Will It Work?

[uebersoldat]

I think a very small demographic of the population is really vocal and it also helps when the people in charge of the X-Men and the EIC are part of that small demographic in the first place. Marvel has an agenda and an axe to grind and so they'll keep going back to pushing that agenda as hard as they can despite pouting about sales publicly and temporarily changing it because they can't stand to even see a picture of Trump in the news. It makes these folks rage and throw fits and that's going to bleed into whatever they are working on regardless of what sells and what doesn't.

I don't see a true change until someone higher up than the EIC changes out the entire department and team. That's probably going to cost a lot of money. If Disney gets the rights back, you might see changes to the status-quo. Not before.

[The Dying Detective]

I think a very small demographic of the population is really vocal and it also helps when the people in charge of the X-Men and the EIC are part of that small demographic in the first place. Marvel has an agenda and an axe to grind and so they'll keep going back to pushing that agenda as hard as they can despite pouting about sales publicly and temporarily changing it because they can't stand to even see a picture of Trump in the news. It makes these folks rage and throw fits and that's going to bleed into whatever they are working on regardless of what sells and what doesn't.

I don't see a true change until someone higher up than the EIC changes out the entire department and team. That's probably going to cost a lot of money. If Disney gets the rights back, you might see changes to the status-quo. Not before.

I am cautious about that I knw there is some truth to the conspiracy but I refrain from jumping to conclusion at every comic centred on their new characters.

[Prof. Warren]

Yeah thanks to Chris Claremont and John Byrne's stellar work on it. And it was precisely that that helped the X-Men become names almost everyone even outside the comic book crowd knows. But what are Unstoppable Wasp and Iceman offering this time that will guarantee success?

That's up to Marvel to figure out and, again, why do you care?

No book is "guaranteed" success. Every publisher takes a chance on every book.

The success or failure of these books impacts Marvel as a publisher, not you as a reader.

Unless it actually bothers you on a personal level that books targeted at young girls or at the LGBTQ community are out there, why worry about their sales?

Marvel will be fine. Their financial future isn't riding on whether these books blow the roof off the sales charts.

If these books achieve modest success through whatever revenue streams they reached readers best previously, I'm sure Marvel will be happy.

And again, regardless of how these books do for Marvel...IT DOESN'T AFFECT YOU.

If there's other books you're enjoying, your enjoyment of them is not diminished in the least because others book are out there that don't interest you.

[The Dying Detective]

That's up to Marvel to figure out and, again, why do you care?

No book is "guaranteed" success. Every publisher takes a chance on every book.

The success or failure of these books impacts Marvel as a publisher, not you as a reader.

Unless it actually bothers you on a personal level that books targeted at young girls or at the LGBTQ community are out there, why worry about their sales?

Marvel will be fine. Their financial future isn't riding on whether these books blow the roof off the sales charts.

If these books achieve modest success through whatever revenue streams they reached readers best previously, I'm sure Marvel will be happy.

And again, regardless of how these books do for Marvel...IT DOESN'T AFFECT YOU.

If there's other books you're enjoying, your enjoyment of them is not diminished in the least because others book are out there that don't interest you.

I only started this discussion only because I wanted to know whether it will work or not out of curiousity.

[Prof. Warren]

I think a very small demographic of the population is really vocal and it also helps when the people in charge of the X-Men and the EIC are part of that small demographic in the first place. Marvel has an agenda and an axe to grind and so they'll keep going back to pushing that agenda as hard as they can despite pouting about sales publicly and temporarily changing it because they can't stand to even see a picture of Trump in the news. It makes these folks rage and throw fits and that's going to bleed into whatever they are working on regardless of what sells and what doesn't.

Or...and here's a mind blower...these books that you believe don't sell actually do have an audience outside the direct market.

It's both sad and hilarious that rather than accept a very simple, uncomplicated truth - that some books do find success outside of the traditional comic shop and Marvel is acting to serve that audience - that some fans would rather believe the completely cockamamie notion that Marvel chooses to publish unsuccessful books for the purpose of both spiting bigots and appeasing an audience that doesn't spend money on their product.

[Kintor]

Marvel will be fine. Their financial future isn't riding on whether these books blow the roof off the sales charts.

