Death of the Inhumans ANNOUNCED

[skyvolt2000]

My favorite comic store owners always give me a heads up if something was awful and not worth buying. Don't blame the comic store owners for the dreck Ike Perlmutter forced Marvel to shovel out there, like attempting to make Inhumans a star property.

So Marvel went to comic book store owners and MADE them order the books?

I would understand if I did not have a choice in the matter but if I am the one ordering books-I am the ONE who decides what gets sold in my store. Not Marvel.

So if I have an issue with the Inhumans-NOT one of their books should be in my store nor should I be crying to Bleedingcool about books not selling nor should I have employees harassing and attacking folks for what they buy or might be interested in.

If an employee got an issue with a book so much that he attacks folks trying to buy it-he BETTER be able to go page by page and point out every single issue with that book. Or be FIRED.

That all falls on ME as the owner. If I got an issue with Inhumans-they are NOT in my store and I WILLFULLY accept the consequences of my choice. If that means lower profits so be it. If it means see all these hated books have better sales outside the comic book store.

That is the consequence of a free market-folks don't have to put up with hostile comic book store now.

[WebLurker]

So Marvel went to comic book store owners and MADE them order the books?

I would understand if I did not have a choice in the matter but if I am the one ordering books-I am the ONE who decides what gets sold in my store. Not Marvel.

So if I have an issue with the Inhumans-NOT one of their books should be in my store nor should I be crying to Bleedingcool about books not selling nor should I have employees harassing and attacking folks for what they buy or might be interested in.

If an employee got an issue with a book so much that he attacks folks trying to buy it-he BETTER be able to go page by page and point out every single issue with that book. Or be FIRED.

That all falls on ME as the owner. If I got an issue with Inhumans-they are NOT in my store and I WILLFULLY accept the consequences of my choice. If that means lower profits so be it. If it means see all these hated books have better sales outside the comic book store.

That is the consequence of a free market-folks don't have to put up with hostile comic book store now.

For the record, I, as a patron, would not buy anything from a store where the employees attacked me for what I bought from them.

[Handsome men don't lose fights]

My favorite comic store owners always give me a heads up if something was awful and not worth buying. Don't blame the comic store owners for the dreck Ike Perlmutter forced Marvel to shovel out there, like attempting to make Inhumans a star property.

Caaaaaaaareful. The only time I ever got a ban in seven years of posting here is when I badmouthed Pearlnutter. Sorry. Typo. Pearlmutter. Corrected.

Not worth it, bringing him up, yeah?

[Iron Fist]

For the record, I, as a patron, would not buy anything from a store where the employees attacked me for what I bought from them.

Which would explain why the resilient Inhumans fans went digital only and abandoned local stores.

But how many potential fans just said "oh okay then" put the Inhumans book down and bought something else?

It'd be delusional to say the entire push failed 100% cuz some bitter forum posters, journalists, podcasters and comic shop owners waged a long campaign against the franchise but it's perfectly reasonable to accept they would have played a big part in it since media promo, word of mouth and forum buzz is how franchises grow now. Take that away and a franchise doesn't grow.

inhumans has been plagued with bad press from all sorts of various media outlets since inhumanity. comic shop owners are always free to voice their opinions of books to their own customer base, but as you say, the trend is widespread.

so unless every one of them banded together to spread false gossip (lofty claim! and i'd expect some evidence presented rather than heavy accusations), it could be that you are speaking of the "universal factor" you say is missing.

sometimes books just don't sell and the audience doesn't click.

all signs that we can point to show both of those factors being in play. otherwise you'd have tons of hype, high-selling titles, etc. and no amount of comic book store sabotage would be able to stop that.

i do not think that was the case with inhuman. they had a small, but steady fanbase that ultimately seemed to not grow despite marvel's efforts to grow the 1 book into a larger franchise. if the audience base isn't growing, but the product is, you have dilution.

But you're proving my point. how can you say a franchise failed to click when you have people at every turn badmouthing the franchise for absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the books?

At some point you've got to own that you can't say something failed while also accepting it's launch was hamstrung by bad press and fan backlash. It's not a fair playing field.

[AcesX1X]

But you're proving my point. how can you say a franchise failed to click when you have people at every turn badmouthing the franchise for absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the books?

