You all probably remember Kirk's entry last year about what he thought DC was doing wrong. I've always wanted to write a counterpoint to that post where I'd ask, "What Do You Think Marvel is Doing Wrong?", but never had the opportunity nor outlet to do so. The problem with criticizing Marvel lies with the fact that there's not a whole lot that you can actually criticize Marvel for or, at least, not with the same intensity that you could question DC's method. Hit the jump for more.What we must always keep in mind is that Marvel is a business first and foremost and, as a business, it is probably doing as well as anyone could possibly hope to do in the current market. Recent sale numbers indicate an overall decrease in the comic book market, with no single book selling more than one hundred thousand copies, but Marvel still maintains a commanding market share that clocks in just shy of 50% compared to DC's sub-30% share. As the article points out, the economy is in a horrendous shape, and people are buying less of everything, but Marvel is still dominating over DC (and all the other companies) in terms of sales.
Marvel is also doing better than everyone else in public relations, marketing, developing and encouraging new talent, and in editorial control (save for a few mishaps here and there). And while no Marvel movie is probably going to come close to The Dark Knight in terms of sheer ticket sales, Iron Man was a very big commercial and critical hit for the first entry in the franchise and Marvel has more control of the content and release of their movies than DC does, which is odd considering DC is owned by a movie studio.
I may not agree with everything they do in terms of creativity and direction of their titles, but, going back to the point of Marvel being a business, it is obviously working for them. For example, I would love to get to read Nextwave 2 - Strontium Whore of the Atomic Lighthouse Brigade, but I can understand why Marvel has not gone forward with more of the series. Both Ellis and Immonen are high profile talents that command a sizeable paycheque and if the profit is not big enough to warrant publishing the series, it's perfectly logical that a second series should not be brought to bear. Creativity is nice, but it does not pay the rent.
All that said, Marvel isn't perfect either, which brings me to the point of this post - what do you think Marvel is doing wrong? I already have several things in mind, but I still want to hear from you, the readers. This will serve a dual purpose of confirming/denying my thoughts and providing new ideas and point of views that I may have not thought of myself. So, just like Kirk did when he asked what you thought DC was doing wrong last year, I want to hear what you think and will be incorporating reader comments and ideas into my follow up to this post next week.
One thing of note before I let you get to the commenting, as with the What is DC Doing Wrong series Kirk did, please try to keep this as objective as possible. You may hate One More Day or the current direction of the X-titles or wish there was another volume of Nextwave or what have you, but that doesn't mean Marvel is doing something wrong in that regard. That said, there could definitely be cases made against any of those changes, so feel free to provide reasons for your thinking Marvel did something wrong in regards to those, or any, things you list.
So, to ask yet again,
What Do You Think Marvel is Doing Wrong?
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62 comments:
They haven't fired Greg Land yet.
Greg Land should be given the deadline to stop referencing celebrities in his drawings. The man works very fast but he recycles poses so often I get deja vu. He has talent but he basically uses stock footage.
Jeph Loeb needs to be kicked off the Ultimate universe. Ultimatum and Ultimates 3 have all been terrible under him. Near as I can tell he seems to be a great guy to work with and I wouldn't mind him in an editorial position, just not as an active writer.
One More Day was basically like stepping on a land mine for Spider-Man continuity. That's not going to change unfortunately and I hope Marvel can piece humpty dumpty back together gain.
Brian Michael Bendis is one of my favorite writers and he handles several series fantastically like USM or Daredevil, and I've enjoyed the path through the Marvel universe he's made but I find his style of writing doesn't compliment the big summer blockbuster events very well. I'd like to see other writers take on his plots.
Loeb
Land
Bendis' Avengers
Grimdark revisited
OMD/BND
Mini-Marvels cancelled
They killed the real cap off... this is the time that we need him the most.
Secret Invasion
New Avengers
OMD/BMD
Loeb
Cancelling Mini-marvels
Putting Wolverine and Deadpool in too many books
Millar and Hitch's Fantastic 4
Matt Fraction
MIke Carey
Brian Reed
Well, um, people certainly seem to dislike Loeb and Land.
Keep in mind what the post says, you may not agree with certain editorial and creative decisions, but I am more interested in what Marvel is doing wrong that hurts the industry. A case could be said for Land, or Loeb, or whatever creator you think is hurting the industry or the company, but I would want to see something more than just the name.
spartantylr, for example, did more than just list his beefs with Marvel and provided his reasoning behind them.
OK. I agree with spartantylr, so I'll talk about Mini-Marvels. This series was fun and cute; in fact it's much better than Tiny Titans (I prefer DC over marvel, by the way), even though my son likes both. Why did they have to cancel it? Are they going to replace it with other similar series?
Marvel Super Hero Squad is the replacement for Mini Marvels. And yes, it sucks that Mini Marvels is gone, let that be Entry No.1 in the list.
Furthermore, they need to fire Jeph Loeb from writing anything. Ultimatum is so far terrible, Ultimates 3 is a train wreck, Hulk is laughable, especially after Planet Hulk and World War Hulk, and Captain America: White is delayed for... A year, I think...
Next, they need to stop with mini-series filling the gap for a series. I mean at Ghost Rider: the title will last until No.35, then it will go on a short hiatus, but instead the Zadkiel Plot will be resolved in a minis-series Heaven on Fire (or something.) Why don't they just publish it as Ghost Rider 36-41? I bet it's because of a buck extra... The same thing they're gonna do with Iron Fist, after No.27 but they'll put out 5 One-Shots about Immortal Weapons, while the series itself is on a hiatus. Why?
As for the renumbering I'm all for it, I'm against realunches and that's why Ultimatum sucks some more, because now we're gonna have Ultimate Spider-Man Vol.2 or whatever would it be called.
And they need to do something about Wolverine. First he's on 3 teams, and now he's on every Variant Cover. It makes me sick. :/
My biggest problem with Marvel is their lack of detail to the lesser characters. DC has a similar problem, and I can understand why Marvel would push Wolverine and Spider-man with more comics and appearances. These are popular characters that will no doubt sell books. But if they gave in 25% of the hype around their smaller books I'm sure they'd sell better as Marvel knows how to hype a book.
Marvel likes to tease but it either is all for nothing or just not worth the time and effort put into a teaser. That OMD teaser about who could save Spider-man? Had nothing to do with it. All those Secret Invasion teasers with heroes as Skrulls? Only 1 of them actually was a Skrull. If Marvel is going to tease something don't tease us with BS, give us a real image that teases what will really happen.
