What can pull Marvel comics out of this mess?

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I think it is not possible to make healthy inferences about the current state of Marvel comics by just looking at what kind of political agendas are pursued, not that I think there is a matter of that. So that is not the real substance here and I am willing to put that subject aside. From my perspective, I do not think there is a lack of good runs or storylines either. However when you look at the current line of comics, it seems that there is no drive or a destination, it feels like the group editors do not even try to come up with a vision or ideas anymore. We used to have periods like Dark Reign or The Heroic Age in the past.

And until the last two or three years, there used to be at least several creator team runs that had the potential to tell some big stories, line-wide events. To the point that at times, some of them gave the feeling that they are dragging on cause they are on the queue for the next big summer event, like the example of Aaron's Thor until the War of the Realms. Devil's Reign had spawned out from Zdarsky's Daredevil, King in Black from Cates' Venom, Secret Empire from Spencer's Captain America. Nowadays, I feel like only Kieron Gillen is writing his stories with this intention/ambition in mind. Most of the writers seem happy with playing on their corner without have to deal with the continuity. I honestly think that the editors should not be okay with this all the time. If you are writing a big name series, you should always be ready to take the wheel of the MU when the opportunity comes. What I am trying to say is, you might come up with lot more good storylines if you are going with a self-contained approach on the series you are writing, but if you are writing X-Men, Avengers, Captain America or Fantastic Four; the editors should be pushing you to go bigger. Remember that five writers were named as "architects" of the MU a decade ago? Now it feels like no writer wants to be in that kind of gloves.

Jed McKay might change that trend. He feels like a big picture kind of guy and he was doing the Kang story "Timeless".

[Alan2099]

Yeeah, but they're not well-liked because of being badly written.
No u. And when did I say that? I wasn't talking about what you as a reader do. I was talking about writers actually writing things in-continuity. The present is shaped by the past.

Since you don't like the Iceman example, how about Nuwa? Who you may have never heard of. AFAIK she's only been in 2 stories. Nuwa is a Chinese Mutant who debuted as a "terrorist".

The first of the stories with her was actually a freedom fighter opposing a totalitarian dictatorship who was trying to use Mutants as slave labor. Also, her powers weren't just "make people sleepy". It was precisely targeted and seemed to work almost all the time.

The second was part of Manifest Destiny as a side-story. Nuwa was robbing random stores for no apparent reason, and literally said nothing other than "Nuwa"... once. And Boom-boom beats her by drinking a lot of caffeine to counter-act the sleep induction. Hunh?

This was one I remember from a rather long forum discussion about just how many ways the writing was wrong. 1: Nuwa was previously a very talkative person and had very detailed reasons for doing things. 2: Nuwa was seemingly engaged in petty theft... but previously she'd been a freedom fighter. 3: she was never even seen in the US prior to this. 4: This was Tabitha Smith written AFTER her stint in X-Force where her team had faked their own deaths, and killed some alien force trying to convert the Earth into a living starship. And she's suddenly acting like a teenage ditz. 5: She was no longer using the name Meltdown.

As a reader, it was my first time seeing Nuwa as I'd never read the book she debuted in.... and I was thoroughly confused since it was obvious she was being written WRONG, I just had no idea what she was supposed to act like.

As someone who's dabbled with writing, I have to wonder, if Nuwa shows up for a third time, which of these will be used to inform that direction of the story and how Nuwa is written? My pessimistic side thinks a writer might use the second one since they had no idea the first story even existed.

Funny that your choice mentioned Boom Boom aka Boomer aka Meltdown as she was p[art of a rather popular series that completely changed the backstories and personalities of it's cast.

The Boom-Boom, Monica, Machine Man, and Elsa Bloodstone that appeared in the series Nextwave had only the vague similarities to who those characters had been before.

In Monica's case her time in Nextwave was mostly ignored. For Machine Man, his nextwave personality became the new normal. The version of Bloodstone that appeared before Nextwave apparently disappeared and we've only had the new one since. Boom-Boom seems to be bouncing around back and forth between her old personality and her new one with some writers picking one, some picking the other, and occasionally somebody trying to make them make sense together.

You just never know what's going to catch on or used by the next writer.

[Bunch of Coconuts]

No it isn't. It's looking at it as it is in reality. Characters sometimes get written out of character or poorly. That doesn't mean the character is ruined forever. If that were the case then none of these characters would've lasted for decades. They weren't all well written all along but only recently were written poorly.

