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

[Doktor]

2 hours ago, SquareChaos said:

I was a fan of the New 52 for around 18 months, and then it started to go off the rails - I don't recall the exact count, and I don't know what it is now as I don't read any DC books anymore, but I think we had like ... 11? of the 52 books involved in the Bat universe. A lot of different, fringe books were killed for falling under an arbitrary sales line. Phantom Stranger and Dial H were my two favorites, but because they couldn't maintain.. and don't quote me here, I'm going on memory....12,000 sales month after month, they were killed.

How can anyone not think such a system is going to do anything but result in a centric / generic universe full of Batman and Superman books? I just don't understand the thought process. These companies need to have high level strategic planning, but it always looks tactical to me... like they're thinking just over the horizon and no further. They need better people at the helm, people who aren't hired / fired based on a quarter's worth of sales numbers so that they can afford to think strategically.

The thing is, 15 years ago, 12k was about 10k below the cancellation point on even big-2 imprint books. Not even main universe titles. Wildcats Version 3.0 got cancelled with 23k per month sales. 

[SquareChaos]

Just now, Doktor said:

The thing is, 15 years ago, 12k was about 10k below the cancellation point on even big-2 imprint books. Not even main universe titles. Wildcats Version 3.0 got cancelled with 23k per month sales. 

And now they're lucky to see 12,000 on anything that doesn't have the word 'Bat' in the title, I get it... and so should they. Not every book should have the same cut off number, you have to find a way to balance the artistic side with the business side in comics. If you make every title jump through the same hoops in order to stay alive then it seems rationale to think you'll end up with an extremely homogeneous offering of titles... you won't see a great deal of innovation, story telling risks, truly surprising or lasting outcomes, or investment in new characters - the list could go on. 

In my opinion, that last sentence of my previous paragraph pretty well describes where the Big Two have been for twenty... thirty years. We've certainly had great stories in that time, but for the most part we've had a lot of generic rehash that few wanted to read then, and no one really wants to read now. But we do still collect it... nostalgia is a hell of a drug.

 

[aerischan]

2 hours ago, Doktor said:

I think their best bet might be a time reset back to the pre-AvX continuity. Wipe out the Marvel NOW!, All-New Marvel NOW!, All-New All Different Marvel, and All New All Different Marvel NOW! phases and have someone go back, prevent AvX from happening & wipe out all of the legacy garbage that's happened since, including Civil War II, Secret War, etc. Essentially wipe out the past 5-7 years of stories & keep going with the old, legacy-character-free continuity. 

I'm extremely impressed you remember all the various iterations of Marvel's ANAD NOW! branding. 

 

6 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

i know people who loved the Marvel movies, and wanted to try the comics,but said the Cap,Thor and Iron Man were vastly different than the movie versions, so they passed or stop reading the comics. Isn`t also the young crowd that loves the Marvel movie characters, so why did they replace them with the Legacy Heroes?

That might be a bigger blunder than the Spider-Man clone saga of the 1990s.

I think the only way to be optimistic is Marvel/Disney loves money,so they seen the lousy sales,so now they will fix it. 

Lol, I'm from the movie crowd. I guess I'm lucky Black Widow was still Natasha Romanov and actually had some pretty awesome runs by Liu/Acuna, Edmondson/Noto and Waid/Samnee when I started reading. Also, that I started via Marvel Unlimited so I could easily and affordably gorge on Marvel series from decades past. 

Mind, Disney usually offers free trials to Marvel Unlimited via Disney Movie Rewards/Disney Movies Anywhere when you purchase a Blu-ray. I reckon that's what they hope would be the gateway drug or worst-case, even an eventual replacement to printed floppies if ever the direct market goes under. MU is actually a very good starting point if one has a tablet. Read all you can of practically all comics available in digital that were released 6 months ago or older for just $10/mo. Comics as cheap pastime again rather than as manufactured collectibles. They need to get that service into Kindles though, imho. I reckon that's where the heavy reader crowd is, and the Fire is probably the cheapest non-Chinese branded tablet available. Parents are likely more inclined to give their kids $40-80 Kindle Fires than $300+ iPads. Alas, dunno whether Amazon will put up roadblocks given their competing comiXology Unlimited service.