At some point you've got to own that you can't say something failed while also accepting it's launch was hamstrung by bad press and fan backlash. It's not a fair playing field.

because you have no evidence that because they were getting 'badmouthed' by store owners, ergo that must be why they failed.

it's an illogical assumption based on (no) evidence.

inhuman certainly had a variety of factors going against it. bad press, for one. that part is easily verifiable.

was it warranted? perhaps in some aspects, perhaps not. it's impossible to say, since terms like 'quality' are highly subjective.

what is known is that marvel could not successfully launch a healthy franchise from their inhuman book. but, as far as i can remember, 'inhuman' sold ok. it had a decent enough audience. not a great pull, but decent enough to remain a monthly with big named talent.

was that audience big enough to justify an expansion from one book to several? i do not know, but judging by sales, it doesn't seem to be the case.

that's not the press fault. and it's not the fault of the lowly comic shop owner who is often forced to buy more titles from marvel than they can afford.

but that's a topic for another time, and not relevant to this discussion.

[Iron Fist]

because you have no evidence that because they were getting 'badmouthed' by store owners, ergo that must be why they failed. it's an illogical assumption based on (no) evidence.

inhuman certainly had a variety of factors going against it. bad press, for one. that part is easily verifiable. was it warranted? perhaps in some aspects, perhaps not. it's impossible to say, since terms like 'quality' are highly subjective.

what is known is that marvel could not successfully launch a healthy franchise from their inhuman book. but, as far as i can remember, 'inhuman' sold ok. it had a decent enough audience. not a great pull, but decent enough to remain a monthly with big named talent.

was that audience big enough to justify an expansion from one book to several? i do not know, but judging by sales, it doesn't seem to be the case.

that's not the press fault. and it's not the fault of the lowly comic shop owner who is often forced to buy more titles from marvel than they can afford. but that's a topic for another time, and not relevant to this discussion.

Multiple people on this forum and other forms of social media all saying the same thing about being steered away from inhumans isn't evidence? the inhumans appreciation thread is full of stories like this.

To keep it on topic, death of seems like another relaunch point to get the Inhumans going again hopefully hoping that now people can't hate on the franchise for the rights situation it might have a fair shot at finding a larger audience. Fingers crossed that is the case.

[AcesX1X]

Multiple people on this forum and other forms of social media all saying the same thing about being steered away from inhumans isn't evidence? the inhumans appreciation thread is full of stories like this.

no. that is not evidence. that's accusation. and speculation. not evidence.

there is a difference. a big difference.

as far as death of inhuman goes, this is marvel's shot to prove that there is a healthy product (inhuman) that has an equally healthy audience ready to put their dollar down to support it.

they may not have gotten that previously, but as they say. if you fall down, get back up and try again. try, try again.

[Ravin' Ray]

Just to bring the sidebar of shop owners to a close, I distinguish between those who voice their personal opinion to their customers about their personal dislike for a title or franchise (which is totally fine); and then those who, with malice, spite Marvel or its executives by persistently dissuading their customers from buying said book, and then treating them like second-class customers when they do buy those comics despite the pressure. Coming from someone whose current assignment in the office is to receive clients who request for analysis in our laboratories, it's bad business form.

[Iron Fist]

Just to bring the sidebar of shop owners to a close, I distinguish between those who voice their personal opinion to their customers about their personal dislike for a title or franchise (which is totally fine); and then those who, with malice, spite Marvel or its executives by persistently dissuading their customers from buying said book, and then treating them like second-class customers when they do buy those comics despite the pressure. Coming from someone whose current assignment in the office is to receive clients who request for analysis in our laboratories, it's bad business form.

It's also counter productive which is amusing why they would do it. If you push people away from buying the Inhumans books, they're still stock you can't sell so you won't make any money. So it's not only petty but self harming, which is why it's so bizarre.

no. that is not evidence. that's accusation. and speculation. not evidence.

there is a difference. a big difference.

as far as death of inhuman goes, this is marvel's shot to prove that there is a healthy product (inhuman) that has an equally healthy audience ready to put their dollar down to support it.

they may not have gotten that previously, but as they say. if you fall down, get back up and try again. try, try again.

