Hey guys, I'm Dev,
and I’m not even surprised anymore when Marvel Comics does a big relaunch.
May 2018’s ‘Fresh Start’ is the latest in a series of company-wide reboots,
and I’m still wrapping my brain around the last one,
which was like, 7 months ago.
The news was met with eyerolls from the comics community,
but I’ll be waiting on the sidelines wondering,
‘Maybe this will be the winner. Maybe this is when I can finally jump back in.’
I mean, you all know it can’t be any worse than ‘Secret Empire.’
What I’m trying to say is, the Marvel universe could seriously use a shakeup,
So today, I want to talk about why, now more than ever,
Marvel Needs a Fresh Start
Now, there’s some awesome stuff coming out of Marvel,
and they’re doing fine, but
Things Could Be a Lot Better
For all its success, Marvel has utterly failed in one key aspect of their business:
They’ve never been able to translate the success of their Cinematic Universe into the world of comics.
Marvel’s top-selling book of 2017 only moved about 300,000 copies for the whole year.
At the $5.99 sticker price, that’s like $1.8 million in lifetime revenue.
Math!
Compare that to Black Panther, which made $400 million...in four days.
Marvel would love all these fans to start reading comics on the regular,
but after every new MCU movie, book sales stay pretty much stagnant.
You guys read the book?
The flap. I read the back flap, I saw the pictures.
Now, there are a lot of reasons why.
The comic industry as a whole never fully recovered from the big speculator crash in the ‘90s.
Gimmicks like the ‘Death of Superman’ created a big bubble,
and after it burst, the business shrank like it ODed on Pym Particles.
Your friendly neighborhood comic shop became the only place you could buy weekly issues,
and today, a lot of stores are struggling to stay afloat.
Superheroes haven’t been this popular since the ‘40s,
but barely a fraction of all those fans are actually buying comics.
Marvel in particular has a hard time grabbing new readers,
I mean, just compare them to the Distinguished Competition.
I know DC’s movie reputation is in the trash,
some people...Kya would say unfairly,
but Marvel is destroying them as far as box office goes.
I hate to go back to Black Panther again,
(no I don’t),
but in just a few days, the movie outgrossed Justice League’s entire lifetime domestic take.
Granted, DC is doing way better on TV,
better than in theaters, in fact,
but Marvel’s heroes can’t be topped right now.
So why… how is DC even close to them in comic sales?
Marvel's still usually in the lead, but it's a tighter race than it should be,
given the reception of the movies.
DC has their own fair share of reboots,
but they’re slightly better at making them stick.
Unlike, say...
‘Marvel Legacy,’
one of many recent line-wide reboots the company hopes will make Earth-616 more accessible.
They scrapped it 7 months in, so you can guess how that went.
But if at first you don’t succeed,
Try, Try Again
...and again, and again, and again, until-- how many times have they rebooted? Is it seven times? Eight times now?
In 2012, Marvel rebooted their entire publishing line in the aftermath of ‘Avengers vs. X-Men.’
‘Marvel Now!’ debuted a ton of titles starring fresh new characters and bold directions for the established heroes,
and we got some pretty great stuff out of it,
like Kamala Khan, Jason Aaron’s ‘Thor,’ and Dan Slott’s ‘Superior Spider-Man.’
Sales improved, the critics raved,
(people complained)
and the industry showed signs of life.
Marvel Now! did good and the company knows it,
Go watch the Fresh Start hype video again, they lean on it pretty hard.
Not since Marvel Now! have we had such an overarching, line-wide change of talent on the Marvel Comics line.
Then, after just three years, they messed it all up again.
Hello!
[SPIT TAKE NOISES]
Ooh, yummy!
They promoted the 2015 ‘Secret Wars’ event as this huge, DC-style revision to their Universe,
but basically all it did was bring Miles Morales out of the Ultimate continuity and into the main canon,
to get him ready for his big movie debut.
Which is just an animated movie, looks good, but it's no live-action Tom Holland, just sayin'.
Hey Karen, what else can this suit do?
[GASP] What?!
Ricochet web!
Web grenade!
Besides that, every single the ongoing book was cancelled and relaunched with shiny new number one issues.
Welcome to the ‘All-New, All-Different Marvel.’