I'm sure there is more I have to say but for now that's it. I just woke up...
Clucaran said...
Marvel isn´t doing really wrong a lot of thing. But one who pop-up on my mind right now is this:
I really to see more Icon titles. With Vertigo, Dc offers to the comic fans a lot of mature reads, but seems like marvel it´s only interested in kepp some of this stars as happy as possible. I think they could expand the line whitout having it stealing sales for this most succesfull line: the superheroes.
Sorry for my english, my first language is Spanish. i hope mi sintaxis don´t disturbs u a lot.
Saludos desde España.
I agree with Matt. My first reply was: They're making too much money. Jokes aside, they are doing very well. I only read three Marvel titles and maybe 20 DC books a month but I can appreciate how well they're doing. They are very accessible. I picked up my first issue of New Avengers about two months before SI. I tracked the older issues and it completely sucked me in. I was not a fan of SI, but it sold really well and was received better than FC, even if only because it was easier to understand. Marvel films are really popular. Everyone has seen Daredevil or Fantastic Four but no one's seen a Green Lantern or a Flash or a Wonder Woman. Those are three of DC's biggest characters and they don't have a successful movie franchise. I hate to say it but Marvel is just better marketing-wise and is incredibly more reader-friendly than DC. They have a better public image, too. I am not ashamed to pull out an issue of New Avengers in class, but you'll never see me reading Superman in public. :p
Aside from the throwaway continuity Marvel has established where the Universe exists between Big Events, I can't think of anything wrong with Marvel's model right now and even that is a plus, since it makes it that much easier to follow a Marvel book. Most everyone here can only name issues with the story lines or specific creators. I'm not sure that Marvel IS doing anything wrong. Anyone disagree?
@Andrenn.
Hey, those teasers sold books. Marvel is a business first. What sells, sells. And SI sold very well.
What I hated the most recently (and what wasn't mentioned earlier) is the rapidly falling quality of the MAX imprint. At first they were comics with adult content for an adult reader. Now - it's still 18+ content, but the now its target seems to be boys who've just hit puberty. If I recall correctly, comics such as Alias or Marvel Boy were about something more than "Duuuude, Punisher just hung this guy's guts on a tree! This $#!t is awesome!"
@Sebastian: I'm not saying to end teasers, I'm saying do teasers that actually tease the book. that OMD teaser had nothing to do with OMD! Though I guess I could let the SI teasers slide.
I think probably the only systematic problem Marvel is displaying I can think of is the heavy reliance on events. It feels like for most of this decade Marvel continuity has been predicated on universe-spanning large events. While these events certainly drive sales in the short term, it reduces the ability of writers for individual comics to develop their characters and write issues speaking to the characters' defining traits.
The result is that new people have a much harder time getting into comics and the characters because there is a lot of material they have to catch up on just to understand the status quo. For example, if you want to really understand the current status of the Marvel U you at a minimum have to read Secret Invasion, Civil War, and what of Dark Reign has come out. If I'm a new reader who thought the Iron Man movie was cool and I pick up a new issue of Invincible Iron Man, I have no idea what's going on and why he's fighting War Machine. I have to go back last year to the first Invincible Iron Man arc to get a real character defining story.
By forcing all the major characters to be constantly dealing with whatever major event is going on at the time you have much fewer opportunities to really explore the characters themselves. We've seen the difference this can make with the sort of bubble that Captain America has been able to exist in over the past several years, and we've all seen how much worse comics like X-Factor have gotten when forced to have event tie-ins.
Of course, Joe Q has said that they plan to give events a rest for a while after Dark Reign. I hope that's true. It would give their writer stable time to actually write stories about their characters, rather than write their characters into a pre-existing story.
Also, @$^#% Loeb.
One word: commercialisation. Marvel is steadily selling themselves out, advertising-and-money-making-wise, appealing to the lowest common denominator, and turning into the McDonalds of comics companies in the mean-time.
Look at the recent new move to scrap "Mini Marvels" - a fan-favourite project that's full of 'kids humour' but isn't dumbed-down - because it could interfere with the profits of another of their projects. Look at the sheer audacity of the ideas thrown about in FINAL CRISIS compared to the repetition of the same ideas over and over and over in SECRET INVASION & DARK REIGN.
Any writer who enjoys writing Marvel characters and writes stuff which is intelligent and thought-provoking will get chucked out on their ear because Intelligent Thoughts do not sell to 13-year-old virgin nerds. This is why Loeb, Bendis, all of them still have their jobs - they are very, very good at appealing to people who have no idea what a good comic is.
Occasionally, a writer will be using his position to specifically mock Marvel's worst aspects via ironic satire - see Ellis' NEXTWAVE or Millar's recent WOLVERINE arc - but mostly, it's just "Will It Sell?" over "Is It Good?".
(Yes, I am no longer buying any Marvel Comics. I would never have written this post if that were not so.)
I think Marvel is making a mistake with their new pricing policy. Joe Q. constantly claims that they have only raised their prices on their best-selling books (New and Dark Avengers, Hulk, Thor, and I suppose Wolverine Weapon X), but it seems like more than half their solicitations are for $4 comics, when every mini-series and special is priced that way, with a highly inconsistent policy about page numbers. This is one thing that I think DC is doing right - adding extra value for that extra dollar.
This new approach is causing me to not even glance at a lot of mini-series I would probably be buying if they were priced lower. I'm still buying War of Kings, but if both it and WoK: Ascension were priced at $3, I'd be buying them both. This doesn't seem like good business sense....
I think that Marvel is doing a lot of things right, in principle, but it's the execution that gets sloppy. I'm a Daredevil reader first (which effectively insulates me from the occasional nonsense of some events going on in the larger Marvel U), and obviously have few complaints about that title, or at least none that have any particular Marvel flavor to them.
However, I do read quite a few minis, follow the events and generally try to keep up with what's going on, and it's striking how sloppy the continuity gets in many cases. For instance, I was shocked to read Kirk's mention of Spidey in Moments of the Week yesterday. Things like that shouldn't be allowed to happen.
For the Marvel U to really work, there needs to be a lot of consistency in character portrayals and events across any and all affected titles, because readers will know right away when things don't add up. With all the information technology available today, you'd think they'd come up with a way for all writers on staff to keep track of any major developments without having to read every single issue.
