All-New Marvel is Starting to make me All-Pissed

[skyvolt2000]

but the fans seem pleased from what I've been hearing. Maybe Marvel will feel the need to look into this at some point if DC sales keep running high.

I can't remember which DC editor said it, but around the time of the nu52 they said something like, "We had to do something to get attention otherwise we're going to get to the point where we're selling comics to the same 20 thousand fans and have to charge $10 per just to stay in business."

It's hard to praise DC for their diversity when so many books had issues and aside from Batwing & Batwoman didn't last more than 20 issues.

And unlike Marvel where characters fail with solos and still be around-so many vanished. And Dc blamed the fans for not taking CRAP because you had fans who took crap with badly done books like Hal Jordan & Teen Titans.

One tried to fix their mistakes and one buried them as fast as they could.

And it looks like Rebirth is not pandering to white males but putting the "lightning rod" minorities in supportive roles and tossing out diverse content with a nonminority lead or new ones that NOBODY asked for.

Instead of using the folks everyone has begged for.

[Frontier]

I think you guys are mistaking diversity of people who get a book with diversity of comic offerings. All of the Superman and Batman books generally have the same tone and style.

When I thik diversity in offerings. I think

I can get a pure superhero book in Spiderman
And at the same time get a 100% horror story in Carnage
And still get a spy thriller in Black Widow
And have change left over to laugh my ass off in Gwenpool

I don't think "I got tim, dick, damien, Jason and stephanie" all in different noir books as a diverse comic offering. Cause some folks aren't going to read a noir book, regardless of who's in that noir book.

I wouldn't say all the Bat books are noir per se, and I think they all offer something different and diverse in their own way.

Batman is a straight-up Superhero book, Detective comics is basically a Batfamily team book, Batgirl is set to be a fun, world-travelling romp, Nightwing is getting into a lot of character building, intrigue and quirkiness, Birds of Prey is the all-female hero book (natch), All-Star is your Scott Snyder Batman showcase, Red Hood and the Outlaws is Red Hood as only Scott Lobdell can give you, and Gotham Academy is a more all-ages Gotham book.

[DebkoX]

Its making me explore DC/IMage more, which is a really good thing.

[skyvolt2000]

The thing is, that guy who used to buy 25 titles each month, isn't alone. The more accurate analogy would have been to say there are 25 guys buying 25 titles each month.

I don't know, guys... we seem to be going around in circles in these threads. My philosophy has always been: yes to attracting new readers. Yes to diversity. Yes to new characters. Yes to retaining the fanbase that has made the company what it is today. Yes to classic characters. Yes to interesting stories about both classic and new characters. Couldn't we have it all? Would it be possible to write stories about characters so that everybody will be happy, and not continue with this useless bickering between fans? I still think it's possible, even if so far it hasn't been done.

YES. However there is a catch.

If we put everybody back in their ORIGINAL roles.

I give the classic fans what they want.

I will still SEE thread after thread after thread complaining about why does Moon Girl, Sam Wilson, Squirrel Girl, Jane Foster, Jessica Jones, Miles, Sam Alexander, Gwenpool, Black Panther and others have books.

By the same group who cried about I want to read about Thor! Captain America! Iron Man! Hulk! You got what you WANTED why are you still crying?

"Moon girl will put Marvel into bankruptcy" Gee the last time Marvel faced that-they had 4 Peter Parker books and a TON of X-Men books-no POC with solo leads.

"I can name someone who deserve a shot over Falcon!" And will name every obscure white male in Marvel roster.

"They are pandering to SJW!" 12 books with POC , LGBT & women in the lead vs 50-60 white male lead. Who is being pandered to?

And yes the essay writer will show up with a 10 page essay about why minorities should not have comics. Especially those who have had success outside of comics like Static. Yet that tune changes when it's a white male. Funny crossing over media has helped Harley Quinn & Black Panther. Yet it has not helped ANTMAN.

Then we get the belittle whatever that POC, LGBT & woman has done.

In other words they will still find something to cry about. Because they don't want the books around no matter how successful some of them are.

What white male will make up the loss of sales if Black Panther & Gwenpool are gone? What about Jane Foster's book? Ms Marvel's digital downloads? Squirrel Girl's trade sales?

Like it or not they are around for a REASON. The better they do the more books we might see and not just those of POC, LGBT or female.

[Shirayuki]

For the most part it seems like Marvel just gives the older character a break to establish someone new and then creates books for both of them. To me it seems like there's books for everyone in the current MU barring some exceptions.

