Should Marvel have an event that kills off a lot of dead wood?

[ed2962]

Cosigning, even though I think it's the cowardice of writers that would stop this from ever happening. What would they do if they couldn't fall back on their retread stories using only their favorite characters.

I wouldn't call it "cowardice." It's more a case that the company is still making money from certain characters, so why would they kill them off?

[leokearon]

Agreed.

When was the last time a mass death of characters was actually convincing in making the villain seem threatening?

It never is, because you know the characters are basically jobbing.

[Mike_Murdock]

I wouldn't call it "cowardice." It's more a case that the company is still making money from certain characters, so why would they kill them off?

It's also a company made up of dozens of individual creators who might want to write stories with their favorite characters. If I had the opportunity to write for Marvel, my hope would be that I could write a Daredevil story and not be told that he's dead and to use D-Man instead.

[KangMiRae]

Nah, they should kill off the unnecessary amount of clones, copycats, and legacy characters. The original deadwood characters can stay—they're original and can one day be written well.

[PCN24454]

Nah, they should kill off the unnecessary amount of clones, copycats, and legacy characters. The original deadwood characters can stay—they're original and can one day be written well.

I think that’s still bad for reasons we’ve already explained. It’d be a waste of an event. That’s how I felt about the latter half of Slott’s run where he started focusing on older villains despite the new villains’ stories’ not being completely played out.

It didn’t help that many of said stories with old villains were retreads of old plots which are never fun.

[KangMiRae]

I think that’s still bad for reasons we’ve already explained. It’d be a waste of an event. That’s how I felt about the latter half of Slott’s run where he started focusing on older villains despite the new villains’ stories’ not being completely played out.

It didn’t help that many of said stories with old villains were retreads of old plots which are never fun.

Easy solution. No event, just ignore them into comicbook limbo and never mention them again.

[Snoop Dogg]

I mean, then you run the risk of the story ending up like Ultimatum, which was gorn for the sake of gorn.

Ultimatum conceptually was actually a good solution to the problem of that line becoming 616-2 and just rehashing old stories, even if some of the choices were suspect. And it did wonders for the U X-Men until different things screwed them up again.

[scourge]

It's also a company made up of dozens of individual creators who might want to write stories with their favorite characters. If I had the opportunity to write for Marvel, my hope would be that I could write a Daredevil story and not be told that he's dead and to use D-Man instead.

A more likely scenario is that someone would want to come in and write their favorite character D-Man and get told to make it Daredevil instead.

[PCN24454]

Easy solution. No event, just ignore them into comicbook limbo and never mention them again.

I would rather time keep on moving.


Peter Parker in real time would be 70+. That’s a perfectly logical reason for Miles or someone else to replace him.

[PCN24454]

A more likely scenario is that someone would want to come in and write their favorite character D-Man and get told to make it Daredevil instead.

That’s happened WAY too many times.

[Gaastra]

Yeah didn't they say they were going to use the female yellowjacket in thunderbolts but marvel just killed her off (she was great in gotg. What a lame death and waste of a hero.) so they couldn't use her? Man that stinks as she could have took off.

Liked the female red raven. Never heard of her till the first issue of avengers arena and would love to read about her in champions or new warriors. Then they killed her off in the first issue. What a waste.

Blink was killed off right away then they used her in aoa and everyone loved her but marvel killed off the main universe version. People were demanding marvel bring her back for years and she was in the wizard mag top heroes AFTER she was killed for a long time! They had to bring in the aoa version years later. If marvel didn't just kill her off right away they would not have been in that rut!

[Astral Disaster]

Yeah didn't they say they were going to use the female yellowjacket in thunderbolts but marvel just killed her off (she was great in gotg. What a lame death and waste of a hero.) so they couldn't use her? Man that stinks as she could have took off.

Liked the female red raven. Never heard of her till the first issue of avengers arena and would love to read about her in champions or new warriors. Then they killed her off in the first issue. What a waste.

Blink was killed off right away then they used her in aoa and everyone loved her but marvel killed off the main universe version. People were demanding marvel bring her back for years and she was in the wizard mag top heroes AFTER she was killed for a long time! They had to bring in the aoa version years later. If marvel didn't just kill her off right away they would not have been in that rut!

Just goes to show you never know which character may catch on with readers given the right story or writer.

[skyvolt2000]

You do NOT do an event to get rid of what you consider dead wood.

Because how much of that dead wood was NEVER given a shot?

How many were off limits to writers by editors (or HIGHER UPS like we saw with Fantastic Four or WORST what you saw with Wally West, Cassandra Cain & most of the Young Justice roster)?

Or got pitches shot down? There is a Marvel writer that has FOREVER pitched a Colossus series. Hint she's in the Wave 2 of X-Men books coming soon with Vita.


Squirrel Girl is PROOF that any character can make money. If she can make 50 issues and be a New York Times best seller.

Rocket Raccoon was in limbo for HOW LONG before GOTG?

A more likely scenario is that someone would want to come in and write their favorite character D-Man and get told to make it Daredevil instead.

The stories the stories that could be told about how many times that has been done.

An example of SORTS- WASP book with Nadia was pitched as a Bumblebee book at DC.

[PCN24454]

Ultimatum conceptually was actually a good solution to the problem of that line becoming 616-2 and just rehashing old stories, even if some of the choices were suspect. And it did wonders for the U X-Men until different things screwed them up again.

Ultimatum interrupted a lot of story arcs that were going on, and it was hard for the books to bounce back from that.

[H-E-D]

The idea of doing a major status-quo shift for 1610 that you couldn't do in 616 was a solid one, but you can kinda tell they didn't actually have much of a plan.