Will It Work?

[The Dying Detective]

In light of Marvel's new editor in chief C.B. Cebulski's revelation to diversify their line in spite of their Fresh Start which promised a back to basics approach. (Which was supposed to be the point of their Legacy initiative) Will it work when they brought back the same writers whose series failed and got canned after a while?

[KurtW95]

Absolutely not. It’s insanity.

[MarvelMaster616]

If done right, I think it can work. Doing it right means a lot of things though and Marvel has had more misses than hits in that field lately. But I can understand them wanting to keep trying. The world is becoming more diverse. As a business, it's a good idea to appeal to as many people as you can. That's what they're trying, but it has been a challenge to say the least. But it's a challenge I think they'll be able to overcome in time.

[responsarbre]

Many other people have also been saying this, but Marvel is absolutely a business and does everything based on financial decisions. As much as some of us would love for Marvel to be making more decisions based solely on the desire to deliver the stories that we personally want, they don't strictly do that. They publish what sells. Marvel is always a business and they don't keep things alive out of the goodness of their hearts, as editorial has emphasized over and over again in interviews. Moreover, when they launch a risky series based on fan demand, they'll often put the impetus on fans to support a book and get the word out instead of actually trying to promote it. Brevoort and editorial say this all the time. We know that they care about sales because, well, look at all these series they cancelled so quickly because of sales!

In recent memory Marvel has had a few titles not make it double digits or just barely.
Solo - 5 issues
Black Knight - 5
Red Wolf - 6
Slapstick - 6
Howling Commandos of SHIELD - 6
Morbius - 9
Ghost Rider(Alejandra) - 9 issues
Deathlok - 10 issues
Storm - 11
Jean Grey - 11
Iceman - 11
Elektra - 11 then 5 (tried to then say it was always a planned mini)
Hercules(Herc) - 11

That's not even an exhaustive list of all the recent titles that got that treatment: Mockingbird, Wasp, Luke Cage, all got the same treatment recently.
If Marvel lived in this world you make them out to live in where they keep more series alive based on anything besides financial considerations, they wouldn't act like this. Hell, even if synergy considerations were their primary concern, they wouldn't act like this. They cancelled Luke Cage even though his second season on Netflix is out this month.

For Marvel to actually revive two series that got the chopping block, it's obvious that they have a second life in trades that they didn't realize when they made publishing decisions based off of earlier data. And this isn't farfetched. Marvel's two other all-ages titles, Moon Girl and Squirrel Girl, have lasted an extraordinarily long time even compared to their big sellers. Why? They do great in trade, and in markets outside of comic shops. Bookstores, Scholastic book orders and fairs, kid's libraries. We can easily infer this from Marvel's actions because they specifically commissioned North and Henderson to do an extra Squirrel GN alongside the Squirrel Girl single issues just so that Marvel would have another collected edition to sell. They don't do that for low-selling books. They don't do that very many books at all. Unstoppable Wasp was in the same all-ages market as those other two titles, and it makes sense for Marvel to keep selling it.

We also see this for other books. Ms. Marvel has enormous trade sales: in 2015 they were at a solid 25,000 for the first volume alone and have probably only grown by thousands more since then. Captain Marvel outsells big titles like Daredevil and Captain America in trade, and there's obviously a desire to keep on creating new collected editions for the guaranteed sales from interested movie fans (hence the Brian Reed reprints and the new origin retelling). The desire to keep the trademark isn't the only thing keeping that title afloat.

Iceman likely got a second wind in trade. I heard that it cracked the top 100 LGBT books on Amazon (where it certainly has a lot more engagement with reviews and the like than "top sellers" like X-Men Gold).

[The Dying Detective]

So why not aim for Scholastic not the direct market which is suicide for these titles. Particularly Unstoppable Wasp.

[Username taken]

So why not aim for Scholastic not the direct market which is suicide for these titles. Particularly Unstoppable Wasp.

Additional money i guess.

[Raye]

So why not aim for Scholastic not the direct market which is suicide for these titles. Particularly Unstoppable Wasp.

Who says they aren't? Just because you primarily aim a book at one market doesn't mean you can't release it in additional markets as well. There is no harm in releasing across different markets when available even if it under performs in one. I mean the book is done, printed, there is no harm in throwing it in the direct market even if it makes the majority of its money in Scholastic sales or digital or trades or whatever.

[The Dying Detective]

Who says they aren't? Just because you primarily aim a book at one market doesn't mean you can't release it in additional markets as well. There is no harm in releasing across different markets when available even if it under performs in one. I mean the book is done, printed, there is no harm in throwing it in the direct market even if it makes the majority of its money in Scholastic sales or digital or trades or whatever.

Yeah but if they fail to play their cards right and release it wrongly then these titles have to say goodbye again.

