Champions Appreciation 2021

[Tofali]

Would it be fair to say that the Champions team has been detrimental to Kamala’s career in the long run?

What has been detrimental to Kamala is the failure to capture/duplicate the fun and inviting stories that her co-creator GWW was able to weave. Every writer’s attempt to write Kamala seems to pale in comparison

[Frontier]

What has been detrimental to Kamala is the failure to capture/duplicate the fun and inviting stories that her co-creator GWW was able to weave. Every writer’s attempt to write Kamala seems to pale in comparison

Ahmed was okay, I felt, even if it felt like he was trying hard to leave his own impact on the title...and then quickly put everything back in its box.

[Digifiend]

Yeah, the only things from his run that had any impact were her mother forgetting her secret identity, and the existence of the sentient Stormranger nanosuit and Amulet - two characters who've both been impacted by Covid (Stormranger's mini was cancelled and Amulet meeting Miles was delayed by a year).

What has been detrimental to Kamala is the failure to capture/duplicate the fun and inviting stories that her co-creator GWW was able to weave. Every writer’s attempt to write Kamala seems to pale in comparison

Maybe they're limiting their writing pool by only allowing her solo book to be written by Muslims? Anyone can write her if they research the religion, they shouldn't have to be a follower of the faith.

[Triniking1234]

Maybe they're limiting their writing pool by only allowing her solo book to be written by Muslims? Anyone can write her if they research the religion, they shouldn't have to be a follower of the faith.

Honestly. I bet the guy writing that Thing solo isn't Jewish and the writers for Kamala's team books like Waid and Zub weren't of the Muslim-faith either. So let writers just do their thing.

[garazza]

You don't have to be Muslim to writer a Muslim character, or any character that's of a different background than you, you just have to be respectful and not ignorant, which is a high bar for some people.

[Frontier]

Yeah, I mean, obviously coming from the same background as the characters you write is important but I don't think it's an absolute necessity for writing them well.

[Huntsman Spider]

Yeah, the only things from his run that had any impact were her mother forgetting her secret identity, and the existence of the sentient Stormranger nanosuit and Amulet - two characters who've both been impacted by Covid (Stormranger's mini was cancelled and Amulet meeting Miles was delayed by a year).

Maybe they're limiting their writing pool by only allowing her solo book to be written by Muslims? Anyone can write her if they research the religion, they shouldn't have to be a follower of the faith.

And her parents being made to forget her secret identity for "drama points" or something like that was completely unnecessary, at least in my view, since plenty of drama could be mined from Kamala's father coming to terms with his daughter being a superhero, especially when Outlawed happened. That said, I would have liked to see where Stormranger ended up.

You don't have to be Muslim to writer a Muslim character, or any character that's of a different background than you, you just have to be respectful and not ignorant, which is a high bar for some people.

A fair point there.

[super curry max]

So champions is done?

[garazza]

So champions is done?

After issue 10, the book is done, so yes. But I doubt they'll be gone for too long. Young Avengers hasn't had a book in years, but most of those of characters are currently in various books in one form or another.

[Drops Of Venus]

Looks like Champion Reinforcement member Lunella Lafayette, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur will have a new book in 2022, most likely to coincide with her TV show, so there is hope for Ironheart.

Attachment 113266

I love how they announced this just literally the same day after I said there was no new Moon Girl book, LOL. But as you said, this is very likely because of her upcoming animated series, and I'm fully expecting it to be a limited series, judging by how Marvel is doing things these days.

Maybe they're limiting their writing pool by only allowing her solo book to be written by Muslims? Anyone can write her if they research the religion, they shouldn't have to be a follower of the faith.

I don't have an issue with them wanting muslim writers for her, but I do think the downside of that is that this would likely mean her creative team would more likely be smaller, lesser known comics creators (since we don't have a lot of A-list muslim people working in the industry), which could directly impact the book and how it's promoted/received. I feel like we saw that happening with Champions: they were at their peak of success with Waid/Ramos because it actually felt like a big book from a big team, and the book never got the same attention again after they left. The current run was by far the least talked about and least promoted by Marvel, so it's not shocking to see it was the shortest lived one too. You would never see this level of carelessness with a book written by, say, Jonathan Hickman. So getting diverse, authentic voices to tell these stories is very important, but it sadly comes at the cost of some books being pretty much set up to fail by Marvel standards.

