What went wrong with Marvel's push of Carol?

[Coin Biter]

Ha! You think readers would have been more willing to accept a black woman as one of the most important characters? Not a chance!

Here's the reason Captain Marvel's not doing well: Marvel's readers refuse to read anything that hasn't been continuously published for 50 years. If it's not a classic title, they don't give a ****. And Captain Marvel isn't really one of the classic titles.

Combine that with much of Marvel's audience having a hostility to female-led solos, and the tendency of a significant chunk of the audience to make accusations of "SJW pandering" any time a woman is ever allowed to be better than a man at something. (And if the woman's costume isn't blatantly intended to appeal to male gaze? Even worse.)

So that's the secret: Fear of anything new, and misogyny. Carol had the deck stacked against her from the start. And a different woman in the role would have run into the exact same difficulties.

But once we get closer to the movie? That very well may change. And, hell, maybe Stohl actually will bring in some of her novel audience, too. Could happen.

(Additional thought: A lot of women feel uncomfortable about comic shops. These women may be reading the book online or in trades. We have no way of knowing. It's obviously not doing well enough in trade to be a best-seller, but it might be doing better than we'd expect. And it may be doing better online than we'd expect. We just can't know.)

Not that I'm an expert on reading the mysterious runes of the vague information we have concerning comic sales, but aren't Ms Marvel's sales holding up fairly well?

I think Carol Danvers has a number of issues with which to contend - 1, as you say, she doesn't have a continuous history of publication, and yet 2, Carol has also been around and present for an awfully long time. So she's hit by the double whammy of being simultaneously both new and old, which is a difficulty also faced by the Inhumans. Even if her ongoing was really good - as was the case with Tom King's Vision - it probably wouldn't be sufficient to help her.

(Speaking personally, I'm just not a fan of military-themed heroes, unless they're portrayed in a partially satirical way. Therefore, Civil War 2 hasn't really damaged Carol in my eyes at least - I found her clueless authoritarianism rather amusing )

[ed2962]

Carol's being pushed, but she isn't being pushed as hard as some people think. Sure, her title keeps getting relaunched and she's appeared in other comics. But Jane-Thor, Ms Marvel, Sam-Cap, Riri...these characters got mass media exposure. Carol didn't get that.

[Iron Fist]

I think it's they just haven't made her interesting.

I picked up one of her vol 1 tpbs (theres like 4 of those now thanks to all the relaunches) where she goes back in time to meet a female pilot and it just wasn't interesting or what I wanted. Most writers can push a feminist agenda without making it the entirety of the book.

As for her other appearances like in CW2, she's meant to be doing stuff with SWORD or w.e her police force is called but instead she spends all her time on earth busting iron man's balls and playing minority report. They seem to be spending more time making her a powerhouse and authoritarian figure than an interesting character.

[MichaelC]

And turning her into a fascist didn't do her any favors.

Yup. I don't know why Marvel keeps thinking that making their heroes into establishment stooges will help them. The country is in an anti-establishment mood, and comic-readers have always been more anti-establishment than the average person. So their reasoning for this sort of thing is just odd.

[Muffin Crud]

Because they have sanitized the character to the point of being completely bland. Dive in to what makes her tick, her flaws and why she feels compelled to do what she does.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

My point is that there is absolutely a significant chunk of Marvel readers who are misogynistic and won't read any comic with a female in the lead role. You can give any female character a solo, most of Marvel's audience will never even consider reading it. And yeah, most male characters fall into that hole, too, but every female character is given a hard pass by most of Marvel's audience. And yeah, misogyny is a part of that, as is the refusal to try anything that hasn't been around for 50 years.

That's crap. I'm male and I've enjoyed books like Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, Patsy Walker: Hellcat and the previous She-Hulk series. There ARE men who read and books with female leads.

75% of Marvel's audience simply will not give Captain Marvel a shot. It doesn't matter who writes her. It doesn't matter who does the art. It doesn't even matter if it's a different woman in the title role. It could be praised as the best comic Marvel put out, 75% of Marvel's audience won't give a ****. They'd rather read a Captain America run they hate than to try a different title they might love, especially if that different title has a female lead.

The reasons I don't read Captain Marvel are two fold: 1) I don't like the character, never have, 2) It's irks me that she carries the mantle of Mar-Vell who's death still resonates with me, even over two decades after his death.

[RobinFan4880]

I like Captain Marvel. Carol is a good character but she really lacks the spark to be a great character. She perfect for team books. Her solo is fine but rarely special.

If it makes you feel any better, people were really hating on Iron Man after Civil War I. And we all know how that turned out.

