Marvel Wants to Replace Spidey with Iron Man as New Flagship Character

[Confuzzled]

Well, it was noticeable how Iron Man was at the forefront of BOTH the ANAD preview posters. Seeing the success of the Avengers franchise and the fact that Marvel Studios owns full movie rights unlike in the case of Spidey, there had been whisperings for some time now that Marvel wanted to replace Iron Man, unarguably the Avengers' most popular solo character if movie and merchandise revenue is to be considered, as the company's flagship character. But those rumblings died down after the Sony/Marvel deal was made and Spider-Man, the prodigal son, returned home (well, partly).

But this interview Brevoort gave to Newsarama kind of disrupts that tranquillity:

Marvel Senior Vice President of Publishing told Newsarama Friday that with "All-New All-Different Marvel," the company was re-positioning Iron Man to be most prominent character in their comic book line. The positioning of these creators on Invincible Iron Man and this being the first series announcement for "All-New All-Different Marvel" looks to re-enforce that.

"I think Iron Man’s prominence is something pretty much everybody who encounters Marvel in every other medium already knows," Brevoort told Newsarama. "While the masked head of Spider-Man has historically been most associated with Marvel as a defacto mascot, in the last ten years in every field outside of publishing Iron Man is Marvel Comics. If you’re talking about the people who see the films, buy the t-shirts or merchandise, watch the television shows, it all comes back to Shellhead. We’re going to make a concerted effort with 'All-New All-Different Marvel' to make Iron Man the forefront of the comic books’ universe as it is elsewhere."

So there you have it. A statement by the Senior VP of Marvel to knock down old Webhead from the company's flagship position. Add to this the fact that Brian Michael Bendis, the write of the new Invincible Iron Man series, called it the "Crown Jewel of the Marvel/Disney Empire".

Time to start our own Spider-Complex thread?

[Kevinroc]

Somehow this is the fault of the ASM films. I just know it.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/...spiderman2.htm

ASM 2: $708,982,323

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=ironman3.htm

IM 3: $1,215,439,994

(Damn, maybe there is something to that.)

[SuperiorIronman]

Well Iron man sells. And it sells so much that Marvel since it has full rights might as well do it. Spider-man regardless will be the go to Marvel hero but it doesn't bother me that Iron man became the mascot for Marvel considering the success over the last decade.

[William300]

I had a bad feeling this was going to happen. I warned people after they launched the Avengers Assemble cartoon which has Stark as the leader and the main character that Marvel was slowly making him their lead character. If any book should be the Marvel flagship book it should be Avengers.

[Highland Chicken]

This will probably change depending on the MCU spidey film box office, honestly I don't know who marvel is trying to kid.iron man is clearly the most popular.jpg

[HUTHAIFA]

Marvel can do all the positioning they want but the fact that they have several spidey spin off characters running around kind of hurts that push. Now when we see a War Machine,Rescue, Iron Man 2099, and one or two series that just star Iron Man then I might buy what Marvel is selling. The Spidey is strong, and the comic book buying audience just isnt that in love with Tony and never have been.

[Confuzzled]

I want to see how popular Iron Man remains once you take Robert Downey Jr. out of the armor and equation altogether. A true case of Marvel being incredibly short-sighted and greedy.

This will probably change depending on the MCU spidey film box office, honestly I don't know who marvel is trying to kid.iron man is clearly the most popular.jpg

This. There is no Marvel character that comes close to having the all-ages appeal that Spidey has.

[Celgress]

I just hope those in charge don't start downplaying Spidey's role in the "All New All Different Marvel", or assassinating his character, so as to prop up Iron Man.

[Teste]

Don't worry, guys.

Marvel is very bad at pushing characters. See the Inhumans and how poorly they're selling, despite everything Marvel has been doing to turn them into the new X-Men.

With Iron Man, Marvel is giving Bendis the title, which means old continuity will be forgotten and he will be written as if the movies were continuity. Which means, the current Iron Man fans will leave in disgust, and the only ones who will remain are those who began reading comics because of the movies (aka, NO ONE).

[Username taken]

Marvel have pushed the hell out of the Spider-man line. Iron man, not so much.

Even in the All New, All Different Marvel images, we had 4 Spider-man characters.

Marvel won't in a million years de-push Spider-man. In both comics and outside of comics, he's the one character that generates Marvel/Disney the most money.

[Tuck]

It just means Tony's going to show up more and be used more in marketing.

Doesn't matter to me one way or the other.

[Kuwagaton]

I was going to mention the inhumans. Marvel needs to get that they don't make these things happen, only enjoy them when they do happen.

[UltimateTy]

Marvel are just trying to elevate Iron Man in the comics to the position he is everywhere else outside comics. There really isn't any need to get paranoid yet.

[Vegeta]

Pretty much everything that the movie audience loves about Iron Man boils down to Robert Downey Jr. (The armor IS cool, but at the end of the day, it's just another special effect.)

They can place Tony and his comic at the center of every major event and it PROBABLY will increase sales. (Look how Avengers took off after Bendis came on, and we had books like Disassembled, Civil War and House of M spiraling out of the Avengers and influencing OTHER titles such as Spidey and the X-Men, anyone who wanted the full story to their favorites needed to check out Avengers as well.)

But Iron Man by himself simply doesn't "do it" for me, I've tried to get into his books a few times over the years (Armor Wars 2, Heroes Reborn, Dark Reign, Gillian's Marvel NOW!) and he's just not "relatable" to me (maybe he's too rich, too handsome and too brilliant?) most of the problems he deals with are cleaning up his OWN mistakes, and while that CAN be an interesting narrative choice, it's hard to sympathize with a hero who constantly "screws up." Finally, his rogue's gallery is really lacking. It's a bunch of guys in less sophisticated armored suits and a Chinese stereotype wearing a lot of finger jewelry. (And aside from Pepper and Rhodey, even his supporting cast is rather unremarkable.)

[Prof. Warren]

Time to start our own Spider-Complex thread?

I hope Spidey fans aren't as fearful as many X-fans. Spider-Man isn't going anywhere. If Marvel wants to capitalize on Iron Man's movie popularity, why not? What possible harm could it do to Spider-Man? None. If anything, given the popularity of the movies, I'm shocked that it's taken Marvel so long to try and give IM a huge push. It'd be stupid not to. Giving IM the A-list treatment is not trying to "knock down" Spider-Man but to simply acknowledge the huge popularity of IM among non-comic readers and to try and exploit a largely untapped market.

I've liked some of the recent IM runs but I feel like it's been awhile since there's been one that can genuinely be called a classic, definitive run. If Bendis and Marquez can make that happen, I'm all for it. In the meantime, I think everyone can feel confident that Spider-Man will not go neglected.