Retailer Fury At Marvel NYCC Panel

[Vic Vega]

I consider this to be an absolutely ludicrous notion. Digital sales have always been exponentially lower compared to physical sales. There are reasons for this.

If Marvel wants to "cut the cord" with brick and mortar stores, they should begin developing a distribution center from where they can handle their own orders and sales.

They would have to spend money on advertising the same way everybody else does and work towards getting attention that way.

They have no stomach for all of that.

[Citizen Kane]

Do you not see that the racist, sexist, homophobic retailers are the problem orrrrrrrr??? This is why people don't like going to comic book stores anymore. Trashy people like these.

No, the problem with the industry has always been marketing. In the case of Marvel, you may also be able to add storytelling and art to that list of problems.

[cranger]

And that's no longer an issue. Steve Rogers is back as the one true Captain America and Sam Wilson is Falcon again. We're getting Thor back to the basics. Tony Stark is coming back. Looks like Bruce Banner is too. The original Logan is back as well. Yet somehow the problem is still, and I quote "blacks," "homos" and "freaking females." There are other ways the MCU and comics don't align, yet that was the hill they chose to die on. Wonder why.

There were a lot complaints being made. Those words were just the ones that made good quotes to write an article.

Dumb things to say that certainly do not further the conversation, but far from the only complaints that have been reported to have been made.

[Crimz]

I find the Iceman thing particularly funny because honestly, not many people cared about him before the announcement. But then after you'd think he was as popular as Spider-man, with the amount of people upset about it... I also think it's the same for my thread on Johnny possibly being bi. He doesn't even have enough fans for an appreciation thread, yet many are against it...

Heck, the reveal of his sexuality is the most interesting thing to happen to him in years. He would never have had a solo without it and while it may not be selling well, it would be selling much less if he was still straight.

[Holt]

Dumb things to say that certainly do not further the conversation, but far from the only complaints that have been reported to have been made.

Marvel's absolutely made a ton of mistakes. Hell a good chunk of my recent posts here have been roasting them over the Inhumans debacle. That's not what I was arguing against. I was specifically pointing out that blaming it on minority replacement characters was more or less a dead horse since Marvel is already bringing the originals back. So the fact that people chose to still focus on that says less about business or financial concerns and more about just being a bigot.

I mean, I'm not sure what other interpretation there is of someone using the word "homo" and talking about being enraged by seeing a boy kissing another boy.

I find the Iceman thing particularly funny because honestly, not many people cared about him before the announcement. But then after you'd think he was as popular as Spider-man, with the amount of people upset about it... I also think it's the same for my thread on Johnny possibly being bi. He doesn't even have enough fans for an appreciation thread, yet many are against it...

The quickest way to make a character an A-lister is apparently making any sort of change that could be perceived as "political" by some people.

[Citizen Kane]

I find the Iceman thing particularly funny because honestly, not many people cared about him before the announcement. But then after you'd think he was as popular as Spider-man, with the amount of people upset about it...

Yet the outcry still seems to have an effect on the sales of said title. Not for the better, might I add. Perhaps making his sexual orientation a large facet of his "allure" was a mistake, don't you think?

[Sighphi]

Lowe pointed out that the changing nature of the identities of characters was engrained in Marvel’s history, pointing out examples from James Rhodes to Frog Thor.

Frog Thor....Frog Thor..... really? Is that what you are going to go with? Holy crap, man, you basically said you have nothing.

And didnt Rhodes replace Iron Man by making believe he was the regular Iron man, right? He didnt go around saying, "Im the new black Iron Man, ya'll!"

Marvel would continue to focus on creating characters and stories that reflect “the world outside your window,”

The PR speak here is hilarious.

Stop with your New York City privilege, Lowe. Not everyone lives in a high population city where world trade happens.

[Crimz]

Yet the outcry still seems to have an effect on the sales of said title. Not for the better, might I add. Perhaps making his sexual orientation a large facet of his "allure" was a mistake, don't you think?