I came back to comics as an adult and I find the Marvel U to be very accessible, which is a good thing. But when even someone like myself, with relatively limited knowledge of Marvel history can spot blatant errors in stories, it seems a little lazy. Maybe Marvel's editors need to be more active. Bendis actually remembering his own plots when attempting to reference and revisit them would also help. Secret Invasion, argh.... ;)
I wasn't sure if I could make a case against Marvel in response to my DC post last year, so ended up letting it slide. However, a year really changes things.
While Marvel is still fairly accessible and they continue to dominate sales charts, many of their decisions, while providing short term benefits so far, seem to alienate just as many people as they brought in. The biggest problem I see at Marvel currently is their handling of events.
Event, Event, Event
While many of their previous events over the past decade, probably starting around Disassembled, have built upon each other and had some decent follow ups, it seems the success of these books, culminating wiht Civil War, has gone to Marvel's head and resulted in the events being the sole focus of their line.
This isn't an event fatigue complaint. It's a matter of the stories no longer justifying the need for an event and just having the event for the sake of the summer time event.
Take WWH for example one. Marvel threw out most of the Initiative follow up and put the breaks on Planet Hulk's aftermath just to make the summertime event happen with very little actual build up. Secret Invasion is another mishap. Bendis has even claimed it was an Avengers story only and they expanded the scope of it simply to pigeon hole it into their summer event. This bolsters numbers, but the depth, or lack thereof, of the story showed just how weak the premise of it was as a linewide, 100+ book event. It would have been a much better and well rounded storyline (ie not an event) played out in New Avengers and Mighty Avengers than what it became.
However, making stories into events is not so much a problem if you handle it properly. Instead, Marvel slams all the stories together into an event, ends all development of previous threads, tells the event and then quickly brushes the event away in favour of the next one. Dark Reign is a solid concept, but aside from Osborn in charge and what have you, there's almost no indication that the Skrulls just invaded, took over most of the world for a brief period and had been in control of most of the world's government and defenses for the past few years.
Every event has shown fewer and fewer aftermaths or followups to the previous ones and it's gotten to the point it doesn't even matter what the event is - it's just a money grab - and the quality of their event offerings, while easy to get into and simple concepts to grasp/explain, have dropped significantly. The cosmic events are the only ones that seem to be immune to this as they actually build up and follow through on their stories.
Numbers Don't Lie - That's What Marketing Is For
However, despite the drop in sales of events AND comics in general since Civil War, Marvel will continue to point to numbers as their reasons for continuing with events and the constant linewide changes.
While it's true people want events, probably because they "mean more" than regular stories or offer better payouts/"complete" stories in some people's eyes, we also want the events to have meaning, proper build up and reprecussions that show we didn't just flush money down the drain.
the fact event numbers continue to decline compared to af ew years ago only tells me that people are getting tired of the constant, near 90's-like spamming of event books.
It's Not All Bad
Despite the events, I'm actually fairly content with the rest of Marvel's practices. There are changes in certain books I dislike, such as Spider-Man and the X-titles, but nothign drastic - just things I, personally, dislike.
Do I hate what they did with Spider-Man with OMD? Yes. Do I fault them for doing it? No. JMS had managed to run the titles into the ground with his clone-but-not-a-clone storyline that saw things usch as the retooling of SPider-Man's origin to some mystic totem based nonsense, saw Gwen Stacy cheat on Peter for Norman freaking Osborn and give birth to illegitamite children, added new, unneeded powers to Spider-Man, "killed" Mary Jane to "end" the marriage, brought her back, The Other, Iron Spidey and the list goes on and on until ending JMS's run with the worst story in Spidey history, One More Day.
However, all that said, One More Day was a good thing for Marvel and a smart move. It's like pulling a bandaid off without outright retooling/rebooting the Spider-man franchises. Peter Parker is accessible for new readers, the Spider-Man franchise is a perfect spot for longterm business moves, such as movies, TV and other licensing, and the continuity is no longer a mess.
But that doesn't mean I like the current stories. They obviously aren't aiming at me, as a long time reader, for these stories. I've liked some of what they did and the writers and artists are top notch for the book, but it just feels wrong to me on a fundamental level and prevents me from liking it. Give this to a newer reader adn, bam, Spidey is good again and they can read it and know the Spidey I liked growing up without the past baggage. That is good business practice if you ask me, despite my dislike of the book, and why I can't fault them for One More Day.
Conclusion
Despite the long windedness of the reply (am I ever brief?), I just want to reiterate I think Marvel is in great shape. They still do an excellent job in marketing (Spider-man has been in teh mainstream press and they do amazing work with their non-comic properties, like movies, cartoons and games), being accessible to fans through social media (Twitter has almost every Marvel person; DC none), interviews and the MyCup O'Joe weekly fan interactions, as well as message boards and creator blogs, and their books, outside of events, have been relatively stellar in comparison to some of the mishaps affecting certani DC books (Titan titles, JLA and JSA, Bat-titles with delays and stagnant while waiting for Morrison, etc).
I'm mostly concerned with their 90's-like practices in relations to event driven storytelling when evetns should spring out of stories, such as how DC is handling Green Lantern and expanding the hgih concept Blackest Night. BN's scope allowed it to become an event; it's not being stretched thin to be their event. Mass amounts of variants are also a disturbing trend from the 90's and it's only a matter of time before we see ridiculous chromium or other gimmicks return at the rate they are going with some of these things.
@Anon, Bendis-Bashers
Hmm, I forgot about the imprints. I love Criminal and Kick-Ass and Incognito is shaping up to be pretty good. I wasn't aware that MAX was still around, though. To be fair, I thought the same thing about WildStorm. MAX was a pretty neat idea but it devolved pretty quickly. I loved Alias, which brings me to my next point: Bendis. I don't understand the bashing. His Daredevil run is my all-time favorite run by anyone, and I've read everything the modern classics from Johns, Winick, Milligan, Morrison and Brubaker and the classics, like the original Crisis. Despite SI, the guy can write a great book. I can't wait to pick up his Spider-Woman book with Maleev.
@Anon
Yeah, the prices really suck, but, sadly, I'm still buying the same books as before, if not more. I'm hooked.
