Are most of the hero fights in Marvel due to the Avengers’s influence?

[Iron Maiden]

Currently? A lot of it goes back Mark Millar and Civil War. Even though many here hated it, it was a big seller for Marvel. In the old days, if heroes got to fighting each other, it was usually due to a misunderstanding. Then everyone shook hands and left on friendly terms.

But not with Civil War. Friends turned on each other and people died. Bil Foster was killed by a Thor clone and buried in a ditch since no one bothered to figure out how to get him back to normal size.

Reed and Tony built a gulag in the Negative Zone and tossed former friends and allies in it. Reed and Sue split up over it.

[From The Shadows]

I don't think the poster is talking about playful fighting or the misunderstanding type fighting of the early days but more all the really at each others throats on a personal level and the politics and betrayal that's been most of the stories now. There's quite a difference.

[davew128]

Honestly I think Jonah Jameson gets a lot of blame for it. How many lesser known heroes just starting out would throw down with Spider-Man because of the Bugle's editorials calling him a threat and menace?

[DrNewGod]

It's kinda been a staple of Marvel 616 since inception. Nothing that hasn't been done before

Correct. Lee et al. had a limited number of titles to work with from 1961-1963, and an easy way to promote new characters was to guest star them in each other's titles. But Marvel deliberately chose to do tack hard against DC's tradition of friendly team-ups, by making most of the guest gigs adversarial.

Now a lot of times, "misunderstandings" or "hypnosis" were to blame, but some - like the Hulk's string of dustups with both the Avengers and FF - were organic to the nature of the characters, and a clear distinction from DC's "of course good guys all like each other" approach. Moreover, Don Markham's excellent Toonopedia site suggests that the Hulk was the first time a publisher extensively used a slow-start character as an antagonistic guest star as a means of promoting that character for bigger roles. Marvel apparently made a similar attempt with the early Like Cage, by having JJJ hire him to go after Spiderman.

The difference from today is scale. The purpose back then was to position a character to sell titles on the character's own, or prop up a title. The goal today tends to be to promote an Event that sells a wide array of titles. Such Events require (in the publisher's evident opinion) giant stakes, and shocking outcomes.

[Rosebunse]

Honestly I think Jonah Jameson gets a lot of blame for it. How many lesser known heroes just starting out would throw down with Spider-Man because of the Bugle's editorials calling him a threat and menace?

Thinking back to it, JJJ has done a lot of damage to, well, everyone.

But you know, it is sort of nice when an event has an actual villain and not just a hero turned bad guy. Like WotR has Malekith and the Frost Giants, people we know are just bad.

I mean, I like the AoX going on right now, I do, but Nate being the villain is sort of annoying since it feels like he's not going to last as a villain.

[capandkirby]

I will never, for the life of me, figure out why Marvel continued the hero vs. hero theme past the first Civil War. It's just not sustainable as a business model.

The first time they did it, it had the benefit of shock. The whole 'wow, these guys are going to kill each other'. Much like people used to listen to Howard Stern... because they wanted to hear what shocking thing he would say next. Eventually, though, people become desensitized to it. And after that, and history has shown this time and time again, in all forms of media, shock wears off and what are you left with? Declining sales. As we witnessed. First-hand. The drop in sales between 2016 and 2017 was around 16-17%. In business that is not at all insignificant. That's actually a huge red flag. Especially for a company like Disney, who is Marvel Comics parent company.

Because prior to Civil War there were probably more people buying both the Cap and Iron Man titles, to use a personal example. Afterwards, out of a sense of Marvel cultivated character loyalty in 'side choosing', that number probably declined, rapidly, and you get people only buying one title or the other. I admit that I, a Cap fan, cancel my subscription to Iron Man every time the fans of the character tick me off by generating post after post going after my dude. Whereas Marvel would probably have my extra $4 a month if they didn't keep fanning the embers of Civil War ad nauseum and then fans didn't pick up on it and run away with it, making book discussion toxic.

I wouldn't say 'the Avengers' or the 'X-Men' are responsible for conflict because, both are Marvel properties with no agency to do one thing or the other without divine intervention from their editors. I would say more that Marvel, as a company, misinterpreted why Civil War did well, and then, unfortunately, beat the theme to the ground.

And yes, it looks like the Avengers have been at the heart of it simply for the reason that they are, currently, the most recognizable characters in Marvel's catalog so of course Marvel is going to use them.

The problem is not the Avengers, which are proven to be profitable and actually rather extraordinary as intellectual properties go. The problem was (I use 'was', past-tense, only because Marvel did experience a slight increase in profit in 2018, so they appear to be on a course correction. Maybe. We'll see), well, not interpreting trends correctly and not having a good feel for what will sustain readership long-term and get the fanbase they already have buying more titles a month.

[chamber-music]

I do feel Marvel has sort of over done it recently with these superhero on superhero battles. It feels like they spend almost as much time fighting each other as they do actual villains.

