War Of The Realms Event!

[cranger]

With Strikeforce we learn how Punisher and his crew get the assignment to blowup the black bifrost, we learn where Cap and his crew were and how Thor came back into the fray, and we learn how Venom was captured.

How can you say it is not required? We learn HOW the players got where they are, in WoTR we learn none of that.

Basically we are told that all happens. So it is not required, which I agree with Snoop Dogg about.

My point is that the story lacks excitement because we are given a beginning and end in each of these subplots but nothing else. Maybe that makes the tie-ins important? I don't know about that, really I think the story could just avoid pointing out those things are happening and just give a little more emphasis on the things that are happening here.

[charliehustle415]

Basically we are told that all happens. So it is not required, which I agree with Snoop Dogg about.

My point is that the story lacks excitement because we are given a beginning and end in each of these subplots but nothing else. Maybe that makes the tie-ins important? I don't know about that, really I think the story could just avoid pointing out those things are happening and just give a little more emphasis on the things that are happening here.

I agree, the subplots become the main story and that's why to me Strikeforce is crucial to the overall story, without it you have a skeleton of a barebones story

[JKtheMac]

I agree, the subplots become the main story and that's why to me Strikeforce is crucial to the overall story, without it you have a skeleton of a barebones story

They flesh out things only partially. Most of their key incident is included in the main books so they are absolutely not required reading. A lot of the material is just repeated from a different perspective. There are perhaps three or four things across all of them that add something important, but not so important that they would be needed to follow the plot.

This is becoming very common in event books. At least two or three of the issues will have ‘follow this here’ threads that ultimately don’t really need expansion.

The real question is whether events are worth doing and despite some here suggesting they are not selling well, in the current climate they are selling perfectly adequately and will almost certainly sell well in a trade format because that’s the way these things are drifting. Especially as by now, anyone following Aaron’s Thor long term would have faced the question of whether to follow it in trades by now. That’s the Image effect. A long running story with timely trades doesn’t really penalise you for waiting. If Marvel’s trades were on better quality paper I might have joined them myself.

[JKtheMac]

Basically we are told that all happens. So it is not required, which I agree with Snoop Dogg about.

My point is that the story lacks excitement because we are given a beginning and end in each of these subplots but nothing else. Maybe that makes the tie-ins important? I don't know about that, really I think the story could just avoid pointing out those things are happening and just give a little more emphasis on the things that are happening here.

I generally agree but this is the trade-off. Event books are partially marketing. They are essentially designed to do this. It may be that Marvel’s experiments with 10-12 issue weekly books like the two Avengers ‘events’ may ultimately become the new model, but they presumably need to compare like for like. There is no point looking back a couple of years and comparing sales in a changing market.

I am sure the publishers will be scrutinising how effective a summer event still is compared to their other current strategies. Ultimately this shouldn’t be our concern as consumers but the way events work they expose their strategy to us. We can see their workings. We either choose to buy into them or we don’t.

Look at the Superior Spider-Man tie-in. It self-referentially calls out the problems with event tie-ins because Gwenpool has read them in the past. Everyone knows the issues, but traditionally despite the cynicism they have worked and may still work.

Look also at the hype from those following Venom. Anyone would think the Venom tie-ins would be highly relevant or maybe essential. Instead, they were entirely tangential and as far as I can work out not even particularly essential to the ongoing story in that book. Why bother? Because editorial are keen to tie-in books so that more people might be tempted to read the other titles. Does it work? We can’t really judge. We don’t see enough data to know how effective it is as a strategy.

[JKtheMac]

Some more tie-in thoughts:

Champions #6
This is only really for those reading Champions already, and even then it isn’t very satisfying. Great to see the Disir back, but this issue feels less integrated into the ongoing Champions storyline than the previous issue. We get to see the wider team, and we have some development, but ultimately we end up in a place that seems to slightly contradict the previous exploration of Kamala.