@Klep
Doesn't seem that way to me. Civil War, SI, House of M, Initiative, etc can all be summed up in a few sentences. I'm sure that Marvel greatly encourages new readers to pick up those stories as well, but they're no required reading:
House of M: Scarlet Witch rebuilds reality, "No more mutants."
Civil War: SHRA, Iron Man vs. Cap
Initiative: You either work for the government or you're running from it.
SI: Skrulls invade, defeated by Norman Osborn.
Dark Reign: Norman Osborn rules the world.
To quote the Mighty Marvel, "'nuff said"
@Sebastian - I love how Marvel's events are easy to understand and commend them for it / criticized DC for their convuluted events that require 20 minutes to explain (if the other person's eyes dont glaze over).
However, I find their simplicity is starting to carry over to the actual writing and execution of the events. SI was the equivilent of a Michael Bay popcorn movie (Transformers, Bad Boys 2, etc) and the buildup adn followup are severly lacking. It's like Marvel wipes their hands of the event the minute it ends, slaps it in a trade and pats themselves on the back for the sales while quickly rushing to get the next event started.
Previous events had a solid flow and transition to the next event. Currently, I just don't see that same flow anymore, despite liking what they are doing with some titles.
@Kirck. AGREE. After that last one, I dropped most of my Marvel books. I think I'm down to Daredevil, X-Factor, Kick-Ass, Uncanny, Punisher MAX (I just remembered that was a MAX title), and Criminal (whenever it starts again, at least.) All of my Marvel books are the ones that have the least to do with the status quo or continuity except for UXM. That's probably why I'm such a sucker for DC. I love continuity, but they do it right. It's very organic and, despite the reboots, feels somewhat cohesive.
I also agree on FC. It was really fun reading it and waiting month-to-month, a complete surprise. But I almost got an aneurysm reading it back to back.
@Sebastian
There's a difference between knowing what happened and understanding what happened. Sure, you can say what Civil War was about in a sentence or two, but you can't explain what it means for the universe at large in that little space.
While I like Marvel I've kind of migrated and become a bigger fan of Image Comics really, even though I still read Marvel.\
Though despite my 2 complaints, I do still like Marvel.
Kirk, JMS never 'killed' MJ - that was the previous writer, Howard Mackie. What adds the ironic knife-twist to OMD is that one of JMS' most beloved arcs - especially for its skilled writing - is "Until The Stars Turn Cold", where he expressly tore down all of the walls that Mackie had set up and got the two people realistically in love again.
Apparently there were some more posts while I took my lunch to come up with a proper explanation of my viewpoint (which is still practially a post in itself--my apologies), so I'll be repeating some of what was already posted. Again, apologies.
The big problem is that right now Marvel is mostly living on gimmicks and the expanded media. Sooner or later, event fatigue is going to eat them from the inside out. What will they do when the extraordinary becomes ordinary. (That's one reason reducing the mutant population might have been a good thing in retrospect.) It's a gimmick, like all the alternate gold foil 3-D photo covers in the 90's.
We can debate Brand New Day as a whole, but even people who didn't like the Spider-Marriage were rather annoyed by the way it's been done, and now we have to decode what events did and didn't happen, but the very nature of the change disrupts everything. There's also a lack of coordination between the Spider-Writers, so that things in the New Avengers reveal don't match up to what Spidey was telling Johnny Storm in his own title.
My biggest annoyance about BND/OMD outside of how out of character it is, is the treatment of Mary Jane, and of the critics, Joe Q and the Spider-Writers. So far, only Kurt Buseik, who to my best knowledge has never written a Spider-Title professionally, has put forth an anti-Spider-Marriage explanation that wasn't an insult to Mary Jane as a character or telling the pro SM people to "just shut up and go away (oh, and buy Spider-Man and learn how wrong you really are)". Not that I didn't find Buseik's reasoning to have a few flaws, mind you, but it's still better treatment than you'll get from Stern or Marc Reallylonglastname.
And Bendis seems to be working the characters to match his narritive rather than the other way around. That makes characters not acting like themselves. (I'm looking mostly at Doctor Doom and Luke Cage.) Inconsistent portrayals along with all these events (which begs for an almost hyper-consistency between titles) is a trainwreck waiting to happen. They can't even get a grip on just what the SHRA calls for from the superhero community.
Finally, either drop the politics entirely or stop stuffing it in our faces. Civil War was in part (although I'm hoping not entirely) a strike against the Patriot Act, and one of many against George W. Bush. Not only do you lose conservative readers for that and other assaults, wrongly perceived or actually intended, against one particular political wing, but against liberals who are trying to get away from the "real world" and engage in a little escapism. (Goal 1 of fiction, if you ask me. Making a statement should be a secondary function at best.)
Whatever share they may have now, overall sales are still dropping, and the gimmicks aren't going to hold up forever. Soon the games, toys, tv, and movies are going to be all they have left.
Final issue: How about bringing a sense of continuity to Marvel Adventures. Little kids who pick up more than one title can also be confused by, for example, Thor dating Storm in MA Avengers but his secret identity dating another woman in MA Super Heroes. (Also Ant-Man being a new hero in SH and one of the Avengers in that title.) That kind of sends the wrong message: you can be a playa if your a thunder god!
@Salieri - My bad on that part. I was lumping his run in with the Mackie reboot as the worst era, similar to how people include Gathering of Five,FinalChapter and Mackies reboot in with the Clone Saga.
Not to turn this into a JMS / Spidey post, but I actually liked how he wrote Spidey and the relationship when Pete and MJ were together. It was more his concepts and the actual stories he used with the reworking of the origin, constant retcons and what appeared to be a desire to write Dr Strange and magic based stories more than actual Spider-Man ones.
Wow, I certainly opened a can of worms here. I'm going to have a lot of comments to read and use.
The Bendis thing is weird, I still think his best writing is crime writing. Daredevil, Powers, Alias, all just crime fiction with a superhero angle. His avengers books are ok, but not that good. I can't blame Marvel for putting him everywhere since it sells well, but... I'd like to see him do a Luke Cage solo series, or a Punisher run.
I am a committed DC fan. here's why I'm not into Marvel. The storylines are inaccessible. With DC, I can pinpoint and back track easier.
I like the status quo, DC is good with that, with Marvel there are too many changes, so that when something "big" happens, the gravity of it doesn't sink in.