Marvel heroes have always fought each other but as others have pointed out, it was often a misunderstanding or some relatively tame disagreement that was eventually resolved. It was not often as personal or ideologically driven as it has been in recent decades in which heroes have been depicted outright hating each other. People have been killed or hurt because of these heroes disagreements as well which doesn't make any of these heroes look really heroic.

Capandkirby is probably right about it dividing fans and creating a more adversarial fan base.

It also probably doesn't help with creating new notable major villains because they are over shadowed by hero vs hero conflicts.

It seems like Marvel is somewhat course correcting with popular Avengers and X-Men characters who have spent the past decade at each other's throats finally working side by side again.

[Rosebunse]

I want to see how things are after WotR and AoX. Just let everyone be nice to each other for a minute.

[DevilBat66]

Currently? A lot of it goes back Mark Millar and Civil War. Even though many here hated it, it was a big seller for Marvel. In the old days, if heroes got to fighting each other, it was usually due to a misunderstanding. Then everyone shook hands and left on friendly terms.

But not with Civil War. Friends turned on each other and people died. Bil Foster was killed by a Thor clone and buried in a ditch since no one bothered to figure out how to get him back to normal size.

Reed and Tony built a gulag in the Negative Zone and tossed former friends and allies in it. Reed and Sue split up over it.

......and I pretty much lost all interest in the Marvel Heroes after this.
Took a couple years to fully realize it, but, CW pretty much ruined the "heroes" of the MU for me.

[your_name_here]

Inner conflict inspires the best stories.
Civil War was essentially part of Bendis’ run, which was pretty much a far lengthier version of “the team fight, fall apart and has to recover again against a bigger threat” (which became Norman Osborns Dark Reign)
Yes, there were several bad parts of Civil War and characterisation was one of those - but the risk taken made sales boom and out of it came serveral interesting stories and let creators go down avenues they otherwise couldn’t have gone down.

[capandkirby]

Inner conflict inspires the best stories.
Civil War was essentially part of Bendis’ run, which was pretty much a far lengthier version of “the team fight, fall apart and has to recover again against a bigger threat” (which became Norman Osborns Dark Reign)
Yes, there were several bad parts of Civil War and characterisation was one of those - but the risk taken made sales boom and out of it came serveral interesting stories and let creators go down avenues they otherwise couldn’t have gone down.

The problem isn't that they used it to begin with, you are correct, it did sell. The problem is that they continued to use it past the point of the story/theme being financially viable.

Here's your proof:

comichron.jpg

Look at that decline between 2016 and 2017. And what happened in 2017? Civil War 2 ended 2016, the fall-out taking place in early 2017, and then Secret Empire began.

In fact, here is a breakdown of recent Marvel events from a financial perspective, based on the 5th issue of every event:

Marvel-Big-Events.001-1.jpg

As I said. The shock wore off. And now the fanbase is tired.

[Rosebunse]

I am happy that Marvel did decide to hold off on the megaevents for a year. It makes the events coming up feel much more impactful.

[Snoop Dogg]

I am happy that Marvel did decide to hold off on the megaevents for a year. It makes the events coming up feel much more impactful.

i missed linewide events my unit was getting soft

hope wotr is litty

[your_name_here]

I actually don’t think the fanbase is tired of infighting, but more infighting for the SAKE of infighting. Civil War II came out of nowhere and was frankly ridiculously weak on plot. It could be event fatigue (moreso events without proper build up or reward) more than it was what was happening in them.
Civil War set off a chain of events that worked and told a rewarding story when we saw the heroes inevitably bounce back in Siege
Hickmans Avengers almost revolved around the team falling apart, but you could argue it worked as that was the story he was actually wanting to tell.
AvX is meh for me but could be argued it propelled X-Men into a different territory after (Cyclops especially).

I suppose my point is if there is a story there, then it should be told because it’s interesting. I agree it should never be about sheer shock value.

[capandkirby]

I actually don’t think the fanbase is tired of infighting, but more infighting for the SAKE of infighting. Civil War II came out of nowhere and was frankly ridiculously weak on plot. It could be event fatigue (moreso events without proper build up or reward) more than it was what was happening in them.
Civil War set off a chain of events that worked and told a rewarding story when we saw the heroes inevitably bounce back in Siege
Hickmans Avengers almost revolved around the team falling apart, but you could argue it worked as that was the story he was actually wanting to tell.
AvX is meh for me but could be argued it propelled X-Men into a different territory after (Cyclops especially).

I suppose my point is if there is a story there, then it should be told because it’s interesting. I agree it should never be about sheer shock value.

Excellent point. I think you're right about that. How the story is told makes a big difference. Especially if the characters grow from the experience. Definitely not thinking everything should be wine and roses all the time, that wouldn't be realistic and actually arguments can ultimately be productive as a motivating factor, pushing the characters towards a specific goal, if used correctly. They say the opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. So yeah, I agree, it's not necessarily the in-fighting itself that's wrong, but how it has been used recently.