The current state of disarray at Marvel

[Diabolical]

Hell, I'm not even enjoying the main Secret Wars story and I feel like I wasted money on that.
I'm only still buying it because of that mental illness known as Completionism.

[jjreason]

It is an illness, especially when it's costing that much money. I think if I gave up Marvel though, the whole hobby would follow very shortly after.

EDITED: Not the hobby dying in its entirety, my interest in the hobby would be gone. I'm not spending THAT much money.

[Tom Foolery]

I think I could easily cut my weekly pull in half and still find just about everything down the road for pennies on the dollar.
I've kicked myself because I found almost full runs of books that I paid full price on six months before.

And I think I enjoy books I bought for cheaper more because the "value" has been removed from them. A $5 book has to deliver. But a book I got for 50 cents? I can objectively enjoy it and not worry if I got my "money's worth".

[Diabolical]

I wish i had places near me where I could get shit that cheap.

[jjreason]

Somehow chocolate bars are still $1, maybe $1.50 at most. Someone show me a mother buying her kid a standard comic at any non-comic store for $5 - good luck with that, it's not happening.

[Tom Foolery]

I think kids' attention has shifted away from comics as entertainment, and towards video games and such. But comics aren't aimed at them anymore. And their new target audience, teens and young adults, aka "Millennials", tend to go the Digital and TPB route.
Comics aren't dying out. Floppies are dying out.

[jjreason]

Fair enough. That's even a good explanation for them continuing to jack the price - they don't even want to produce floppies anymore, just the other formats, but they'll take my $5 per book gladly until I decide I don't want to pay it anymore. Makes good sense actually. So if someone could just go ahead & convince me not to buy them, that would be grrreeeat. ><

[anarky]

I don't buy the "blame video games" excuse the industry has used. Yes, video games are more common today. But compare to when we were in our late teens. We had NES, Super NES, Sega, Game Boy, etc. Some still had Ataris and Commodores, or had PCs or Macs (or Amigas, remember them? probably not).

There are a lot more games being sold now than in the 80s, but it's because there weren't many adults playing video games then. Now, it's almost everyone.

Just like no one reads books anymore now that there's TV.

[Tom Foolery]

I'm just saying that the story and characters in modern video games are much more immersive than they were 20-30 years ago. And a video game offers hours, days, weeks, and months worth of immersive entertainment. With protagonists kids can identify with because essentially they ARE the character, controlling their actions and story.

A comic can be read in five minutes.

[jjreason]

It's the lack of identification. I don't think my son would read X-Men & feel that they "get" him, that they understand how it feels to be odd & left out, yet somehow be awesome because of a freak genetic lottery win. It's nowhere near as authentic as it used to be, and I don't think that's just because I'm desenstized from reading so many issues - I just think it's different now. Many issues look great but come off as hollow - fine for me as the big thing is crossing a number off a list - for a kid with choices that won't cut it. He would rather read the new Rick Riordan series or Hunger Games for the 4th time than pick up a comic he's never seen before.

[Tom Foolery]

Coming back to Secret Wars, I looked at cbdb and there have been 246 issues associated with the Event. That includes all the lead up issues like Avengers and New Avengers as well as the "Last Days" tie ins. Since there's a few issues of all the minis left to go, as well as the last 3 or 4 issues from the main series, it'll probably get up to 260 before it's all said and done. Be generous and say $4 per issue that's over a Grand invested if you were a completist.

http://www.comicbookdb.com/storyarc.php?ID=5714

[Diabolical]

You could argue all the original Marvel big guns have lost what made them great. X-Men is no longer about racism, Spider-Man is no longer relatable to kids, Fantastic Four is no longer about family, etc.

Plus, Marvel and DC is doing everything they can to kill readership by publishing bullshit like Secret Wars and the New 52 and constant #1s so it's impossible for new people to follow.

[anarky]

$1000? 246 issues?

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

And I thought three Transformers titles combined with the occasional one-shot or mini was excessive.

[jjreason]

Yeah Secret Wars has made the old Marvel vs DC crossover event (the second part too, let's not forget that) nightmare seem like a fucking picnic. I remember CLEARLY stating I was just going to buy the main series & possibly Inhumans/Guardians to keep those perceived streaks alive - but I fell for the gimic. I was reminded of awesome stories I had loved in the past in a number of cases & lured by big creator names in others - just the way they planned.

I have great intentions of exercising restraint, but am powerless in the store. My sense of needing to keep my LCS open & running smoothly by spending money on new books needs to fuck right off. It's not my fault he chose that business - it IS my fault they keep producing shit because I keep buying it for full cover price.

[vynsane]

You could argue all the original Marvel big guns have lost what made them great. X-Men is no longer about racism, Spider-Man is no longer relatable to kids, Fantastic Four is no longer about family, etc.

that's why Marvel created Ultimate in the first place - and Ultimate Spider-man really was their first major success story there. Ultimate X-Men kinda languished by the sidelines. the first two minis of The Ultimates were a different breed, they were great books, but totally NOT aimed at new readers, basically just a more extreme version of The Avengers for fans of The Avengers. then it all went off the rails with jeph loeb's Ultimates 3.