An overwhelming amount of stories that corroborate certain points are for sure evidence of a pattern of behaviour.

It's not 1 story, but multiple.

I think the issue we're having now is that Marvel and def some writers at Marvel think the way to endear people to characters is to keep threatening to kill them. The last Inhuman story that didn't involve people trying to kill them was in 2016 right before IVX came out. Since then it's been the same wheel of plot turning over and over with many fake out deats along the way. Granted at the moment it's the most X-Men the Inhumans have ever been, with the constant death threat looming over the species and multiple characters. I just hopes Cates run really outgrows the crappy hater-bait title they gave it.

[AcesX1X]

multiple corroborating accounts are still not evidence. they are accounts that seem to corroborate, but without verification remains in the realm of hearsay. hearsay is not evidence.

as to your last point, if it's got a "hater-bait" title, then maybe that's a good thing? marvel may want those "haters" buying the book to justify a second attempt.

[Coin Biter]

I must admit I think it improbable that any alleged “badmouthing” by store owners would have had much, if any, of an effect. Vision did terribly in sales too, worse even than most Inhuman titles. And yet that was universally critically acclaimed and received excellent word of mouth on forums and the like. Was there some furious campaign by store owners preventing customers from buying those books as well? The disappointing sales for many Inhuman titles wasn’t, in truth, an outlier, considering the obscurity of most of the characters.

When I last visited a comic store, I personally wasn’t faced by a blockade of incensed protestors, and a store owner who was deliberately forcing customers not to part with their hard earned money for 20-odd pages of Inhuman/Nu-human action (inclusive of adverts), or sneering from the corner of his mouth whenever a customer ventured to buy an Uncanny Inhumans book. Given that in any event the only sale indices we have measure pre-orders, and the future of a book is often sealed practically before it hits the shelves, I additionally find that a reason to ponder whether this anecdotal evidence would have much of an effect.

In short, the wicked storeowners’ theory seems a pretty frail hook on which to lay the hat of the Inhumans’ demise.

[Iron Fist]

multiple corroborating accounts are still not evidence. they are accounts that seem to corroborate, but without verification remains in the realm of hearsay. hearsay is not evidence.

as to your last point, if it's got a "hater-bait" title, then maybe that's a good thing? marvel may want those "haters" buying the book to justify a second attempt.

Because witness testimony isn't a thing in the legal system or a form of evidence :P

yeah,it seems to be their play especially Rosenberg's no so subtle "if you love em, read so you find out what happens, if you hate em read so you can see some inhumans die" tweets.
I just wish they'd tell good stories and stop with the extinction breeds sales tactics cuz it doesn't work, they kept doing it with the X-Men and it just made stuff stale. oh the mutants are endangered again, must be new comic book day.

[Handsome men don't lose fights]

But you're proving my point. how can you say a franchise failed to click when you have people at every turn badmouthing the franchise for absolutely nothing to do with the quality of the books?

At some point you've got to own that you can't say something failed while also accepting it's launch was hamstrung by bad press and fan backlash. It's not a fair playing field.

None of the inhumans comics were a failure. They just didn't succeed by the metric that marvel wanted. They had good showings on the New York times, Diamond, and Amazon trade paperback lists, but that's not good enough, I guess. There's a lot more revenue generated if you're moving a lot of individual issues. I don't think store owners have that much influence. They're just merchandise peddlers. Who cares if they don't like something?

[WebLurker]

Just to bring the sidebar of shop owners to a close, I distinguish between those who voice their personal opinion to their customers about their personal dislike for a title or franchise (which is totally fine); and then those who, with malice, spite Marvel or its executives by persistently dissuading their customers from buying said book, and then treating them like second-class customers when they do buy those comics despite the pressure. Coming from someone whose current assignment in the office is to receive clients who request for analysis in our laboratories, it's bad business form.

I would agree with that. I've sometimes chatted a bit with the owner of the store I go to while checking out and while he will sometimes venture an opinion on something, but never in a way that would make the customer feel like they're being attacked for something.

[Child of the Atom]

A desperate last throw of the dice to make these characters happen?...People actually have to care for the comic book characters before you do a ''death of'' storyline, Marvel....