Unbeatable Squirrel Girl #45
Still good fun in a Squirrel Girl kind of way. I find it difficult to critique a book clearly aimed at an entirely different demographic, but it seems to be doing what fans of the series would expect. Plenty of jokes, some of them land with me, and many would presumably land better with a bright pre-teen who is beginning to appreciate how Marvel comics work. Making Ratatoskr a shapeshifting analogue of Loki certainly fleshes out Doreen’s rouges gallery in an interesting manner. Lots of Frost Giant jokes, which brings us to:

Giant-Man #3
I am very confused by this book. The story was interesting enough although a little simple to resolve in the long run. I quite liked the ideas behind the story. The idea of Ice Giants and how Ymir fits into the MU is intriguing but the concepts are not very well developed in a story that seemed to rush to a conclusion. It feels like we spent too long getting here and then suddenly it was all over. It was never clear if this was supposed to be a three-issue introduction to an ongoing, but now the story is over it seems like it was just a themed mini that might have been better served as a Strikeforce single issue.
Even the indicia is odd. Why was this called Giant-Man, and the upcoming trade called War of the Realms: Giant-Man? Surely the latter would have been more honest? Unless they were planning to assess the sales and then spin off from it after a couple of months break. No hint of this in the solicitations though.

Captain Marvel #6
This is very much a tie-in that will probably be a self-contained story. The hint is that this will lead to the defeat of The Enchantress but let’s face it she hasn’t really been cast as a key player in the main event. To Kelly Thompson’s credit this issue was quite fun, and does its job of making me want to catch up with her run. The Enchantress was represented as a worthy opponent, unlike the Disir in the Champions book, and the cameo of Stephen Strange is both fun and actually quite funny.

Tony Stark: Iron Man #12
Another book I am not following, so I have no real context as to why Gail Simone is suddenly writing the tie-in, but I am definitely intrigued. This read surprisingly well, both catching me up with the themes in the ongoing, and providing an interesting foil for Tony in the form of a dragon. The light touch of the dialogue and the sketchy Villainelli artwork both drew me in. A pretty good, if entirely tangential tie-in that will definitely have me reading the next issue.

Asgardians of the galaxy #10
This is notable mostly because it is the last issue of the ongoing. It therefore resolves a few things with Angela’s status-quo and cements the fact that Annabelle is back. The whole series has been somewhat disappointing in my eyes. As often with a final book Bunn signs off, and to me his tone feels just a little bitter, even as he denies his bitterness. I always find Bunn frustrating because he is clearly a good writer with lots of ideas, but they don’t always translate onto the page in an engaging story. Fans of this book will probably enjoy this ending, but clearly there weren’t enough of those.

Superior Spider-Man #7
Perhaps the opposite to Captain Marvel for me, in that I am not particularly intrigued to see what Christos Gage has been doing with this character. The issue is engaging enough, mostly for the Gwenpool commentary on tie-ins which makes me wonder if Gage has a plan to at least elevate this above the standard fare. Using the issue as both an event tie-in and a cameo for other characters, in this case the West Coast Avengers and the Fantastic Four at least answers any questions about what other heroes are up to in the wider universe. I guess that is what tie-ins are supposed to do. Medina’s Frost Giant’s are very well presented, and he clearly has a good eye for a Spider-Man pose. He also makes this Spider-Man look and feel different to Peter.

Venom #15
Well that was totally confusing. Despite the hints that Venom would be important, this issue resolved the tie-in plot in a way that made me wonder whether there was ever a plan to link this ongoing into the event in a meaningful manner. It is still a mystery to me who the Venom character we saw in the main event actually was. This book seems to imply it was never Eddie. Perhaps someone that has been reading Bunn’s Venom ongoing can tell me what I am missing? Overall this felt entirely tangential and I wish I hadn’t bothered. Even the antagonist seemed throwaway by the end.

I have yet to catch up with New Agents of Atlas or JIM because I wasn’t really enjoying them.

[Daniel22]

It seems hard to strike a balance between how important the tie ins should be. Sometimes they get knocked for not being important enough, other times they get knocked for being too important to the story. I like how they were handled here. If you are interested in how a particular sub plot played out, you can check it out. If not, you can skip it.

There's another tough balance to strike because if all the sub plots were included in the main title it would need to be at least nine issues. When the events go over six or so issues people complain about that too.

[JKtheMac]

It seems hard to strike a balance between how important the tie ins should be. Sometimes they get knocked for not being important enough, other times they get knocked for being too important to the story. I like how they were handled here. If you are interested in how a particular sub plot played out, you can check it out. If not, you can skip it.

There's another tough balance to strike because if all the sub plots were included in the main title it would need to be at least nine issues. When the events go over six or so issues people complain about that too.

Indeed. Quite clearly complaints are not the best measure of these things. I can't remember an event that wasn't moaned about constantly from issue to issue or analysed to "prove" how badly it was selling and how events are pointless and or not viable.

