Wednesday Morning Quarterbacks - It’s Marvel’s Turn!

By blackmore and Havok3595

Note: Due to my own dragging my feet in getting this week’s column done, Hav offered to pitch in and help me out. He believes that he is ghost writing, but I secretly switched his regular writing credit for Folders Crystals…let’s see if he notices.



My Infinite Crisis column made me realize that I was spending way too much time complaining about DC, and it’s time to turn my attention to that other comic company in New York City. Joey Q. and his band of marauders are definitely at fault for quite a bit of what’s gone wrong with the comic industry, and it’s time to call them on the carpet for it.

Where to begin….

- Everything is an event lately, and they have no signs of stopping – After Civil War, we’ll see the next big event where Bendis and Millar have Hulk wrestle Dr. Strange in a baby oil death match. Not a dream! Not a hoax!!

We all like cool and vague words that smell of a smackdown like Decimation and Annihilation. Vague titles like House of M and The 198 sound interesting too. But eventually, even Roget's Thesaurus runs out of exciting words.

Where's the forest and what are the trees these days? Marvel has a long tradition of small character-based drama mixed up with the occasional action movie big event. Would the Dark Phoenix Saga have mattered if we didn't spend the previous 20 years getting to know Jean Grey? The death of the first Thunderbird, while impactful, did not have the same effect because we barely knew him. The Other is an interesting case of this: we have big changes to Spider-Man's character, and when this has happened historically, we get a lot of "reaction shots" from his extended cast, which has always been an integral part of the Spider-Man mythos. However, when you're jumping from The Other into a Civil War, you get a little bit about what MJ's thinking and everyone else goes to the wayside. The impact of The Other is diluted by the rush into the next event.

House of M and Decimation were similar. As a one-shot coda, Decimation would have been a good way to build on the after-effects of House of M. But, it had to be an event of its own...and watch out for Planet Hulk! Oops, here come the Illuminati! Meanwhile, there's Annihilation on the horizon! And Civil War!!! Marvel will literally be running three big events at once over the next few months!

Most of us read comics on a budget, so this forces us to spend less money on other books just to keep up with events in the Marvel universe. Marvel can argue all they want that you don’t have to buy every part of Civil War, but honestly, how many fans buy crossovers piecemeal?

We like big events. They're nice every now and then as a break from the typical character drama. Sometimes, we just want to see stuff blow up. But we need to care about that stuff before it blows up or all impact will be lost. It is well past time to throw the brake lever on this train in order to salvage it.

- Variant covers, feeding the collector market – Let’s party like it’s 1993!

I hate the idea of comics as collectibles! I read all my comics and the only reason I save them is because I want my kids to be able to enjoy them some day. Things like variant covers and CGC are foreign concepts to me.

Marvel has gotten out of control with variant covers, limited edition second printings, penciled editions, etc. Just a few years ago, Quesada said, “Marvel comics will not be getting a second print. When they sell out, they will be collected in trades and Must Haves.” They quickly backpedaled from that when they realized they can get people to buy variant covers

And the worst part is that a vocal minority of fans have bought into it. Not a week goes by on GameFAQs where I don’t see a post saying, “I got a great deal on Skimpy Clad Woman issue 1 with the rare Foil Pasties cover…20 bucks! When can I expect to sell it for a thousand dollars?”

The reality of the situation is that a comic is only worth what you can find someone willing to pay. And the majority of comic fans are not going to pay hefty amounts for these covers. If you are buying them because you like an artist or a cover (though you are still getting rooked), that is one thing. Buying it for the sake of later investment is just short-sighted. This mentality is what killed the industry in the 90’s and none of us want to see that happen again.

And to let you in on a little inside secret, comic price guides are put together by randomly polling comic shops. It is in the best interest of the comic shop for them to be…less than honest…about how much they are selling comics for when reporting it to the price guides. It drives up the price in the guide, and makes fans think their comics are worth a lot more than they really are.