You're not seeing the big picture here. Marvel built its reputation on the strength of it's shared universe. Buying something with the Marvel logo used to mean something, thanks to that expectation of quality. These past few years though have shredded Marvel's reputation, stinkers like Wasp and Iceman have devalued the social currency of Marvel as a brand. That's why bringing back these books is bad news, when they fail again it will hurt all remaining Marvel books.

[Prof. Warren]

I only started this discussion only because I wanted to know whether it will work or not out of curiousity.

Even at Marvel, no one knows for sure whether it will work until the books are actually out, right?

And, by the limited sales data we're privy to, these books appeared to fail before, so even after these new volumes come out we still won't know exactly how well they're doing.

In short, I wouldn't let it worry you.

[Skedatz]

Fine if they were modest successes then maybe they can find an audience well assuming that it does happen again.

I think Marvel is hoping the trades found an audience willing to buy floppies.

[Prof. Warren]

You're not seeing the big picture here. Marvel built its reputation on the strength of it's shared universe. Buying something with the Marvel logo used to mean something, thanks to that expectation of quality. These past few years though have shredded Marvel's reputation, stinkers like Wasp and Iceman have devalued the social currency of Marvel as a brand. That's why bringing back these books is bad news, when they fail again it will hurt all remaining Marvel books.

No, they won't.

The only people who feel these books are "destroying the brand" are bigots.

For everyone else, either they're of interest to them and they'll buy them or they're not and they'll simply ignore them.

Neither of these titles are aimed at me. They came and went previously and did not affect my buying in the least.

If they come and go again or if they come and have a longer shelf life this time, neither outcome will affect me.

[Knives]

Hard to say for sure.


At the same time that many say titles like Iceman and Wasp do not sell others with reasonable sales in diamond ranking are canceled like Uncanny Avengers (I loved this comic) so the criteria used by marvel maybe not exactly what readers can imagine.

[Kintor]

No, they won't.

The only people who feel these books are "destroying the brand" are bigots.

Calling Marvel's potential customers 'bigots' over quality control concerns isn't helping sales either. At some point customer service needs to take precedent over ideological purity, otherwise people are just going to take their money elsewhere. These relaunches are another example of Marvel's bad PR. This could've been an opportunity to acknowledge the failure of the original Wasp and Iceman runs, the customer is always right after all. Alas though, Marvel has just ignored the problems and negative headlines, which will really only highlight those same shortcomings even further.

[The Dying Detective]

I think Marvel is hoping the trades found an audience willing to buy floppies.

As long as the pond has enough fish for feed the fisherman.

[Username taken]

I think a very small demographic of the population is really vocal and it also helps when the people in charge of the X-Men and the EIC are part of that small demographic in the first place. Marvel has an agenda and an axe to grind and so they'll keep going back to pushing that agenda as hard as they can despite pouting about sales publicly and temporarily changing it because they can't stand to even see a picture of Trump in the news. It makes these folks rage and throw fits and that's going to bleed into whatever they are working on regardless of what sells and what doesn't.

I don't see a true change until someone higher up than the EIC changes out the entire department and team. That's probably going to cost a lot of money. If Disney gets the rights back, you might see changes to the status-quo. Not before.

I honestly don't want to engage in the political argument again (because everyone these days chalks up everything they disagree to some insidious political agenda) but Disney is a very...left leaning company.

This is the same company that cancelled Roseanne because of a controversial (albeit hateful) tweet.

[Rosebunse]

Wasn't there a pretty long and detailed post on why "diversity" books weren't killing Marvel?

Aaron's Thor was consistently one of the top books and there are dozens of "non-diversity" titles that sunk pretty badly.

[Rosebunse]

I honestly don't want to engage in the political argument again (because everyone these days chalks up everything they disagree to some insidious political agenda) but Disney is a very...left leaning company.

This is the same company that cancelled Roseanne because of a controversial (albeit hateful) tweet.

I can't help but feel like Disney didn't really like Roseanne to begin with. I mean, it wasn't just this one tweet. The woman had been posting weird stuff for years and I assume that she wasn't the most pleasant person to begin with.