Renew Your Vows didn't make the Top 100 in May

[UnknownEntity]

Book overflow and marketing problems probably hurt this book the most.

But is it popular enough to sustain a alternate universe book?

Marvel's book overflow dilution is affecting their entire lineup, not just RYV. RYV suffers in addition for being an AU in a culture where Marvel has indoctrinated its audience to prioritize main canon titles above all.

RYV is an excellently written and well drawn book in its own right. The main lure to this book was a more classic Spider Man with the spider marriage. Its also a superhero family themed book that sets it apart from past Spider Man material that have been done before. So, even if at first glace RYV's main attraction is the return of the Spider Marriage, once you delve into the book you realize its more than that and the book is crafting a good story for you to enjoy.

[Prof. Warren]

If RYV gets cancelled I would be upset but at this point with how Marvel is I wouldn't be the least bit surprised. I was amazed the book was even allowed to exist in the first place and I think they gave it a pretty fair shot all things considered. Conway and Stegman obviously love the Spider family and they're both A+ talent.

I think this is just the symptom of a larger problem. A lot of people are dropping Marvel books cuz Marvel has just been sucking all around. Like stated on this thread before RYV is one of many many Marvel books with sharply diminishing sales.

Seeing as the new Venom volume debuted the same month that RYV did and one of those books is in the Top Ten now and the other is out of the Top 100, readers aren't "dropping Marvel books", they're dropping RYV. You can say it's because it's an AU book or whatever but clearly if two books in the Spider-verse came out at the same time and both had huge numbers on their first issue and now one of them is still sitting comfortably near the top of the charts and the other is doing a fast fade, it's not about diminishing numbers for Marvel, it's about people specifically choosing to drop RYV.

[UnknownEntity]

Seeing as the new Venom volume debuted the same month that RYV did and one of those books is in the Top Ten now and the other is out of the Top 100, readers aren't "dropping Marvel books", they're dropping RYV. You can say it's because it's an AU book or whatever but clearly if two books in the Spider-verse came out at the same time and both had huge numbers on their first issue and now one of them is still sitting comfortably near the top of the charts and the other is doing a fast fade, it's not about diminishing numbers for Marvel, it's about people specifically choosing to drop RYV.

You forget that Venom had its renumbering and for all intents and purposes relaunched in 150 with the return of Eddie Brock and also had its fair share of support in marketing and variant covers that help it saleswise. For all intents and purposes Venom 150 was treated like a number 1. However that still doesn't detract from RYV's fall from the Top 100, but you shouldn't forget that detail about Venom. Its not as if the other Venom comics maintained themselves in the top spots while running concurrently with RYV.

[Confuzzled]

If RYV isn't sustainable, that would suggest the marriage isn't marketable, and there's less reason to listen to anyone starved for the marriage.

Lol RYV handily outsold current ASM during Secret Wars. Tertiary AU titles always have an uphill battle.

Except for Spider-Gwen interestingly. I guess that incredibly cosplayable costume went a long way in the popularity of the character and title. Maybe MJ and Annie just needed better costumes?

[Frontier]

Lol RYV handily outsold current ASM during Secret Wars. Tertiary AU titles always have an uphill battle.

Except for Spider-Gwen interestingly. I guess that incredibly cosplayable costume went a long way in the popularity of the character and title. Maybe MJ and Annie just needed better costumes?

I don't think it was just the costume. The tone and style of that book just seemed to really hit a zeitgeist that landed it some good, if wobbly, sales. That's a title that sells a lot on it's strong visual identity.

Though I will agree MJ and Annie could have had better costumes .

[Confuzzled]

I don't think it was just the costume. The tone and style of that book just seemed to really hit a zeitgeist that landed it some good, if wobbly, sales. That's a title that sells a lot on it's strong visual identity.

Though I will agree MJ and Annie could have had better costumes .

Yeah, I mean it may seem like a ridiculous suggestion at first glance but as comics are such a visual medium, the appeal of the costumes of the main characters do play a big part I feel. Over on the Batman board, there have been never ending discussions about how Catwoman's costume is not as appealing as her previous classic ones, hence that contributed to the decrease in her popularity in addition to Harley Quinn's rise in popularity.

[DCordo74]

Yeah, I mean it may seem like a ridiculous suggestion at first glance but as comics are such a visual medium, the appeal of the costumes of the main characters do play a big part I feel. Over on the Batman board, there have been never ending discussions about how Catwoman's costume is not as appealing as her previous classic ones, hence that contributed to the decrease in her popularity in addition to Harley Quinn's rise in popularity.

MJ would make a kick ass, colorful, cool, and sexy hero. So she should have a costume to match. Or at the very least not have the damn bun.

