only 1 of the 4 was worth listening to (Ace Frehley's, of course) and the analogy could be made with Marvel's "efforts" where instead of doing several X-Men or Avengers team books that are just ok or subpar, they should focus on 1 of each that is amazeballs

[porcupine48]

[Mercury Man]

It is also convenient (and lazy) to have the Cosmic Cube lying around.  I'm pretty sure that is the route they will take. "Oh...our current story arcs, model, and themes suck right now?  Here let's reset it with the Cosmic Cube".  

I would like to see a majority, but not all, of the 'Legacy' characters, get shuffled off back to another Universe, (I am looking at you Miles Morales).  That way they can continue as characters to those that find them interesting, and they can clean up all of these multiple heroes running around. 

[SquareChaos]

7 hours ago, Mercury Man said:

It is also convenient (and lazy) to have the Cosmic Cube lying around.  I'm pretty sure that is the route they will take. "Oh...our current story arcs, model, and themes suck right now?  Here let's reset it with the Cosmic Cube".  

I would like to see a majority, but not all, of the 'Legacy' characters, get shuffled off back to another Universe, (I am looking at you Miles Morales).  That way they can continue as characters to those that find them interesting, and they can clean up all of these multiple heroes running around. 

I would love to see a relative ban against very derivative characters in the Marvel universe. Create some new freaking concepts and characters and work on them until they can stand on their own, or at least can make it so far on their own that they're functional in a team book... then build their own continuity from there. 

There should be an absolute ban on any new 'Spider' anything characters, I don't want to see another one.

[Patriot6]

17 hours ago, fastballspecial27 said:

I am not sure Marvel can bring the X-men back to any short of relevance anymore. I know understand why Spider-man fans hate Marvel so much. I never thought it would happen to the X-men, but it has. I just think the writers just don't understand the core themes within the X-men anymore.

Its embarrassing to read an X book now. I will never make fun of Spider-man fans again. I am getting the treatment they have been getting for years now.

 

X-Men 92' is good.