So there is no need to worry, comic book characters always have their ups and downs. Most likely, she will be saved from this rut soon after the movie comes out

Tony's damage was so great, Marvel had to literally delete the entire event and its aftermath to salvage Tony as a character.

[John Ossie]

Never mind.

[Tofali]

Who is her main arch enemy? Have all the books answered and developed this part of her super-heroine life? Marvel is writing her book like they write most MCU movies where arch nemesis don't get any development. Unless it's a team where conflict can be created within the group a comic shouldn't exist if a big a baddie against the main hero isn't present.

[gurkle]

I don't think it went wrong so much as that, as Tiamatty says, it's unrealistic to expect big sales on a character who is not one of the "classic" heroes. Probably no Marvel character since Wolverine has had that kind of popularity.

If anything, the push did a very good job by making it seem like she was more popular than she was. I didn't enjoy most of Kelly Sue DeConnick's run on the character (the combination of preachy and quirky doesn't work for me on almost anything). But KSD did a very clever and good job using the relatively new world of social media to build a fanbase for her work. Combine that with Marvel's formal publicity, and by the time her movie was announced, the media portrayed this as a natural next step for a very important character.

The point of the push was not to make her super popular; she probably never will be, at least in the comics. The point was to get her publicly recognized so that people would say "oh, sure, that sounds interesting" instead of "who the hell is Carol Danvers?" when the Captain Marvel movie was announced.

The push may create some resistance to the character from people like me who know her importance in the Marvel universe isn't as great as this publicity makes it seem. But that's a tiny minority of people. Most people will never read her comics but be sort of aware of her as a character who exists. That's all the movie needs.

[Vic Vega]

It's in-organic.

We are just told how important Carol now is without it being shown.

If there had been a story arc in the Avengers where she had to take up leadership of the Avengers and deal with the
fallout from that, people might have bought in after seeing her struggle with it some.

As it is she has gong from being the flying blonde Avenger to being a in universe national hero.

It doesn't help that her solo books have done a poor job of creating a world unique to Carol.

[Moon Ronin]

Carol Danvers has been in the Marvel Universe for almost 49 years only around 6 years less than Spiderman so the Whole "people don't like her cause she ain't classic" is BS. The problem is there has not been a great or even good creative team that has worked on her book. The Gages were good but had their hands tied with the CWII and no real creative freedom. If they what Cap Marvel to succeeded why don't they get an experienced writer on the book and really give her a relaunch?

[Valamist]

Well, Carol is my third favorite comic book character so I am happy that Marvel are trying to push her. I admit, I would rather see She-Hulk be mad ethe 'mascot' female character, but thats just because she is my favorite character of all time...

I do think Marvel could be doing a bit of a better job, especially with CWII. Yes, more people know of her now but most we see her as being the 'baddie' of the piece. I does not help that the CWII series itself did a poor job of portraying why Carol was doing what she did, while her solos did a good job portraying her views. I have high hopes for Stohls new solo series. From what I have read so far she seems to really get the character, and hopefully can do a good job showing people that she is not just the tyrant CWII made her out to be.

[Calaigah]

Tony being hated after CW was different though. Tony is supposed to be a jerk. I've never liked him as a person so hating on him during CW felt normal.

Carol is supposed to be loved, that's why it's more jarring.

Their biggest flaw in pushing her was trying to make her "the most popular hero ever!".

They should've gone the Cyclops route and had her be misunderstood and hated for doing the right thing. That would've resulted in her being an underdog people could root for.

When Marvel tells us said hero is the best ever, we revolt because we know how flawed they are.

When Marvel tells us said hero is the worst ever, we rally around them while embracing their flaws.

[Colossus1980]

While I disagree with Carol being unlikable, that actually wasn't my point in that post. My point is that there is absolutely a significant chunk of Marvel readers who are misogynistic and won't read any comic with a female in the lead role. You can give any female character a solo, most of Marvel's audience will never even consider reading it. And yeah, most male characters fall into that hole, too, but every female character is given a hard pass by most of Marvel's audience. And yeah, misogyny is a part of that, as is the refusal to try anything that hasn't been around for 50 years.

75% of Marvel's audience simply will not give Captain Marvel a shot. It doesn't matter who writes her. It doesn't matter who does the art. It doesn't even matter if it's a different woman in the title role. It could be praised as the best comic Marvel put out, 75% of Marvel's audience won't give a ****. They'd rather read a Captain America run they hate than to try a different title they might love, especially if that different title has a female lead.

Your posts are unbelievable. I had to read it twice to make sure that my eyes are in working condition. I cannot believe that you can continually get away with you hateful venomous posts. You should just stop stereotyping men in general.

So shocked at your attitude. Unbelievable. Can't even write back a response. What a crazy post.