I had a friend who became interested in The Hulk after the Norton movie and was totally baffled and confused by World War Hulk, among other Hulk titles. I am still baffled why The Scorpion is Venom and his symbiote looks nothing like a Scorpion, since it can take any form.
I don't understand their superhero teams. With DC the teams have a couple familiar members. When I see issues of X-Men where the ratio of new members beat old.
I don't like how they solicit comics. DC does a better job of giving info and making teasers for future products or when the next issue will be out.
I don't like how long storylines run in Marvel, they seem to go on for quite some time, making it hard to find a character driven stories.
Loeb is a problem because Marvel should know what a writer's strength is and Loeb is too absurd for the realistic and non-nostalgic Ultimate line.
I will pick up marvel because of word of mouth or if there's a writer or artist I like.
I think it's just a personal preference for me but I like a universe where Heroes are appreciated. I hate picking up a Spider-Man or an X-Man where half the pages are "die mutie scum" or other prejudice parallels. It's too repetitive and weak way of making the character's struggles harder.
Too many mini-series and one-shots on series that already have series "Ghost Boxes", "Initiative Featuring", etc. I put together all my Marvel books from the past month and there are more issues of mini-series and one-shots than ongoings. Just put these stories in the main books. There weren't this many minis back in the day. There was no equivalent for Dark Reign: Elektra. There wasn't a Volcana mini-series that picked up after Secret Wars to show what happened afterwards. Yes, I'm guilty of buying them, but there's just too many and some, yes, I just buy out of obligation to the character. That can only keep going so long.
Tangentially related, bring back Marvel Comics Presents! I enjoyed many of the stories in this most recent series and it just disappeared. I would've enjoyed reading one-off stories in this format instead of $4.00 one-shots and minis. Remember when MCP had the first Spider-Man vs. Wolverine, or the Weapon X storyline, or a Hulk and Wolverine team-up? The biggest problem of the most recent series was that instead of Wolverine or some other well known character anchoring the book for the long story, it was a new character. I picked up Astonishing Tales, but it just wasn't that great. I don't see the appeal of Iron Man 2099 at all.
@Anonymous (the last poster) That's actually Iron Man 2020, but I got confused about it too. As far as I understand, the stories from Astonishing Tales are originally presented in the Marvel Digital Services.
I think the Dangster said most of it very well. Loeb and Land are definitely hindrances but there are creators in both companies that should just leave the business or stick to their strengths. Personally, I'd add Swiercznski from Cable fame to the list but that's here nor there.
I believe Marvel is a hard one to evaluate in terms of what they are doing wrong since as a "business" they are flourishing compared to the other companies in a down economy. What most people need to think of when we are evaluating "what is wrong" is where the stories are going wrong and where improvement could take place.
Well, there have been a lot of good things said here and a lot of not-so-good things said.
Part of the problem is that it's unclear what we say when we ask, "What is Marvel doing wrong?" Are we asking what financial decisions were poor? Are we asking what characters they've "ruined"? Are we asking how accessible their books are to new and old readers? Simply put, all these questions seem appropriate but many goals of Marvel are inconsistent with others, e.g., it's hard to make books terribly accessible to new readers through limited continuity without angering old vets.
Regardless, I'll chime in with my biggest complaint concerning Marvel books, acknowledging that it might not be a bad thing, especially from a sales perspective: events. There are too many and they're too frequent.
I have no problem with events in principle and I've actually liked all the recent Marvel events (with the exception of WWH which I just never got that into), but I'm burnt out. Events are like climactic moments in movies. After the climax, you need to come down - be allowed to rest and recover. Marvel has thrown so many in a row that you're constantly on the edge of your seat.
Obviously, that kind of sounds like a good thing: concern and interest for the world and storylines. In practice, I think it's just too much though, and one backs away and becomes disinterested. If a movie were all climax - all action and main characters dying, etc. - you wouldn't like it. You need the chance to mourn, to sit back and consider, to reflect on the new world. As mentioned by others before, Marvel has not allowed the aftermath of their events to sink in, to let their characters look back at SI or House of M and wonder what went wrong.
In addition, and this has been mentioned briefly by others as well, their events have monopolized all the books. Perhaps it's just me, but think of your favorite runs on books ever, whatever the book. Don't you like lots of little storylines intersecting and running abohut each other, with multiple characters (in addition to your title character of choice)? That's my preference anyway. Excellent examples for me are Simonson's run on Thor and Frank Miller's on Daredevil. There were lots of little things happening, not just one big thing, in which I could invest my interest.
The event monopolizes your attention and pulls down the whole Marvel universe by contracting its huge number of stories to one story. Minor characters in books are generally not big players in events, and that takes away from the appeal of the book in general. Avid comic readers are not just interested in Spider-man: they're interested in Aunt May and MJ and Harry Osborn, etc. I love Thor not just because I love Thor, the character, but because I love Balder, the Warriors Three, Odin, Loki, and Sif. They need a chance to shine as well, and events are not conducive to that when it's all just slam-bang action from the big boys.
Sorry to be so long-winded. In conclusion, I'd just like to say that I love Marvel comics and think their events are generally entertaining, if shallow. I have high hopes for War of Kings, but I do hope we can have a big break after it and Dark Reign are finished.
characters/girlfriends are dead. what gives?
Why are Alicia Masters and Betty Ross dead? Lois Lane and Carol Ferris wouldn't stand for that (bleep).
Alicia Masters is dead? She appeared in a recent issue of Avengers - The Initiative...
The main problem is that the company as a whole has lost sight of its characters and is concentrating all of its focus on plot developments and constantly shifting the status quo. Ever since Avengers Disassembled (which was my first entry into the wider Marvel Universe beyond just Spider-Man and the X-Men) I've stuck with the idea that their overall story plan was acceptable as long as good stories were being told in the meantime. It finally dawned on me after reading the last issue of Secret Invasion that that's not what's happening anymore. The entire event was just a mad dash from plot point A to plot point B, without any nuance or character development at all. It seems Marvel's overall focus has shifted away from telling good stories and has become simply moving the overall story ahead.