[My Two Cents]

I have little interest in Marvel.
They remind me of a bakery that for years put out the best
product around and than a big company swoops them up
and decide to use cheaper ingredients and rise the prices.
Hyperbole? but of course......... but that's the taste Marvel left me with.

[chaosfist]

Hey I am new to this forum, thanks for reading my post! Anyway I have been a big Marvel fan all my life and have read 1000s of comics and there has been many thinks that I have loved and also not loved. However this new Universe Marvel has done a great job of screwing up IMO has successfully made my monthly subscription price go down. Now hear me out. I am not against blacks, girls, LGBTQ or any of the minorities but I am against them changing many of the most popular characters just so they can look more tolerant or perhaps so it doesn't seem they are racist or whatever they could possibly have used to justify their awful decision making. If they want to make a more diversified cast then by all means go ahead! But leave the main names out of it (i.e. Hulk, Wolverine, Iron man, Thor..) I mean it completely ruins those heroes for me and I know I am not alone. My fellow comic readers that I talk to almost all agree with me that Marvel is heading in the wrong direction. I Absolutely love the new Ultimates comic and that has 3 girls and a black guy with one of the girls being a lesbian so why cant they do more like that. But no, lets change 4 of the arguably top 10 most popular heroes completely. Sorry I am ranting but I just wanted to see what others are saying about this outside my friend circle. Please let me know what you think! As for now I am only Subscribed to all the Star Wars Comics, Moon Knight and Punisher from Marvel and have dropped all my other titles, looks like I might pick up some more DC.

Here it for all. Fans like this man will die at some point. For the industry to continue they have to bring in new fans. Now these new fans they are looking for are looking for a more diverse line up that isn't all white men and a couple white women. That means shaking things up. And like the above poster said if you have to preface your comment with the I don't have a problem with x y and z then there is a good chance the opposite is true.

[chaosfist]

Because we have been the primary readers since forever. Therefore, we get blamed when books fail, whether we buy them
or not. The publishers simply made books they thought the customer base would buy, until the market collapsed in the 90's.
It's never fully recovered, the customer base kept getting smaller, and now they are wooing readership that they used to
ignore mostly. Smart business move if they can succeed without alienating the existing fan base, but that's not how it's
been handled, so we have divided fanbases.

I don't think they care at all if the classic readers get upset. They are looking for a new audience that isn't going to start dying literally in another 10-20 years. There is no way to please everyone and Marvel is sound what they believe makes financial sense in the long run (50+ years from now). I also have to admit that I buy these books that everyone complains about and usually really enjoy them. Jane Foster as Thor has been an awesome story. It's also sold quite well. Not to mention nearly every book I read has some brand new fan fresh off of reading their first comic and falling in love and what brings them in is a change in the character be it the girls getting jacked about Thor or even RiRi. There was a letter in this IM issue saying just that.

[mugiwara]

I still can't believe that some readers think that Marvel is at its worse today.
Something like five years ago (maybe less), Purple Arrow was in 3 teams, and so were Storm, Wolverine, Cap America and some others. Old guard everywhere, in every solo, in every team.
That maybe was Marvel at its lowest. I don't want to ever come back to that.

[keeen]

You missed a lot or else you wouldn't have brought up Hank Pym has zero cache and the fact that nothing can stick with him other then including him in a umpteenth Ultron story drives that point home or mentioning that time he slapped Wasp.

Hank Pym, can die for a month and brought back and still ain't worth anything

It's probably hard for anything to stick with a character when writers continually ignore character development and actual continuity just to drag them through the mud, as has been so often the case in Hank's history...

I freely admit I've missed most of this thread (feel like this same debate comes up about Marvel every couple days), so I might be jumping in with improper context (not to mention a tangential point to make), but I just wanted to point out that I thought Hank Pym was very well-written in Avengers Academy!

[dragonmp93]

Here it for all. Fans like this man will die at some point. For the industry to continue they have to bring in new fans. Now these new fans they are looking for are looking for a more diverse line up that isn't all white men and a couple white women. That means shaking things up. And like the above poster said if you have to preface your comment with the I don't have a problem with x y and z then there is a good chance the opposite is true.

And that why i already accepted that's who i am.

I don't think they care at all if the classic readers get upset. They are looking for a new audience that isn't going to start dying literally in another 10-20 years. There is no way to please everyone and Marvel is sound what they believe makes financial sense in the long run (50+ years from now). I also have to admit that I buy these books that everyone complains about and usually really enjoy them. Jane Foster as Thor has been an awesome story. It's also sold quite well. Not to mention nearly every book I read has some brand new fan fresh off of reading their first comic and falling in love and what brings them in is a change in the character be it the girls getting jacked about Thor or even RiRi. There was a letter in this IM issue saying just that.