- What Marvel book sold out this week? – If it sold out, how come my comic shop has hundreds of them?

WOW!! Here is a shocker. Amazing Spider-Man #529 sold out. I can’t tell you how sick I am of the “Sold Out” announcements. It is important to realize that a comic selling out is a meaningless concept. Especially when tied in with the variant second cover phenomenon.

Let’s look at how the comic industry works: Comic shops set pre-orders based on reader’s early interest. Comic companies base their printing numbers based on these orders. After comic shops receive their books and see how books sell, they make reorders. Now, let’s say Marvel receives an order of 10,000 copies of a comic. They decided to print only 10,100 copies. Once those 10,100 comics are sent to the comic shops, the comic has sold out at the distributor. Even if no one buys these comics from the comic shop, these comics are still considered SOLD OUT.

Now Marvel has to “rush” to do a second printing, which is almost pure profit for them. They have already paid the creators for the book and printing costs are pretty minimal at that point. And people rush comic shops to get the issue because they are afraid of missing “THE NEXT BIG THING.” It’s empty hype, and while it works as a business practice, you definitely have to question the ethics of it.

- WWF style promotional tactics/Joe Quesada – Tell ‘em Mean Gene!

I understand the value of a public figure representing the company. Look at Stan Lee! He was the spokesman for Marvel for decades! But, Stan Lee was a carnival barker, and he was damn good at it.

These days we have Joe Quesada! Half the time, I doubt even he believes what he is saying. You can only take so much of Quesada’s hype and sarcastic remarks before you want to tell him to “JUST SHUT UP!” Everyone remember the U-Decide debacle? Other than making Marvel, Joey Q, Bill Jemas, and Peter David look foolish, did it really achieve anything? Captain Marvel got cancelled 25 issues later, Marville was the just about the worst comic ever written, and Ultimate Adventures was just unmemorable.

Also, because of his antics, DC has made it clear that until Joey Q is gone, there will be no more Marvel/DC crossovers. After the awesomeness that was JLA/Avengers, that is a real shame. Joey Q. needs to tone it down a bit and put a more professional spin on Marvel.

- Too much reliance on only a small group of writers – How many books can Bendis write a month?

Alright, Brian Michael Bendis is a good writer that sells comics. Powers and Alias both sold basically on his name alone. Ultimate Spider-Man was by all accounts a very strong book in the early going and launched an entire imprint that is still going strong. But feeding him five or more monthly titles actually dilutes both his talent (I've found most writers prefer to do two or three simultaneous titles at most) and the value of his brand name.

If you like Bendis, you're likely to buy the one title he writes. You're probably going to buy both of them if he writes two. But if he is doing four or more, you then just select the Bendis titles you prefer and don't follow him over to the other books.

And what happens to your Bendis-dependent line if BMB (and I hope it never happens) gets hit by a truck? Or is he gets offered a deal "too good to refuse" by another company? Or decides he's done with writing one day? This was almost exactly the position Marvel found themselves in when the internet decided it hated Chuck Austen. Chuck was writing several titles and getting first crack at anything that became available. Suddenly, he's unfashionable and Marvel's left in a scramble to fill the immense gap that a writer vacating several simultaneous titles causes. You'd think Marvel would have learned from that trying experience, but they instead just went to another "go to" guy.

This also goes for Reginald Hudlin. I have not read much by him, but he seems to be vilified by comic fans. I am shocked that he keeps getting more and more books, and will be writing a major summer event: Storm and Black Panther’s wedding. Does he have blackmail material on the Marvel Editorial staff?

- Too much throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks – What book are we going to cancel this month?

The X-Men are cool. We all know this. Any given member of the X-Men is somebody's favorite...yes, even Maggot has his adherents. But, are there enough people that really want to follow each one individually? Who knows, we might as well try. Rogue, Mystique, Storm, Gambit, Bishop, Nightcrawler, frickin' Jubilee, a Sentinel, TWO Wolverine series...and many of these series get thrown out there at the same time!!! It will be like an X-battle to the death. Unfortunately, most of them die.