The only measure is whether the event gets read and which issues get read. Of course we have no idea of this metric. The only people that have any clear overview of that are Marvel. They clearly tell us over and over that events are some of their most successful stories, and are often read by people who are not weekly Marvel readers. They repeat them over and over, only pausing recently because the retailers seemed convinced they were not a good idea. Yet they are back. What changed? Perhaps the retailers were wrong? Perhaps they were only partly right but didn't have the full picture.

The Calendar is set up to maximise exposure to the events with lapsed readers or the curious. Marvel often use FCBD to highlight events, in a bid to pull people in. How many of us were pulled into Marvel by events? How many were lapsed but drifted back because of the summer headlines or the buzz about an upcoming event?

As for sales. All we see is the relatively narrow snapshot of how well individual issues, and later trades, sell to retailers in the US. In the short run these sales only need to justify the printing costs and part of the writing and artistic investment. Sales of the first issue go a long way to doing that. In the long run the only metric that will matter is the long tail of events. They strive to remain important and act as a road map for the history of Marvel Comics. That will be measured by how well the story sells as a trade in the back catalogue, or how often people read it on subscription services or buy digital copies.

Remember, Marvel will have a much more granular idea of who reads what in digital. They probably know which percentage of their readers dive into Marvel Unlimited reading lists of events. They can tell if new subscribers do this, and which they prefer. They can tell which events tempt long term subscribers to reread them, and they can see which lapsed readers come back and why.

[Digifiend]

Tony Stark: Iron Man #12
Another book I am not following, so I have no real context as to why Gail Simone is suddenly writing the tie-in, but I am definitely intrigued. This read surprisingly well, both catching me up with the themes in the ongoing, and providing an interesting foil for Tony in the form of a dragon. The light touch of the dialogue and the sketchy Villainelli artwork both drew me in. A pretty good, if entirely tangential tie-in that will definitely have me reading the next issue.

Simone wrote it because Slott was well behind schedule. For the same reason, Slott is now co-writing with Jim Zub, who I assume is scripting from Slott's story outlines (incidentally, it's no coincidence the Champions showed up when they did last arc, that's the point Zub joined the book. Apparently Slott had simply forgotten to include Riri before that point).

[JKtheMac]

Simone wrote it because Slott was well behind schedule. For the same reason, Slott is now co-writing with Jim Zub, who I assume is scripting from Slott's story outlines (incidentally, it's no coincidence the Champions showed up when they did last arc, that's the point Zub joined the book. Apparently Slott had simply forgotten to include Riri before that point).

Thanks for the context. Judging by this story alone, Simone seems a pretty good fit for this book from my perspective.

[kilderkin]

Thanks for the context. Judging by this story alone, Simone seems a pretty good fit for this book from my perspective.

There's very little Simone writes I don't find quality

[Daniel22]

There's very little Simone writes I don't find quality

Agreed... I think I've liked every single thing she's written. I'd be super into her writing Odinson when Aaron leaves. Or the Jane Foster book if/when it's time for a new writer.

[JKtheMac]

Agreed... I think I've liked every single thing she's written. I'd be super into her writing Odinson when Aaron leaves. Or the Jane Foster book if/when it's time for a new writer.

Well I would certainly love to see a woman writing Thor for a while. He has almost exclusively been written by men for a very long while. Off the top of my head I can only think of a few shorts in anthologies. However it is the idea of Simone writing Iron Man that I am excited by.

Marvel have struggled to make the Iron Man books resonate with the movies, (note I don’t mean direct synergy here) and yet within a couple of pages Simone produced a comic book Tony that felt far closer to that character without being that character. Or to put it another way, she achieved what Bendis and Marvel at the time only said they wanted to do in significantly less space.

[Digifiend]

God, Kate Bishop can be dumb sometimes. No disguise in a casino in Journey into Mystery #4 (which was out two weeks ago, issue 5 is out today). Wonder Man worries that someone will recognise him, but nope. A henchman shouts "It's Hawkeye, she's an Avenger!". Obviously someone's a fan of the West Coast Avengers reality show!

[XPac]

God, Kate Bishop can be dumb sometimes. No disguise in a casino in Journey into Mystery #4 (which was out two weeks ago, issue 5 is out today). Wonder Man worries that someone will recognise him, but nope. A henchman shouts "It's Hawkeye, she's an Avenger!". Obviously someone's a fan of the West Coast Avengers reality show!

I guess that only seems to work for Clark Kent for some reason.

[Jabare]

Are we gonna talk about the art for this issue?