I haven't read Final Crisis yet, but from what I've seen and heard about it, that book is chockfull of character moments -- and that's what needs to matter in comics, not the specific endpoint of any given story. The fact that things change so frequently in comics makes that kind of outlook absurd. Who cares if Darkseid "wins" in the DC Universe, or if the Skrulls "win" in the Marvel Universe? We know things will eventually go back to the way they were, so it's silly to make the payoff for an event book be that X happens or Y happens. If these event books would just focus on the characters instead of all this "nothing will ever be the same" garbage, I could ignore the fact that the changes won't last, and I think everyone else would be able to as well. I'd love to not be so cynical about all of this, but the fact is that Marvel keeps proving our negative intuitions right over and over again.
One More Day is another prime example of this phenomenon. On the one hand, I think OMD started out as a good idea – the execution was just extremely misguided. In the Silver Age, readers got new and interesting plots with each issue that didn't usually have much effect on the established status quo. The stories, at their core, weren't about the things that happened to the characters, they were about how the characters reacted to those things. Quesada wanted to recapture the magic of this era, but he was thinking in terms of plot, not character: he thought an unmarried Peter Parker was the answer, and in pursuing that plot point he threw away all of the excellent character development that Peter had undergone in the previous 30 years.
This isn't to say that Marvel is mishandling every single one of its properties. In fact, a lot of the smaller books, the ones with more creative and less editorial control, are fantastic. But personally, I haven't bought a comic book from Marvel since Secret Invasion – I’ve switched entirely to tradewaiting. I simply don't have that "gotta read it now" outlook that used to send me to the comic shop each week to pick up a stack of single issues. Now I have the luxury of finding out how well an entire story plays out before investing my money in it, and it's a lot cheaper too. Marvel would have to really change the way it looks at its characters to get me back as a weekly customer.
Wow...this is what I get for waiting to check this site until tonite. I don't have much to add so I will try to be brief and objective-keeping in mind that Marvel is my preferred universe:
-Event Fatigue from the standpoint that events are driving stories and not the other way around.
-Poor continuity...this used to be a hallmark of Marvel that has fallen by the wayside.
-I hate the cost of the books, but what I really hate are delays or lousy fill-ins/one shots. If I'm paying for "top talent" then I should see top talent EVERY MONTH and ON TIME.
-The question of whether or not there is a "master plan" or is Marvel publishing stuff simply to sell books. For example, many of us Spider-Man fans have stuck around because even though we may not like how we arrived at Brand New Day, there is a sense that a larger story/plan is taking place.
I think some of these complaints are more like irreconcilable differences.
I avoid most of the big events books If I hear their writing is not up to par. The modern comic book reader's lament is often to decide whether to purchase a book that is mediocre, but has a great effect on continuity. I elect not too.
Also I only buy trades. Keeps me months behind everyone else, but I'm years behind DC the way they put out tpbs. The second trade paperback of All Star Superman doesn't come out till next year!
The best comics to me are always writer driven ones and Marvel has Bendis, Brubaker, PAD, Ellis, Millar, Slott, JMS, and anyone else I've forgotten.
Millar got me interested in Fantastic Four, which I hadn't bought in years.
Basically I think Marvel has tight enough writing on their comics that it makes up for most of their flaws.
I even liked the "Brand New Ways to Die" arc in Spider-Man.
Marvel's problem is there slow reseting of books to match movies. They did this with Brand New Day on Spiderman and they got a lot of backlash for it. They realized better to just slip it in quietly. This is what they did with the new Iron Man book, which has completely undone all of the great work done to Iron Man over the last several years. It seems they are on the verge of bringing back Steve Rogers as Captain America as well, which would be a giant mistake as Bucky is a successful replacement.
With Deadpool appearing in a movie he is now pushed all over every title. Everyone is always upset about editorial mandates at DC, but it appears that Marvel is succumbing to the movie industry as well.
This is the mistake that Marvel is making because the movie industry will not allow their comic books to move forward. It will require resets of their comic books, and it will undo years of great stories to start back at ground zero everytime a movie comes out. Does anyone think that when the Avegers movie comes out that a comic book will not shortly follow that will have the very same cast as the movie? Do we really think that an Avengers comic with Hulk, Captain America, and Iron Man will be good and believable considering all that has past between these characters in the comic book continuity? No, but it is coming. Mark my words, it is coming.
TOO.MUCH.WOLVERINE.
1. Too many and too thinly spread out events.
In the recent SI event apart from Black Panther (and Captain Britain, I m told) which are the others that are even worth talking about.
2. No respect for characters.
They are just whoring out the Characters. I mean will anybody with even a little affection of Ultimates pass the script of its v3. It was horrendous and stupid and disappointing to anyone who liked them before. And Hulk (with the blue guy slapping the watcher around. Its sad. I mean who will sustain these books, true fans or whoever buys those Jeph Loeb books ? I have often wondered who are those people, who revel in stories told by Jeph Loeb. Sometime I try to imagine what being them would be like.
Sorry, stupid rant. Colored my argument.
I guess I'm on a losing streak as I think the thing Marvel does most wrong is saying 'we're a business first' to excuse any criticism they might get.
Hoylus, it's a harsh truth. We love comics dearly, and we see collecting and reading them as a labor of love and a hobby. And I am quite sure that the majority of creators does too. But to Marvel (and DC, for that matter), comics is a business. If they can have fun with it, and tell the stories they want to tell, they will. At the end of the day, however, their main goal is to run a successful model and raise a profit.
Well everyone has touched upon major event fatigue, certain good creations sacrificed for big business (New X-Men (academy x), Original New Warriors, Ultimate Spider-Man and most recently Mini Marvels) and the overuse of characters (*cough* Wolvie, Spidey, Norman Osborn*cough*)
I will say that my biggest complaint is a positive business wise: TOO MANY BOOKS. Yep I said it...do we need 10 Avengers related books? 12 X-related books? Man my head whips around from the oversaturation of the market sometimes. With prices the way they are you have to truly pick and choose what to read with a discerning eye.
Now we may all have creators we don't like but if a market is flooded with cwap, it is that much harder to find quality.
Thought provoking article as always guys.
BTW as I type this I have pared down my monthly list from 25 books to 15...I sad...
Just to be clear - I'm not a comics collector. I read comics, but mainly through TPB's I pick up from the library.
If a story or art is good enough, then I'll buy it after reading. This has meant me avoiding wasting money on Countdown (seriously, I couldn't finish it, I mean looking at it became uncomfortable.) and Secret Invasion (which you can read in five minutes. Expressed in sound effects: "ooo, er?, bang, bang, thump, bang, Wha?, Thor, gah, wha?, the end."), but has meant that I've picked up the Walking Dead, Ex Machina, and other more interesting stories.