[MajorHoy]

In light of Marvel's new editor in chief C.B. Cebulski's revelation to diversify their line in spite of their Fresh Start which promised a back to basics approach. (Which was supposed to be the point of their Legacy initiative) Will it work when they brought back the same writers whose series failed and got canned after a while?

It depends on how much any editorial interference / mandates may have impacted those previously published comic books that didn't catch on. It could be the writers were told they couldn't do certain things so that's why stories / sales were lackluster.

[Skedatz]

Yeah but if they fail to play their cards right and release it wrongly then these titles have to say goodbye again.

You give the DM a lot more power than I think it really deserves. If this were around the year 1999, I'd say the DM was all that mattered, but anymore that's not really the case.

[Raye]

Yeah but if they fail to play their cards right and release it wrongly then these titles have to say goodbye again.

What do you mean by wrongly?

I mean the same goes for ANY book, doesn't it? Every new book or relaunch is a gamble to an extent. Some books have better chances than others, your Batman and Spider-Man, sure, but it's still always a roll of the dice, any book can fail.

Books being cancelled or not depends on the money they bring in, from all sources, not on their Diamond ranking. Its foolish to close off revenue streams for a book, even if the revenue from one is a trickle, it still all adds up. It's just that the ones being brought back apparently got cancelled before Marvel realized they did well in trade, so they are bringing them back because of the trade sales. If it continues to do well in trade, or book fairs or whatever, they will earn their keep, even if they scrape the bottom of the Diamond charts.

[anyajenkins]

Marvel's bringing back most of the 'big' names and keeping around the legacy and/or diverse characters who sell relatively 'well.'

Also, marvel doesn't get to decide if Scholastic will put a book in their book fairs, they don't have much control there. Scholastic decides what they will sell and those have to be all-ages, really all ages. Because those book fairs get set up right in the middle of elementary school libraries.

[Prof. Warren]

In light of Marvel's new editor in chief C.B. Cebulski's revelation to diversify their line in spite of their Fresh Start which promised a back to basics approach. (Which was supposed to be the point of their Legacy initiative) Will it work when they brought back the same writers whose series failed and got canned after a while?

Series get cancelled all the time. And later revived.

It's a safe bet that no one who's crying about Iceman or Unstoppable Wasp getting another shot will utter a peep when other characters like Iron Fist or Luke Cage inevitably get new series of their own.

People who are just upset that books that aren't aimed at them and that are aimed at demographics they feel irrationally threatened by continue to have a place in Marvel's publishing line should just get over it. They should also come to terms with how little they know about Marvel's finances and the actual inner workings of publishing.

Clearly there was enough support for Wasp and Iceman for Marvel to believe it was worth bringing them back. As it's their money, obviously they feel it's a sound move and that there is an audience out there for those books - regardless of whether it's in the direct market or not.

And putting those titles out in no way interferes with having the vast majority of their line be more "back to basics."

The fact that Unstoppable Wasp is on the shelves for anyone who wants it isn't keeping anyone from getting their Fantastic Four, or Spider-Man or Hulk fix.

[The Dying Detective]

It depends on how much any editorial interference / mandates may have impacted those previously published comic books that didn't catch on. It could be the writers were told they couldn't do certain things so that's why stories / sales were lackluster.

But the thing is during the start of Cebulski's tenure as editor in chief Unstoppable Wasp and Iceman got canned and then he decides to send them out again these had been doing well then why can them in the first place?

You give the DM a lot more power than I think it really deserves. If this were around the year 1999, I'd say the DM was all that mattered, but anymore that's not really the case.

I'm not even saying the direct market has that much power I only question how well it will really work when these two series got canned in the first place.

[Username taken]

Series get cancelled all the time. And later revived.

It's a safe bet that no one who's crying about Iceman or Unstoppable Wasp getting another shot will utter a peep when other characters like Iron Fist or Luke Cage inevitably get new series of their own.

People who are just upset that books that aren't aimed at them and that are aimed at demographics they feel irrationally threatened by continue to have a place in Marvel's publishing line should just get over it. They should also come to terms with how little they know about Marvel's finances and the actual inner workings of publishing.

Clearly there was enough support for Wasp and Iceman for Marvel to believe it was worth bringing them back. As it's their money, obviously they feel it's a sound move and that there is an audience out there for those books - regardless of whether it's in the direct market or not.

And putting those titles out in no way interferes with having the vast majority of their line be more "back to basics."

The fact that Unstoppable Wasp is on the shelves for anyone who wants it isn't keeping anyone from getting their Fantastic Four, or Spider-Man or Hulk fix.

Quoted for the purest of truths.

Unstoppable Wasp or Iceman being published does not affect my investing in Spider-man, Thor and/or Fantastic Four.

Anyone that doesn't like these books should simply ignore them. Complaining that Marvel (or any publisher) should not publish books that don't cater every individual's taste doesn't make any sense.