Well, that new audience can die in 5 years when trying to take a selfie inside a tiger cage, or sitting on the top of a moving truck, or swimming with a white shark without a cage.
And im 23 years old classic reader, you know.

[Mr.Majestic]

So what ?, im a latino reading about a bunch of Americans.
And no, i believe that in this case "the survival of the fittest" truly applies; so no, i dont expect you to support a book that you are not interested in, just like you shouldnt expect me to do that; im only interested in mutants and the X-men, i dont like the Avengers or the Inhumans, so unless something is truly outstanding like Ms Marvel, im not interested, stop insisting.

That's the issue at hand hermanito. If comics stayed the course they would be headed to a slow protracted death. Ever-diminishing returns and such. As that group of aging classic readers headed to the grave. On the other hand if the comic book industry wants to survive it has to look for other avenues and different readerships. So no Do not go gentle into that good night fight against the dying of this industry.

White guys that made the original characters icons by buying their books as kids and never quit, or came back after a hiatus. Apparently,
we've been actively keeping minority books from setting the world on fire by guarding the doors of our lcs from anybody wanting to
purchase them. It's been a conspiracy all along, but they finally figured it out.

I'm not White but do I count as a Classic Reader? I've been reading comics since my mom used to buy me Batman, Tarzan and Korak comics(my faves as a boy) back in the day. I was around for Crisis, Image and the bagged era.

I don't know, guys... we seem to be going around in circles in these threads. My philosophy has always been: yes to attracting new readers. Yes to diversity. Yes to new characters. Yes to retaining the fanbase that has made the company what it is today. Yes to classic characters. Yes to interesting stories about both classic and new characters. Couldn't we have it all? Would it be possible to write stories about characters so that everybody will be happy, and not continue with this useless bickering between fans? I still think it's possible, even if so far it hasn't been done.

Only change will save this industry. Those that want the status quo will be the death of the thing they love.

[macattack]

Only change will save this industry. Those that want the status quo will be the death of the thing they love.

Honestly, I think comics have to switch to something like the manga model (if not as brutal) if it wants to survive. Enough with the giant interconnected universe, the way the youngest writers in Marvel's stable are clearly chafing at the limitations of the giant universe is making it clear what's going to happen when the Millennial generation takes control. Each story should be self-contained and have a set conclusion like a manga (so potentially it can run anywhere from six months to over a decade), and anything can happen and anybody can be anybody. This would be dramatically different from the status quo but it would also allow things to have a beginning, middle, and an end each and every time and allow writers and artists to interpret the characters and mantles however they want. The allowance of freedom will be a breath of fresh air and enrich the industry.

But neither Marvel or DC have the guts to do this.

In lieu of this, I'd prefer Marvel to actually do a Rebirth-style reset and start with a new jumping on point where classic and new characters can be in harmony, ideally lowering the tensions in the fanbase as well.

[dragonmp93]

Honestly, I think comics have to switch to something like the manga model (if not as brutal) if it wants to survive. Enough with the giant interconnected universe, the way the youngest writers in Marvel's stable are clearly chafing at the limitations of the giant universe is making it clear what's going to happen when the Millennial generation takes control. Each story should be self-contained and have a set conclusion like a manga (so potentially it can run anywhere from six months to over a decade), and anything can happen and anybody can be anybody. This would be dramatically different from the status quo but it would also allow things to have a beginning, middle, and an end each and every time and allow writers and artists to interpret the characters and mantles however they want. The allowance of freedom will be a breath of fresh air and enrich the industry.

But neither Marvel or DC have the guts to do this.

In lieu of this, I'd prefer Marvel to actually do a Rebirth-style reset and start with a new jumping on point where classic and new characters can be in harmony, ideally lowering the tensions in the fanbase as well.

Do you mean what the independants have been doing all this time ?.

[Moriarty]

the thing that irritates me is the way certain characters are treated. Bruce Banner... dead. Rhodey... dead. Namor... dead. all for shock value. all for a sales spike. what happened to Cyclops? oh, it was so bad and terrible we can't even talk about it...unless we make it a big event. woo. Fantastic Four? nothing. and remember when SHIELD was cool? SHIELD and/or Nick Fury would show up and you knew it was serious. now its just, hey we're SHIELD. we're total jerks. we're just here to make us hate us and we're lead by incompetent jerks. woo.