Is comics one of the only industries where many people will buy no matter what kind of crap is served up to them?
Every time a comic collector blindly buys a title, no matter the quality, because they're a completist - they harm the art of comics.
We are getting the comics we deserve.
Stop killing people's favorite characters for no reason.
Babies are never allowed in the Marvel Universe, DC at the very least let's their characters develop big families and create a wider supporting cast over the years. But Marvel, they can't risk Spider-man having a kid or the kids of today just can't relate. It's a rather silly policy but really when you take a good look, Marvel really does seem Anti-baby. Probably the best example was a certain baby that got absorbed by a certain mutant. I can understand if Marvel really doesn't want to make Spider-man look older but this is just getting ridiculous. The fact that Luke and Jessica got their baby back stuns me in shock and awe as it's a first time thing usually. I admit this isn't a major complaint but...still. It's very annoying.
Lord M says:
I’m currently having the event fatigue, especially because mostly of them ends having things in a almost identical situation ( Marvel and DC alike), I feel that I already read the same argument over and over again.
The over exposition of wolverine its absurd, we know that he sells, but making him appear in 20 or 30 comics the same month shows nothing but a lack of trust in all the other projects or creative teams. Currently, the very best of the marvel histories have no wolverine in them.
The decompressed (write for the trade) style its boring, but very much helpful financially, why say some history in one or two issues when you can sell a six issue miniserie. I actually like most of the Bendis ideas, but I won’t buy books that depicts the very same situation in them, I recently cancelled Mighty Avengers and New Avengers of my buy list and im not interested in buying Dark Avengers.
Marvel needs more Icon comics, if the existent titles are very good why don’t try more creator owned series?
Ultimate spiderman was the only good title of the Ultimate Line, and have to suffer the fixing of the whole line, just because the other two titles were really really bad.
Also I think that the currently works of Loeb are shock value completely, the hulk titles seems like no planet hulk was ever occurred and the ultimatum tastes like a very bad copy of the disassembled “event”.
Oversaturation of certain characters, continuing to let Loeb wreck series because some invalids think it's worth buying, making winter soldier the new captain america (he looked cooler beforehand and you all know it), not putting enough promotion forward for series that really deserve it (captain britain and mi13 especially)
but let's say this: at least Liefeld isn't about ruining shit anymore, the mighty avengers are still okay, Moon knight's never faltered, and X-factor is still the best ongoing marvel series since the 2000s (and amongst captain britain, guardians of the galaxy, nova, ms marvel and more that's saying something)
oh and also taking far too long to start bigging up the inhumans again. Pokaski's secret invasion inhumans could have been the start of an ongoing, not just a small hint of the war of kings to follow.
but then i'm just bitter
I think Loeb should be given his own little piece of the Marvel univers...maybe retro titles. Look at his color titles or his noir batman stuff and superman stuff. He can write. The continuity errors and mis-characterization in the Ultimate line is more a fault of editorial then Joeb IMO.
I think one thing that Marvel is missing badly is a sense of Payoff. I don't hate OMD/BND so much as I think they were just not done well. Nothing wrong with resetting the clock...titles need that from time to time and listen as someone who has 30 plus years of reading Marvel comics I have seen worse reboots. Spidey isn't going anywhere...for all that quit reading in a huff more came back up. There needs though to be a sense of payoff. Norman in charge...fine I can live with that; but there should be long term lasting reprecussions...and let's not do this where he is only in charge for a few months. Bill dies in Civil war...I want to see more reaction. Janet Pym died for pete's sake...that should be a bigger deal then it was. She's no Cap certainly but a big part of the Marvel U. Pay the stories off...they don't have to be HUGE payoffs...but they should be memorable. Avengers Dis-Assembled was an awesome payoff. Bru does great pay offs.
The best writers are at Marvel right now IMO. Editorial needs to see that they are all on the same page and the writers are paired with titles that work for them. I don't EVER want to see Bendis writing any of the cosmic stuff. I don't want Bru writing Fantastic Four. I don't want Millar doing anything but huge ass cinematic stuff.
Make mine marvel for another 30. There are flaws but quite frankly compared to the mess over at the distinguished competition the Marvel U is a perfect boat on sheet of glass waters.
Shane
Saying that Marvel "is a business" is no excuse for polluting comics with endless Big Stupid Events and bad books. DC is just as guilty, especially since they seem to be backsliding into pre-Crisis status quo (of course, I refer to the original Crisis on Infinite Earths which was intended to form a Marvel-style continuity), but I expect better from the House of Ideas.
They do not promote enough the new characters. Most of the characters created the last 15 years didn't even make it to the B-list. Most of them are just redshirts now.
Look at the X-Men. They prefer write another story about Colossus' past or about Iceman who learns to use his full potential for the 3d time instead of wrting something about Prodigy, Lifeguard or Husk.
There is a lack of effort to make them visible. Most of are just wallpaper in the big events except when the writer need to kill somebody (like Proton in Secret Invasion).
I find it sad that 90% of Marvel's iconic characters have been created before the teenage readers were born.
A problem I have seen develop over the last six or seven years is that the direction of superhero comics have changed in that the stories involve superheroes that are less superheroic and more chatty. I like that the stories are more realistic, but I cannot say I am interested in needless exposition. Does anyone really want to read about superheroes sitting around and contemplating their collective navel. I am also not interested in seeing the same scene repeat itself several different comic books, taking up a good chunk of the page count, and amounting to nothing more than padding. It is hard to point to these and say that Marvel is doing something wrong (at least short term) when all the top selling books are full of needless exposition and padding.
However, I think this hurts the industry long tern because the A-List character and books will always be top sellers because people want to read about the Avengers or Spider-Man regardless of how weak the story may be, but not so if its a Ms. Marvel or Black Panther book.
This is Staredcraft, infrequent posted but regular reader.
Personally one thing I feel Marvel has done wrong is abusing the fact they hav "Marvel zombie" fanatical fans who will buy anything PURELY because it's marvel, reguardless of the price/crapiness of stories.