That said, I'm really enjoying DC Rebirth at the moment. Marvel, there's some new stuff of interest but I'm mostly just catching up on older runs.

[Doc McCoy]

On 2/11/2017 at 5:32 PM, Doktor said:

I think X-Men 92 is over though. I read it. It was OK. Too intentionally cheesy & obviously didn't take itself even slightly seriously, which kinda made it feel a little dumb. 

Unfortunately, it's come to an end.

http://www.popmatters.com/review/x-men-92-10-xtreme-satisfaction-from-a-most-xtreme-era/

[Mercury Man]

Marvel either

A) Overestimated the younger generations willingness to buy comics, even one's with 'legacy' characters

B) Doesn't give a about it's core comic buyers, which hasn't really changed much for the last 30 years, and just writes out established characters on a whim, serving their general agenda.   

Numbers don't lie.  Unless it is a #1 issue, Marvel has lost a lot of ground to DC in the sales boards.  Look at Decembers sales:  Totally Awesome Hulk, nobody is buying that book.   Miles Morales is 58th compared to Peter Parker at 22nd.   Sam Wilson Captain America 114th?!?  End it already. 

 

 

[Doktor]

I don't think that having 3 of almost every character is really ideal. There's 2 wasps, 4 or 5 spider-men, like 4 spider-women, 2 Wolverines, Captain Marvel pulling a Wolverine impression circa 2004 where she's on every team, about as many Hulks as usual, 2 thors, 3 Iron people and more. Not to mention that it prevents ANY of these newer characters from stepping out of the shadow of the character that popularized the names in the first place & becoming their own thing with their own following.

[SquareChaos]

1 hour ago, Doktor said:

I don't think that having 3 of almost every character is really ideal. There's 2 wasps, 4 or 5 spider-men, like 4 spider-women, 2 Wolverines, Captain Marvel pulling a Wolverine impression circa 2004 where she's on every team, about as many Hulks as usual, 2 thors, 3 Iron people and more. Not to mention that it prevents ANY of these newer characters from stepping out of the shadow of the character that popularized the names in the first place & becoming their own thing with their own following.

Yes, I touched on this - derivative characters... over and over again.

The publisher thinks they can tap into the popularity of an established character, and it often works... for a little while. But it rarely results in a popular, vibrant character long term. The strategy is typically creatively bankrupt.

[Patriot6]

7 hours ago, Doc McCoy said:

Unfortunately, it's come to an end.

http://www.popmatters.com/review/x-men-92-10-xtreme-satisfaction-from-a-most-xtreme-era/

 I'm really hurt! I wrote a letter for them to keep it going during the reset...F U Marvel.

They take everything good away...

[ComicConnoisseur]

41 minutes ago, SquareChaos said:

Yes, I touched on this - derivative characters... over and over again.

The publisher thinks they can tap into the popularity of an established character, and it often works... for a little while. But it rarely results in a popular, vibrant character long term. The strategy is typically creatively bankrupt.

Exactly,as it dilutes the character. They need original characters, not rip-offs. 

 

[ComicConnoisseur]

2 hours ago, Mercury Man said:

Marvel either

A) Overestimated the younger generations willingness to buy comics, even one's with 'legacy' characters

B) Doesn't give a about it's core comic buyers, which hasn't really changed much for the last 30 years, and just writes out established characters on a whim, serving their general agenda.   

Numbers don't lie.  Unless it is a #1 issue, Marvel has lost a lot of ground to DC in the sales boards.  Look at Decembers sales:  Totally Awesome Hulk, nobody is buying that book.   Miles Morales is 58th compared to Peter Parker at 22nd.   Sam Wilson Captain America 114th?!?  End it already. 