[WeirdSpider]

Lol RYV handily outsold current ASM during Secret Wars. Tertiary AU titles always have an uphill battle.

Except for Spider-Gwen interestingly. I guess that incredibly cosplayable costume went a long way in the popularity of the character and title. Maybe MJ and Annie just needed better costumes?

Is Spider-Gwen really that popular outside of Gwen's design?

I check out Marvel fanart on sites such as Deviantart and see a lot of Spider-Gwen fanart but I don't see a lot of fanart of other characters from her series. No fanart of earth 65 Black Cat. No fanart earth 65 Captain America. Very little fanart of earth 65 Matt Murdock.
I think that Gwen's design is what is selling the book cause it ain't the universe and it's characters judging by the lack of earth 65 fanart.

[Confuzzled]

MJ would make a kick ass, colorful, cool, and sexy hero. So she should have a costume to match. Or at the very least not have the damn bun.

I was defending Stegman regarding the costumes initially because his enthusiasm was so infectious but now that I have some distance and have seen the costume in "action" in enough books, I agree that it could have been so much better. Poor MJ doesn't really have a history of superhero costumes she deserves (including the Iron Spider suit and the other AU superpowered versions of her).

Is Spider-Gwen really that popular outside of Gwen's design?I check out Marvel fanart on sites such as Deviantart and see a lot of Spider-Gwen fanart but I don't see a lot of fanart of other characters from her series. No fanart of earth 65 Black Cat. No fanart earth 65 Captain America. Very little fanart of earth 65 Matt Murdock.
I think that Gwen's design is what is selling the book cause it ain't the universe and it's characters judging by the lack of earth 65 fanart.

I too think that costume won more than half of the battle for her (though Rodriguez's art and style in general has a loyal following).

[Issy543]

I use to read the series, but then I dropped the title this month, and maybe not pick it up until August, due to my budget on comics, the marriage not being on Earth 616, and the story not being as interesting as I though it would be, especially on Harry Osborn's son.

[RD!]

Seeing as the new Venom volume debuted the same month that RYV did and one of those books is in the Top Ten now and the other is out of the Top 100, readers aren't "dropping Marvel books", they're dropping RYV. You can say it's because it's an AU book or whatever but clearly if two books in the Spider-verse came out at the same time and both had huge numbers on their first issue and now one of them is still sitting comfortably near the top of the charts and the other is doing a fast fade, it's not about diminishing numbers for Marvel, it's about people specifically choosing to drop RYV.

You can't compare the two and expect to be taken seriously

One is an AU story, one is in continuity, with original numbering, with a centric crossover event coming up
Shortly into its tenure AND the return of a popular concept to MAIN continuity

Not to mention the exposure Venom has got compared to RYV

[Miles To Go]

Poor MJ doesn't really have a history of superhero costumes she deserves

Her Marvella movie costume in the daily comic strip is kind of sexy.

[Prof. Warren]

You can't compare the two and expect to be taken seriously

One is an AU story, one is in continuity, with original numbering, with a centric crossover event coming up
Shortly into its tenure AND the return of a popular concept to MAIN continuity

Not to mention the exposure Venom has got compared to RYV

As I said in my initial post, you could attribute RYV's poor sales on the fact that it's an AU book. That would be fair.

But what you can't do is blame RYV's falling sales on some imaginary overall Marvel malaise as some would like to. Not when other books have not suffered the same decline.

RYV and Venom both had huge number ones when they debuted. And at the time, many pro-marriage fans thought that RYV could actually prove to be more popular than ASM given that it portrayed (to their minds) a more "true" version of Peter Parker/Spider-Man and that this was the book that fans had been waiting for.

Much like Eddie and the symbiote reuniting, RYV was supposedly - AU or not - also giving fans "what they wanted."

And now here we are. And this is definitely a case of people trying a book and either not liking it or simply not feeling it was worth continuing with.

For myself, I found the concept of a Parker family all fighting crime together to be too cute-sy and too Saturday morning cartoon to maintain my interest.

Not that I thought the book was bad, just that it wasn't for me. But I do hope they can at least get the book to 12 issues and give it a proper conclusion.

[UnknownEntity]

Still not giving up on this book and will continue to buy and support it. This month's drop has endangered the series closer to cancellation but its by no means in death row just yet. Marvel is still publishing titles that sell even less than 20k and we still don't know how much it dropped.

All I want is for the book to survive. Many good Marvel books are also being endangered due to low sales as a result of massive book overflow dilution that indicate a symptom of a larger problem in how all books perform over time.

[The Negative Zone]

If you want to keep the book afloat better be telling your comic book store to pre order it, or subscribe to it.