You're making a straw man, btw. I never claimed you had to like every Iceman story. My point is the bad ones for those characters are in the past and don't affect their present.

Some characters do get ruined for a good 8+ years, still leaving a bad taste in others' mouths even after any sort of "redemption."

::stares at avatar::

Or have you not visited an X-Men-centric forum?

[skyvolt2000]

Some characters do get ruined for a good 8+ years, still leaving a bad taste in others' mouths even after any sort of "redemption."

::stares at avatar::

Or have you not visited an X-Men-centric forum?

Or the Inhumans forum or T'Challa forum.

Over at DC they have the Dawn of DC poster. There is something rather amusing about it compared to when Marvel put out a teaser poster around 2015.

Amusing in the reactions.
Folks were ready to riot over Marvel's two teaser posters.

DC's poster features 8 black characters, 4 LGBTQA characters and 12 female characters. NOBODY is throwing fits.

Just an observation.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Yeeah, but they're not well-liked because of being badly written.
No u. And when did I say that? I wasn't talking about what you as a reader do. I was talking about writers actually writing things in-continuity. The present is shaped by the past.

Since you don't like the Iceman example, how about Nuwa? Who you may have never heard of. AFAIK she's only been in 2 stories. Nuwa is a Chinese Mutant who debuted as a "terrorist".

The first of the stories with her was actually a freedom fighter opposing a totalitarian dictatorship who was trying to use Mutants as slave labor. Also, her powers weren't just "make people sleepy". It was precisely targeted and seemed to work almost all the time.

The second was part of Manifest Destiny as a side-story. Nuwa was robbing random stores for no apparent reason, and literally said nothing other than "Nuwa"... once. And Boom-boom beats her by drinking a lot of caffeine to counter-act the sleep induction. Hunh?

This was one I remember from a rather long forum discussion about just how many ways the writing was wrong. 1: Nuwa was previously a very talkative person and had very detailed reasons for doing things. 2: Nuwa was seemingly engaged in petty theft... but previously she'd been a freedom fighter. 3: she was never even seen in the US prior to this. 4: This was Tabitha Smith written AFTER her stint in X-Force where her team had faked their own deaths, and killed some alien force trying to convert the Earth into a living starship. And she's suddenly acting like a teenage ditz. 5: She was no longer using the name Meltdown.

As a reader, it was my first time seeing Nuwa as I'd never read the book she debuted in.... and I was thoroughly confused since it was obvious she was being written WRONG, I just had no idea what she was supposed to act like.

As someone who's dabbled with writing, I have to wonder, if Nuwa shows up for a third time, which of these will be used to inform that direction of the story and how Nuwa is written? My pessimistic side thinks a writer might use the second one since they had no idea the first story even existed.

Most of the books are pitched from editors to respective writers. So a Nuwa centered project would require an editor to do their homework and be able to set the writer straight.

A writer could catch that themselves with a wiki search but how many writers would care enough to do that without Nuwa being the center of the project?

[marhawkman]

Funny that your choice mentioned Boom Boom aka Boomer aka Meltdown as she was p[art of a rather popular series that completely changed the backstories and personalities of it's cast.

The Boom-Boom, Monica, Machine Man, and Elsa Bloodstone that appeared in the series Nextwave had only the vague similarities to who those characters had been before.

In Monica's case her time in Nextwave was mostly ignored. For Machine Man, his nextwave personality became the new normal. The version of Bloodstone that appeared before Nextwave apparently disappeared and we've only had the new one since. Boom-Boom seems to be bouncing around back and forth between her old personality and her new one with some writers picking one, some picking the other, and occasionally somebody trying to make them make sense together.

You just never know what's going to catch on or used by the next writer.

Yeah, after reading her in X-force.... the Manifest Destiny appearance made NO SENSE whatsoever. It's like her history got rewound to when she was still a teenager.

Most of the books are pitched from editors to respective writers. So a Nuwa centered project would require an editor to do their homework and be able to set the writer straight.

A writer could catch that themselves with a wiki search but how many writers would care enough to do that without Nuwa being the center of the project?

Nuwa-centric? Not gonna happen unless 3Peace comes back, and... that's unlikely for political reasons as the bad guys were... just the Chinese govt. I was not a rogue bureau, but an AUTHORIZED one. It was kinda like previous stories done with the Russian Govt, and Canadian govt actually.