 

 

Marvel is finding out the younger generation is more fickle than its core comic buyers who are more loyal. In other words Marvel ticked off its loyal customers for the new. A real bad business strategy in the long run.

[SquareChaos]

1 hour ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Marvel is finding out the younger generation is more fickle than its core comic buyers who are more loyal. In other words Marvel ticked off its loyal customers for the new. A real bad business strategy in the long run.

To Marvel's defense... we're all gonna die eventually - they need to attract new readers. I think we're all just in agreement that they're going about it the wrong way. Look at the books that have successfully attracted people who identify as non-comic readers... perhaps try to create some books that do some of the same things.

Don't feel a need to do it with characters that already exist, create something new.

[drotto]

Well there is one change or idea to try that would potentially benefit everyone.  Simplify the continuity and reduce the amount of books out there.  I know this may initially sound counter intuitive, but done right it could work.

 

Give each of you main tier A characters a solo book, and each of your main A list teams a core solo book to start.  So Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Spider Man, Avengers, X-Men, etc. Make those core books would be essentially self contained with the occasional old fashioned crossover if you must.  Have a few peripheral books that feed into those main titles.  You can even do a few of the Legacy characters here if you must.  Put top notch creators on those A list titles, and give them enough incentive to stay there for at least 1 years as a team. But really pear things down to 25 to 30 main titles, and no more.  Anything else would be a limited series or one off.

 

The idea behind cutting the number of books so drastically does several things.

1. Easier continuity

2. People with limited funds do not give up because they can not afford everything they want, or feel like they are missing out to the same degree.

3. For the health of the books it would seem better to get you entire line selling more copies, but making fewer books.  These books then are not at risk for cancellation all the time.  You do not have these low hanging books that sell minimal numbers.  Basically, try to sell the same number of overall books but with far few titles.

4. This lowers Marvel's over head but not paying as many creators, and subsidizing low run books.  I know that would be tough on the creators, but would force those working to do their A list work. Again doing less unique print runs is also going to be cheaper.  I know this is a corporate benefit, but readers benefit from a healthy company.

 

 

[Lonzilla]

3 hours ago, ComicConnoisseur said:

Exactly,as it dilutes the character. They need original characters, not rip-offs. 

 

Who was the last new Marvel character to have a successful ongoing series where they were introduced in their own book. By "new" I mean original character. Not a reboot, rename, relaunch, gender swap, race swap, son of whoever, daughter of whoever, spoof of whoever, alternate universe version of whoever. I honestly can't think of one since ROM.

The house of ideas is fresh out of fresh ideas

[Mercury Man]

1 hour ago, Lonzilla1 said:

Who was the last new Marvel character to have a successful ongoing series where they were introduced in their own book. By "new" I mean original character. Not a reboot, rename, relaunch, gender swap, race swap, son of whoever, daughter of whoever, spoof of whoever, alternate universe version of whoever. I honestly can't think of one since ROM.

The house of ideas is fresh out of fresh ideas

Darkhawk....50 issues successful ongoing? 

Edited February 14, 2017 by Mercury Man

[MadGenius]

1 hour ago, Lonzilla1 said:

Who was the last new Marvel character to have a successful ongoing series where they were introduced in their own book. By "new" I mean original character. Not a reboot, rename, relaunch, gender swap, race swap, son of whoever, daughter of whoever, spoof of whoever, alternate universe version of whoever. I honestly can't think of one since ROM.

The house of ideas is fresh out of fresh ideas

Good question, and it depends on the definition of "successful." I think the answer might be Runaways in 2003 and Alias in 2001. Not that either property has been continuously published since inception, but both are popular with fans and are getting multimedia exposure.

I'm not sure this can be done in todays market for two reasons:

1) A $3.99 or $4.99 comic featuring a completely unknown character/concept is a tough sell these days. Retailers won't take a chance on it meaning it would be doomed to cancelation six issues in.