The book would probably be much worse off actually, this is more focus than he has had in years. If Marvel released an Iceman solo and he was still straight it would likely do even worse because sadly, many fans never cared about him enough tbh.

[Triniking1234]

is that what you want; things to line up with the movies? because I've heard just as much complaining about movie synergy. I was there for the organic webs debacle.

Hey, man. I'm pretty sure I mentioned the book/movie synergy thing is the retailers' idea. It may or may not work. There's no synergy now and it isn't working so...

And that's no longer an issue. Steve Rogers is back as the one true Captain America and Sam Wilson is Falcon again. We're getting Thor back to the basics. Tony Stark is coming back. Looks like Bruce Banner is too. The original Logan is back as well. Yet somehow the problem is still, and I quote "blacks," "homos" and "freaking females." There are other ways the MCU and comics don't align, yet that was the hill they chose to die on. Wonder why.

It's still an issue because when the teasers for Legacy dropped people were expecting both the originals to be back and the newbies to stick around by the aftermath of Generations and the #1 but that's not what happened. People still have to wait and we have is a re-numbering and some old cancelled books coming back.

[Citizen Kane]

The book would probably be much worse off actually, this is more focus than he has had in years. If Marvel released an Iceman solo and he was still straight it would likely do even worse because sadly, many fans never cared about him enough tbh.

I'm of the belief that with the proper marketing, art, and writing, any character can become a success. What I'm seeing with Iceman is a gimmick that never had any luster, which has led to a downward spiral of the character.

[Holt]

Iceman doesn't sell well because team characters rarely sell very well anyway. You can count the number of X-Men who have successfully been spun off into solo series on one hand. Gambit has multiple failed books despite being straight. Storm had an excellent book by Greg Pak nobody bought, despite her being straight. Nightcrawler was cancelled despite the lead being straight. Rogue's solo book tanked, despite being straight. This is not exclusively related to the X-Men either; recent attempts at trying to spin characters like Scarlet Witch and Vision off didn't pan out either, and that was with the luster of being big MCU characters. The recent Ant-Man books have had a hard time selling, and this is a character with a 500 million dollar hit movie under his belt. Same goes for the recent Guardians of the Galaxy spin-offs. Deadpool's popularity is at an all-time high, and the attempts at trying to launch solo books for the Mercs for Money crashed and burned hilariously. And while Hawkeye finally hit the big time with Matt Fraction, he too has a history of failed solo books. The new Rogue and Gambit book probably won't last long either.

So you can say Iceman is failing because readers are angry that he was changed to gay, but evidence based on the sales history of the X-Men and even other teams like the Avengers strongly suggest that there's not a huge market for spin-off ensemble heroes to begin with.

[Triniking1234]

Frog Thor....Frog Thor..... really? Is that what you are going to go with? Holy crap, man, could basically said you have nothing.

And I'm pretty sure Lowe knows who Thunderstrike is.

[Tazpocalapse]

Yet the outcry still seems to have an effect on the sales of said title. Not for the better, might I add. Perhaps making his sexual orientation a large facet of his "allure" was a mistake, don't you think?

This is his first solo, if i'm not mistaken and really besides Wolverine,DP, and OML most solo x-books are not sales blockbusters. I think it is hard to say if his sexuality and the outcry against it is affecting his series negatively without a similar solo ongoing of his to compare to.

[mugiwara]

I find the Iceman thing particularly funny because honestly, not many people cared about him before the announcement. But then after you'd think he was as popular as Spider-man, with the amount of people upset about it... I also think it's the same for my thread on Johnny possibly being bi. He doesn't even have enough fans for an appreciation thread, yet many are against it...

Heck, the reveal of his sexuality is the most interesting thing to happen to him in years. He would never have had a solo without it and while it may not be selling well, it would be selling much less if he was still straight.

Holy ****, yes. He is one of the blandest X-Men, but now everybody has a strong opinion about him.

[dan12456]

This is why I'm not upset over the death of the retail shops. Outdated shitty model holding the industry back.