To their credit, Marvel also went out on a limb to shine a spotlight on diverse new heroes,
like America Chavez, Amadeus Cho, and Tony Stark’s successor Riri Williams.
I’m praying they give that role to Shuri, from 'Black Panther,' that would be awesome if she could be Riri Williams.
Just cut off the 'Shu,' make her 'Ri,' double it, make it 'Riri,'
and put her in Spider-Man, the sequel, and just make her the Tony Stark of that universe.
The All-New era made a solid stride towards representation in comics,
but it wasn’t without critics,
and I’m not just talking about the bigots,
Some fans genuinely preferred the characters they grew up with over the new heroes.
Marvel didn’t handle the controversy well, to say the least.
Their VP of sales was quoted saying
“people don’t want any more diversity.”
Not a good look,
and in the aftermath the company decided to revamp again as ‘Marvel Legacy,’
promising fans a return to the classic heroes.
Three of Earth's Mightiest Heroes joining forces under one roof,
to face the challenge of every day life!
Thor’s gonna be a hunky guy again!
Cap will reclaim the shield!
All those number one issues are going back to their original numbering!
(which is confusing in its own right)
but they all thought it was a good, prefect jumping-off point.
Annnd it lasted seven months.
The constant do-overs are exhausting to keep track of,
I would love to really go hard on Marvel comics again, but you can’t keep toying with my emotions.
I treat you like a princess, and you stab me in the back.
It’s hard to get attached to a story or character when they’re getting rebooted more often than Spider-Man movies.
What are you doing here?
What are YOU doing here?
Marvel needs to make this next relaunch stick,
because fans are getting tired of the whiplash.
Their track record isn’t great, but I have a little hope,
Because a ‘Fresh Start’ also means
Fresh Meat.
Both Marvel and DC are having a hard time keeping their talent onboard,
mostly because there’s so many opportunities for comic creators outside of the world of comics.
Think of it like this,if you were an established writer or big name artist,
why waste your time on characters that don’t even belong to you,
when you could create your own at Image or one of the other indies,
keep the rights for yourself,
and cash in when the movie studios come knocking?
I’m sure Marvel pays great,
but you could be making that ‘Walking Dead’ money!
When the creator wants to publish a comic, Image comics is there for you.
When that creation wants to go live in other media, Image Comics is like 'hey, have a good time!'
There aren’t many legends left at the big two,
which means they lean pretty hard on the ones that stick around.
For nearly 20 years, Brian Michael Bendis has been one of the most influential voices at Marvel.
Beginning with Ultimate Spider-Man and Jessica Jones,
and ending with Miles Morales and Ironheart,
Bendis has been steering the ship for a long time,
for better or for worse.
Last year, the comics world was rocked by the announcement he was jumping to DC,
but honestly, I’ve gotten a little tired of his take on the Marvel Universe.
I was reading the Miles Morales 'Spider-Man,' and it's fine, I like the character,
but it's the writing, the pacing, everything is just a little off for me.
It’s not the worst, but I do think it’s time for someone else to take the reigns,
pretty much what you’d expect from a “Fresh Start.”
Between Bendis leaving,
and ‘Spider-Man’ writer Dan Slott taking a break from the character after 10 years,
there’s definitely a sense that Marvel is try to move beyond the past,
and start the future off on the right foot.
They even replaced longtime editor-in-chief Axel Alonso with C.B. Cebulski,
Y’know, that one guy who jump started his career by pretending he was a Japanese writer named 'Akira Yoshida.'
That is a no-no, ladies and gentlemen.
Marvel tried to slip that one past us, too,
but they caught a world of shit once it came out.
It looks like they’re sticking with Cebulski, though,
so hopefully he’s learned from his errors, and his shitty ways.
Either way, I like his first big move as EIC.
Relaunching everything so soon after ‘Legacy’ isn’t the cleanest solution--
Hope you’re excited for a fresh new batch of #1 issues!
But clearing out the old guard and making way for new creative teams is a good start towards rebuilding their readership,
and giving new fans a clean slate to jump onboard.
Will ‘Fresh Start’ be the answer Marvel’s been looking for?
Maybe, maybe not.
How many more of these?
It all depends on whether they give it the resources, the talent,
and the time necessary to retake their throne atop the comic book industry.