[Chris0013]

Another thought...Stop synergizing with the movies. Let he movies be the movies and the comics be the comics.

[skyvolt2000]

Another thought...Stop synergizing with the movies. Let he movies be the movies and the comics be the comics.

They have always done this.

This is really nothing new.

In fact it actually stopped when Thor 2 came out and Jane was still Thor at the time.

Before that the movies and comic tried to match each other.

[Chris0013]

They have always done this.

This is really nothing new.

In fact it actually stopped when Thor 2 came out and Jane was still Thor at the time.

Before that the movies and comic tried to match each other.

I know...and I have always found it stupid.

Spidey having naturally creating webbing because of the Tobey movies? Stupid.

The X-Men all wearing black leather because of the movies? Stupid.

Like I said...let them be their own things.

[milton75]

I had a co-worker who said something was "woke" whenever there was a black person in a movie or tv show. That's all it is to these people. Inclusion and understanding is labeled as something negative and a ploy to fix things people continued to let happen or wouldn't speak up about. They don't even know where the expression "woke" comes from, or what it even means anymore. It's just about their online fighting that gets ties into politics to the point that people blame gas prices on "woke."

They say "woke" as if people should be ashamed of themselves for progress.

Considering that you're talking about people for whom "progressive" actually is an insult, this shouldn't surprise too much. Reactionary, small-minded, insecure bigots.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Nuwa-centric? Not gonna happen unless 3Peace comes back, and... that's unlikely for political reasons as the bad guys were... just the Chinese govt. I was not a rogue bureau, but an AUTHORIZED one. It was kinda like previous stories done with the Russian Govt, and Canadian govt actually.

It's just an example.

[marhawkman]

It's just an example.

Well, I was just pointing out that for minor characters guest roles are more likely. Which yeah... needs research.

[skyvolt2000]

I know...and I have always found it stupid.

Spidey having naturally creating webbing because of the Tobey movies? Stupid.

The X-Men all wearing black leather because of the movies? Stupid.

Like I said...let them be their own things.

Understood.

I would think if both companies would do say an OGN book line in those universes would be better.

Otherwise we will see both do what IDW and Titan do with Star Trek and Dr Who. Heck Marvel and DC Star Trek did it too.

The comics happen between the movies or shows.

Dc Star Trek ignored Star Trek 3 and gave Spock his own ship with I would say the first black female second commander in Star Trek history. Sadly his entire crew was infected and died (ship sent into the sun) and he went back into a coma and was saved and take to Vulcan right in time for Star Trek 4.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

Understood.

I would think if both companies would do say an OGN book line in those universes would be better.

Otherwise we will see both do what IDW and Titan do with Star Trek and Dr Who. Heck Marvel and DC Star Trek did it too.

The comics happen between the movies or shows.

Dc Star Trek ignored Star Trek 3 and gave Spock his own ship with I would say the first black female second commander in Star Trek history. Sadly his entire crew was infected and died (ship sent into the sun) and he went back into a coma and was saved and take to Vulcan right in time for Star Trek 4.

A graphic novel line like Earth One would work.

[4theEarth]

No it isn't. It's looking at it as it is in reality. Characters sometimes get written out of character or poorly. That doesn't mean the character is ruined forever. If that were the case then none of these characters would've lasted for decades. They weren't all well written all along but only recently were written poorly.

You're making a straw man, btw. I never claimed you had to like every Iceman story. My point is the bad ones for those characters are in the past and don't affect their present.

In The Principles of Psychology (1890), one of his foremost works, William James says this about memory:

“If we remembered everything, we should on most occasions be as ill off as if we remembered nothing. . . . “The paradoxical result [is] that one condition of remembering is that we should forget. Without totally forgetting a prodigious number of states of consciousness, and momentarily forgetting a large number, we could not remember at all.”

Comics continuity is like human memory then providing a character continuity that writers can hopefully bend but not break.


I have a larger question still about how are fans to know if these changes or marketing are effective to the number of people who read them ?

People have already noted that the old Diamond numbers don't equal purchases or subscriptions both physical and virtual. It is hard to make a statement about real impacts when the reality is kept away from people. I think that is part of what leads people to trash changes to the MU because there is no transparency to the world of comic's reception and both claims of diversity and "woke pandering" are just empty opinion. And that is what Marvel prefers.