I'm not talking down the others, but I've got a soft spot for the fuzzy elf myself, and the Nightcrawler series did a good job of taking him in another direction from the X-Men while still maintaining his ties back to them. If launched by itself, it may have succeeded. But when you go into the comic shop and see every mutant ever with a solo series, you're unlikely to buy any of them. If a half dozen X-related characters get the go for an ongoing at roughly the same time, the typical fan doesn't know which way to go and buys none of them. If there's only one of them out there at a time, the typical X-fan may pick it up to give it a try so he doesn't have to play favorites with the merry mutants.

Look at Tsunami! A few years back, Marvel released a flood of books and all of them ended up cancelled in the end. Thankfully, fan support brought back Runaways and Sentinel, but both of these terrific books were almost lost in the shuffle.

The problem is that this oversaturation, the "too many options" syndrome as I like to call it, leads to too many titles canceled quickly because the number of choices reduced the amount of sales any single one could get. And it also made it so we all knew going in that there was no way all of them could succeed, so why even bother?

Let people give Rogue a chance before she has to compete with Jubilee. Both of them will thank you later.

- Constant relaunches – Which Captain American number 1 is this?

Excalibur (vol. 3) lasted only 14 issues and had to be relaunched as New Excalibur. She-Hulk, Runaways, and Young Avengers all have their series restarted. Captain America’s first series lasted from 1968 to 1996. And then was relaunched in 1996, 1998, 2002, and 2004 There is a real problem here! How does anyone keep track of which issue 1 is which? It becomes very frustrating trying to figure out which series a random back issue of Cap is from, especially when the series are so close together.

I understand that Marvel is trying to capitalize on the increased sales of a new number 1, but there has to be a much better way of promoting these books than starting from scrap all the time. And besides, once the series hits an anniversary, it will just go back to the earlier numbering anyway…Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man, and Thunderbolts for example.

Then there’s the tactic of sticking “New” onto the title of a relaunch. The low issue number apparently wasn’t a big enough hint to us. No, you absolutely need to let us know that this isn’t Avengers, this is New Avengers. These are the New X-Men, not the old ones. Never mind that we’ve still got most of the same major players, these are the NEW Thunderbolts, damn it!

I am honestly amazed that Uncanny is as high numbered as it is. Now that I said that, look for New Uncanny X-Men. Or better yet, in a few years, maybe we will get New New Avengers!

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LETTER PAGE

Mike,

I meant to write to you about Blaze of Glory & Apache Skies, but I forgot between my book shelf and the computer. Senility has clearly begun to set in.

High Roads was another great inclusion. Didn't even think of that one!

I'm going to check out Shock Rockets at some point. Sounds rather interesting. Also, one of these days I'll actually get to Wildguard. That's been on my radar for a while.

I can't believe nobody recommended iCandy or Alpha Flight. Oh right, they both have millions, anddd MILLIONS of fans.

Peacenik,

Chris D.

I guess I should shill for a friend here. Chris finally got off his lazy ass and now has a full time column over on Comics Nexus . It’s pretty good stuff, and he has told me about doing some pretty cool contests and stuff.

All right, that wraps it up for this week. As always, the awesome artwork at the top is done by my sister, Patti. I think she’s got a crush on Joe Quesada…she is attracted to geeks who have money and power, apparently. The pink “Cover for chicks” was inspired by my wife’s annoyance at the dismissive attitude of comic clerks towards female comic fans. Ever since she heard, “Some mouth breather tell me ‘This comic is great for female readers,’ she’s had very little patience for comic shops.

Please e-mail me any questions, comments, or whatevers to jackknight@gmail.com. I do read all my e-mails, and I’ll post them with my column. Also, remember to swing by GameFAQs and check out Eisner Cup season 3!

Now, go out and read some comics, you slacker!