2) Writers and artists don't want to create new characters that Disney/Marvel will ultimately own. Why do that when they can take their great concept to Image or another publisher and own 100% of it? This is the real reason why we're seeing so many derivative characters.

There's a way around this...take a C or D-List established character that already exists and make them better. This is what Grant Morrisson did for DC in the 80s with Animal Man and what Ryan North and Erica Henderson are doing with Squirrel Girl at Marvel right now.

[Lonzilla]

14 minutes ago, Mercury Man said:

Darkhawk....50 issues successful ongoing? 

Ok there's one, I was trying to think 80's and 90's since nothing came to mind from 2000's and up and drew a complete blank. Although Darkhawk is in the C-list of characters, well until he ends up in a GOTG movie.

To reply to MadGenius, Runaways is a good one with a few series which lasted for a bit. I don't know successful Alias was when it came out since it only ran for under 3 years.

Fantomex was a good character, though not introduced in his own book, but it seems like only Remender could write him properly. Outside of that brilliant run on Uncanny X-Force, Fantomex didn't stand out as anyone special which is a shame

[natevegas]

4 hours ago, SquareChaos said:

To Marvel's defense... we're all gonna die eventually - they need to attract new readers. I think we're all just in agreement that they're going about it the wrong way. Look at the books that have successfully attracted people who identify as non-comic readers... perhaps try to create some books that do some of the same things.

Don't feel a need to do it with characters that already exist, create something new.

That really isn't a valid defense considering Cap is still around after 75 plus years.  My grandfather used to read issues when he was a kid and so did my father.  They are both gone now so why is Cap still around?  These characters that have longtime following become brands unto themselves and when you mess / swap and turn off long term fans to try and grab new ones you end up confusing several demographics at once.  If something that is old can't translate well then why do Pepsi, Coke, Mercedes, BMW, GE and on and on use same logos for their brands. 

[SquareChaos]

3 minutes ago, Lonzilla1 said:

Ok there's one, I was trying to think 80's and 90's since nothing came to mind from 2000's and up and drew a complete blank. Although Darkhawk is in the C-list of characters, well until he ends up in a GOTG movie.

To reply to MadGenius, Runaways is a good one with a few series which lasted for a bit. I don't know successful Alias was when it came out since it only ran for under 3 years.

Fantomex was a good character, though not introduced in his own book, but it seems like only Remender could write him properly. Outside of that brilliant run on Uncanny X-Force, Fantomex didn't stand out as anyone special which is a shame

Yet Fantomex is another Weapon X alum and is based off of, if I recall, some Mexican comic book character, so... Yeah, I don't know, Morrison is weird.

[SquareChaos]

1 minute ago, natevegas said:

That really isn't a valid defense considering Cap is still around after 75 plus years.  My grandfather used to read issues when he was a kid and so did my father.  They are both gone now so why is Cap still around?  These characters that have longtime following become brands unto themselves and when you mess / swap and turn off long term fans to try and grab new ones you end up confusing several demographics at once.  If something that is old can't translate well then why do Pepsi, Coke, Mercedes, BMW, GE and on and on use same logos for their brands. 

The only bit I meant to defend is that they're trying something in an attempt to attract new readers - I hope I'm very clear in what I'm not defending them for... hint: it is their generally crappy stories.

[natevegas]

5 minutes ago, SquareChaos said:

The only bit I meant to defend is that they're trying something in an attempt to attract new readers - I hope I'm very clear in what I'm not defending them for... hint: it is their generally crappy stories.

No worries.  Maybe they realize this "experiment" sales wise didn't work out so well now that DC is kicking their collective hind quarters with their Rebirth launch.  I had this discussion a couple weeks ago with friends and my point to them was why can't these legacy fill-ins have their own identity / mantle without leeching onto their original.  For instance Tony Stark (Iron Man) make a suit for Riri and not his suit / name.  What is really bad is X-men last 2 years I've stopped buying and I'm sure I'm not the only one.  I honestly don't think Marvel even knows who / what made the x-men who they are.

Edited February 14, 2017 by natevegas