Are teenagers not reading X-Men as much as they used to?

[LordUltimus]

I'm honestly seeing less and less teenagers reading X-Men nowadays. I know they exist, but among teen Marvel comic readers even the Champions resonates more with them.

Is it just me?

[Kitty&Piotr<3]

Comics are like $5 for 10 seconds of reading. I'm surprised you see teens with floppies at all.

[Rift]

I don't see teenagers reading at all. Kids just like anime and the MCU. But I'd imagine most teenagers would go for newer characters, since they have less history and are more accessible. Characters like Hellion would be very popular with teenagers. But he's not in any books, so I don't see them buying X-books.

EDIT: If you're judging by people going to brick and mortars, then you're probably off. Teenagers would be far more likely to buy issues digitally, which would be much more accessible and familiar for them.

[Saithor]

The current status quo is also way too tied into all of the X-history which stretches back six frigging decades. There's no real New Mutants/Academy X/etc. to act as a good jumping on point to ease them in, nor is there really a central X-book team resembling the X-men media they are probably the most familiar with (The movies). Maybe once the MCU hits and how things work revolving around that you might see more younger people pick it up, until then, yeah it's going to be more things like Champions and so on.

[Micabe]

Not to mention walk-in comic shops are all but obsolete... Then there's the Playstation, Xbox, and Smartphones.

[LordUltimus]

I'm not seeing too many teens talking about them online either; usually it's older X-fans.

[The Kid]

I don't seen teens talk about comics in general tbh but I'm not the person to ask about this

[Saithor]

My sister does read some, but it’s mostly stuff she discovered first in an adaption , like Umbrella Academy.

[brandnewfan]

Comics are like $5 for 10 seconds of reading. I'm surprised you see teens with floppies at all.

This is it.

Comes are too expensive. And teens as a fanbase for comics just aren't that big anymore. The readers are mostly adults.

[Sylarmax]

teenagers do read but not comics but MANGA.


For teenagers and young audiences Manga / anime >>>>>> comics.



And with a huge margin of difference, the data is there, and it is irrefutable.


If it weren't for the MCU and Disney + and Marvel I'd be dead, and no extracts the mutant comcis nowadays are horrible.

[ChronoRogue]

Western comics are just not a consumer-friendly medium atm. Too expensive, too short, and keeping up with the stories on a weekly basis requires a lot of space if you are a collector.

It's no wonder Manga overtook it among younger audiences, as it addresses most of the above.

[jwatson]

The problem is the comic shops and access. Can anyone pull up a quick google of the location of comic shops in comparison to things like transportation, schools, easily walk able system, the non reliance of a parent having to take them and then like why would a teen want to go hang out a comic shop with a bunch of 40 and 50 year olds at the comic shop unless they had a group of friends themselves to go with. It's not a simple matter as the question is stating. Are comic shops and comic creators really reaching out to teens? I don't see how they can be if their whole mentality is always back to basics and the basics were 80 years ago.

This industry assumes modern teens want to read what the old industry thought was popular while the old guard fences out new material and change.

[jwatson]

The payment system is also a problem too. Like at some point some merchants need to eat the merchant fee. How many teens in 2022 are walking around with cash. Example i went into a comic shop and bought two comics because i wanted the physical copies for the art, when i went to the counter i was going to use debit and was told in order to use that it was a 10 dollar minimum so i left because for me it was like i literally already own these online and only wanted physical copies but i digress. Most teens have debit cards etc and as stated before finite funds so what are the odds a kid who saw one comic and rushed in to buy it like the days of yore may change their mind if their told they need to buy two more. Or are we expecting teens to stop by the atm before going to comic shops too.

[Wiccan]

I think there's a lot of teenage readers on twitter.

Thing is, they pirate it. Especially if they're not from the US.

[jwatson]

Though you did make me think of a good example. Like those wasteland books, who are those for? Like i'm in my thirites and i don't want to read about a bunch of 80 year old heros i know nothing about. Those books are obviously not for new readers and are for the gatekeepers. Also to what Kingdom mentioned when it comes to the gatekeepers imo it seems like they try to create AU universes to keep the young guard out too. You can have whatever story you want in the Ultimate U as long as you don't touch my peter parker who i still see as my teen spider. Then there is the who is the real one, if i grew up on ultimate and you did 616 then which is the real spiderman? Well in this case the 1610 like most aus were absorbed into the MU after seeing what "sold" and then everything else was destroyed. So who exactly are these comics being marketed to.