Marvel has shown little to no curtosy to the long time fans and show either completely appeasment to incoming/new readers or are completely quiet in general. Key example being the price increase! They just flat out do it, showing NOW regret in doing it, and have done nothing to make the price ncreases worth it. Why? Because they KNOW people will buy them reguardless and they'll still outsell DC. This also applies to their story telling. They can screw with these caracters and not worry about much backlash because they KNOW the Marvel Zombies will buy things into hit numbers! At least DC knows that, unless they increase the page number of the 3.99 books or something, they'll loose readers. They have to watch their toes.
So, what I'm saying is Marvel has gotten way too comfy with it's fanbase being guaranteed impuls shopers
3.99 books. Thats really crazy. Also, I was going to complain about the constant events, but Dark Reign really isn't an event. Its a status quo, and its been a really fun one. Dark Avengers, Deadpool, Incredible Herc, Secret Warriors, and soon Spidey/X-men are getting into it.
Honestly, I can't say too many things about Marvel. I even enjoy a few BND Spidey stories here and there.
The stories can remain "in continuity" and still be new reader friendly. Remember the the two-fold covers from the late '(0's that gave a brief synopsis on the inside that would serve to bring new readers up to speed? That would be a solution to please both new and long term readers. I think the hollywood class of writers that we have now are either too lazy or they just don't care about continuity.
The refrains, “It sells! It sells! It sells!” and “It sells, so it’s good!” are empty comments. Porn sells. People make money selling it, people can !gasp! even make livings selling and producing the stuff, but you generally won’t find those people boasting about their livelihoods, because they lack respectability.
Many of Marvel’s products now also lack respectability because they don’t work as stories. Whatever reasons people have for buying a given series -- attachments to the characters, appreciation for the artwork overriding disdain for the storytelling, sheer ignorance, etc. -- can’t correct flagrant continuity violations or give stories plots or characterization development that they don’t have. Too many comics buyers now just don’t care whether an issue works as a story. A few “good” panels are apparently enough -- but that’s the psychology underlying consuming porn. They don’t care whether pornographic text or videos actually works as stories or films, as long as a few paragraphs or scenes work as turn-ons.
SRS
Comics today are not collectible and are more likely to be read once and chucked than ever before. This is because there are just to many publishers; too many titles being published; and too many titles published as mini-series or one-shots that should have been part of the regular ongoing title. Also the constant cancellations and reboots of a title just to capitalize on a new number "1" contribute to this problem and ultimately make a series less special. Marvel has gone or will be going back to "legacy" numbering this year on Thor, Incredible Hulk, Daredevil, and Captain America. I hope they stick to it this time and not reboot yet again down the line.
"But to Marvel (and DC, for that matter), comics is a business."
While this is perfectly true, it's by no means the fan's problem, or even something we're really obliged to take into account when complaining about things we don't like.
Everyone has every right to say "this sucks and I hate it" when they actually, you know, hate something and think it sucks.
There's nothing "anti-business" about complaining about a product and letting your opinion known; it only becomes "entitlement" when fans start talking like they're making demands (and even then, the fact that they don't actually have the power to enforce this makes it kind of a non-issue).
Part of the market system is also the consumer's right to share opinions about what's on offer, something a lot of the "hey now, remember it's a business" types tend to forget.
Much like the old canard that gets trotted out whenever someone claims to have been "censored" in an online forum, this sort of thing only becomes even vaguely "socialistic" when you get the government to interfere; otherwise, any pressure any consumer brings to bear upon any company, whether in the form of complaints, boycotts, generation of bad publicity, whatever, is completely and totally fair.
Sorry if this is repeated because I only was able to read about half the comments. I think Marvel is doing wonderfully compared to DC, which is a shame since I was always a DC fan. The only Marvel things I don't like right now are Loeb's writing (I like Land though), cover variants (DC is doing this too), and most of all, selling stupid expensive half-reprint comics that look like real comics.
I grew up reading Marvel comic books. X-Men, Spider-Man, Captain America, these were my hallmarks. Today, however, I've been becoming much more involved with DC. My beef with Marvel has many points.
1. Civil War was one of the most heartbreaking events and was so well done. Seeing all of my childhood icons fighting each other was like two parts of my soul fighting. The ramifications were far reaching. However, Civil War started this precedent with Marvel that in order to get the full story, you would need to buy, literally, 100 issues of comics. Secret Invasion, Dark Reign especially. You can't buy three or four titles without having to buy three or four other titles to understand what's going on. It approached the point of ridiculousness.
2. Secret Invasion was one of the most overhyped, bloated events I've ever witnessed. I tried reading it in it's entirety, but since Marvel doesn't pay much attention to the minor characters, it came across as disjointed and just not pleasant to read.
3. Nothing in Marvel has signifigance any more. They are extremely fast to bring characters back or kill them off, that it doesn't matter anymore. The last time i felt genuine sorrow for a character in the Marvel Universe that passed away was Steve Rogers after the Civil War. Someone even said though, that Marvel may have been too quick to bring Steve back. And before that death, I cannot remember the last time Marvel had a significant death or resurection. When DC brough back Barry Allen as the Flash, I felt genuine wonder when it happened. Barry had been gone for more than 25 years and it was great how he came back and has significance, especially in how Blackest Night is unfolding. I mean, the whole story hasn't unfolded yet, but when Tempest had his heart ripped out, I was shocked and was like, "did that just happen?"
4. Character development has completely fallen by the wayside at Marvel. The characters have become completely predictable or the writing has just been stagnant. I just dropped New Avengers from my pull list because it literally seemed like for 4 issues, the team was on the ground and powerless. Some members who didn't even have super powers were down for the count and it just didn't make any sense. At all. That was one of my final straws with a lot of the Marvel U.
The only titles I still pick up from Marvel are Amazing Spider-Man, Uncanny X-Men and the Fantastic Four. I have been one of the fans who has really enjoyed Matt Fraction's writing on the book (although the Magneto getting his powers back retcon, I will admit, was a little ridic). Spider-Man has made a serious comeback in my mind. The Webheads have really recaptured the essence of Peter Parker and the one storyline per month has been enjoyable. It allows more detail to show without needing to read every single Spider-Man book since BND. FF has been slow a bit for me, but I honestly feel with the new creative team that the book has turned a corner.
DC has recaptured me just because the writing has been so good. Blackest Night has been one of the best company wide crossovers I have read in a long time. The spotlight on some of the minor characters of the DCU without missing a beat has been satisfying and grafifying at the same time. Yeah, the stories might be a little bit more intricate at times, but the way the characters draw me in and make me feel is what wins me over every time.
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