[Ichijinijisanji]

I don't have an issue with them wanting muslim writers for her, but I do think the downside of that is that this would likely mean her creative team would more likely be smaller, lesser known comics creators (since we don't have a lot of A-list muslim people working in the industry), which could directly impact the book and how it's promoted/received. I feel like we saw that happening with Champions: they were at their peak of success with Waid/Ramos because it actually felt like a big book from a big team, and the book never got the same attention again after they left. The current run was by far the least talked about and least promoted by Marvel, so it's not shocking to see it was the shortest lived one too. You would never see this level of carelessness with a book written by, say, Jonathan Hickman. So getting diverse, authentic voices to tell these stories is very important, but it sadly comes at the cost of some books being pretty much set up to fail by Marvel standards.

I don't know how much more successful they were under waid wrt sales. Like issue 8 of the current run was at 18k
Issue 8 of waid's run was at 24k

6k sales is significant, but there's a multitude of factors that go into that from the writer notoriety, team make-up (they had tykeclops back then, and him being a prominent character does add some boost), you didn't have covid affecting the sales, you also had the novelty factor (retention of sales over time is most affected by this). The last part, "novelty" is also important. Like if you see waid's run's eventual stable sales past issue 15 (which came down to about 15-20k) that's what all champions runs can expect without a significant overhaul or push or gimmick

The current run had stuff working against it, along with some advantages the waid run didn't have, but it didn't account for a massive change like say 10-20k in sales. The writing and team dynamics were better post waid than with waid.

I feel like covid really hampered the momentum of champions, especially since marvel invested in an event like outlawed, and i really don't feel tey're gonna let it just disappear and in the coming months you'd see a relaunch, maybe attempting to synergize with the Ms Marvel/Ironheart shows.

[Drops Of Venus]

I don't know how much more successful they were under waid wrt sales. Like issue 8 of the current run was at 18k
Issue 8 of waid's run was at 24k

6k sales is significant, but there's a multitude of factors that go into that from the writer notoriety, team make-up (they had tykeclops back then, and him being a prominent character does add some boost), you didn't have covid affecting the sales, you also had the novelty factor (retention of sales over time is most affected by this). The last part, "novelty" is also important. Like if you see waid's run's eventual stable sales past issue 15 (which came down to about 15-20k) that's what all champions runs can expect without a significant overhaul or push or gimmick

The current run had stuff working against it, along with some advantages the waid run didn't have, but it didn't account for a massive change like say 10-20k in sales. The writing and team dynamics were better post waid than with waid.

I feel like covid really hampered the momentum of champions, especially since marvel invested in an event like outlawed, and i really don't feel tey're gonna let it just disappear and in the coming months you'd see a relaunch, maybe attempting to synergize with the Ms Marvel/Ironheart shows.

Well, the fact that Waid's run had more than 10 issues and was allowed to continue for several others even after he left clearly tells us it was doing better than the current run. Like, maybe the difference was not so much in single-issue sales, but there was definitely something there that allowed the book to thrive for longer. Also, I remember the first issue being overshipped like HELL. Didn't it have like 200k sales or something? Marvel was pushing Champions HARD back then, which is not something we can say that's been happening lately.

You're not wrong about COVID, but I think it doesn't come down to just this. Zub's relaunch also lasted for 10 issues and then got cancelled, which means they were not able to recreate that initial hype from Waid's run, even before the pandemic. And Outlawed #1, which was published before the industry shutdown, did not have very impressive numbers for something that was supposed to launch an entire line of books either.

And the characters are definitely not gonna disappear, at least the main ones. They will most likely exist individually still. Not sure about the team, though. After two failed relaunches, I think it's less likely they are getting another chance so soon. I think Marvel will attempt synergy, but I think that will be done through solo books for the MCU characters, or convenient team-up books like Kamala with Monica/Carol, Riri with Shuri/Okoye, so it would thematically fit with their stories in the MCU. The unfortunate truth is that unless the MCU is building up specifically to a Champions team, the odds of synergy guaranteeing a new book for them drop considerably.

[Ichijinijisanji]

current run was definitely doing better than zub's relaunch run, which went down to like 13k sales by issue 8. Even waid's run was hemorr*****g sales despite the initial boost, so it was atleasta sign it was advertised better

[Frontier]

Zub was screwed over by having to take over Waid's run and not relaunching sooner.

[Snoop Dogg]

Zub's run was screwed over by him writing a mediocre 80's Claremont book in a late 2010's comic about teenagers.