The current state of disarray at Marvel

[anarky]

There's no excuse for not having ads. No one likes them, but they pay the bills. If people don't want to pay as much, charge less for them. Someone will want those damned ads.

Beats the shit out of $3.99 comics.

[jjreason]

The revenue must not be able to offset the material cost. Another sign of the apocalypse.

[Tom Foolery]

The revenue must not be able to offset the material cost. Another sign of the apocalypse.

Since they were essentially selling the ad space to themselves via "house" ads for other comics, it probably wasn't. A sales marketing staff trying to sell print ads in a book with a circulation in the 10,000s in the digital age probably wasn't even covering their salary costs.

[anarky]

Outsource it all. That shit is seriously dirt cheap (even done in-house).

"Regular" magazines with lower print runs have ads. Hell, advertise just Disney shit; it's house ads in the broadest sense, but would technically be revenue coming in from another branch of the parent company.

[Tom Foolery]

And now it's Official. September is "Death of Wolverine" Month.
What is funny is the resounding yawn of 'meh' from fandom over this. Even more so than Johnny Storm's and Peter Parker's deaths, you know Logan's coming back at some point. Nobody cares.

Marvel is killing off Wolverine (which proves yet again they troll this site like a muthahphuq).

While not implicitly stating so, they're making a huge fucking deal of Wolverine 12...which doesn't even come out until Sept 2014(don't confuse it with Wolverine 12 which is on sale now. That's the 12th issue from the Marvel NOW! Series which is getting canceled and relaunched during All New Marvel NOW! starting next year. Confused? Welcome to Marvel's new corn holing solicitation schedule. It's here to stay.)

Yeah so anyway what with them making a big deal of Wolverine losing his healing factor and now being "mortal" they're making fans and retailers aware of an issue almost a year in advance. And even doing some retailer promotion of returning unsold copies of Wolverine 1 in exchange for limited Variant copies of 12 when it drops.

Anyone still doubt Marvel has this website bookmarked? You'll know for certain when they bring Wolverine back a couple years later in a 'THE Wolverine' ongoing with a re-amnesia-ified Logan.

[Tom Foolery]

So, this Original Sin event is kinda bugging me. It's been billed as a sort of "wiki leaks" for the Marvel U. The Watcher gets killed and somebody uses his eyes to access all the "hidden" secrets of the characters histories. To me, retconning and injecting more drama into their origins is a mistake. The simpler it is, the more profound it is. Finding out the Spider bit someone else besides Peter is a huge no no. Finding Tony Stark had a hand in the Hulk's creation is a huge no no. Finding Johnny and Reed did something to Ben is a huge no no.
However, Making Angela(the Gaiman/McFarlane chick) into Thor and Loki's long lost half sister is brilliant. I seriously want Marvel to start mining all those old Image creator owned characters and buying them as well. Start with Ordway's WildGuard and Giffen's Trencher. Then work your way up to Shadowhawk and Youngblood. It's like retconning Image by attrition.

Oh, and I'm calling the killer right now: it's Nick Fury Sr. He's got the Uatu eye under his eyepatch. Now that he's no longer head of SHIELD, he's feeling unappreciated and needs to get back in the spy game in a big way. And he's going to be a big Marvel villain moving forward after this. That's my prediction.

[Diabolical]

I'm saying Spider-Man kills The Watcher.


And it still won't be the dumbest thing Marvel has done with Spider-Man.

[anarky]

Speaking from an outsider's perspective, it seems like an event built around a shit-ton of retcons, kicked off with the unnecessary death of a beloved character.

Uatu may be one of the dumbest ideas ever when you sit down and think about it, but everyone loves him. Everyone.

[jjreason]

Eh, just more quasi-exciting reading while it's current, then it & all the ramifications/retcons/etc will fade off into memory with those from the Civil War, Secret Invasion & House of M.

[Tom Foolery]

Remember that Hulk Annual where John Byrne retconned Skrulls into Hulk's origin?



Exactly my point.

[anarky]

I know current readers bitch about this, too, but I really wish the events actually meant something. They're always hype, some "world-changing" moment or revelation or death that's all slowly ignored over the next year or retconned entirely.

Time is broken, isn't it? Yeah, how'd that work out?

[jjreason]

And now it's Official. September is "Death of Wolverine" Month.

WOLVERINE: COOL NO MORE should have been the title, or how about WOLVERINE: OVEREXPOSURE - the thing that really killed him about 5 years ago. http://www.torontosun.com/2014/04/28/ma ... -wolverine

[jjreason]

Read Iron Fist 2, and I'm not quite sure of it's the "next big thing" or not, EP. I did however REALLY like Inhumanity 1 - Joe Mad's art really fit the book. I'll be in for a few issues of this one. Medusa has always been very visually appealing to me - not any sexier than any other Marvel female, just interesting.

[Tom Foolery]

Yeah, Iron Fist 2 wasn't as good as the first issue.
I hate when they start a "new" series for a character, and then immediately info dump ALL that characters continuity into the first arc. And in this case they're info dumping by razing it all. I'm not saying everybody in Kun Lun is dead, but (re)introducing Thunderer, Steel Serpent, that chick whose the sister etc, it's like why the fuck even start with a #1 issue? I have almost every Iron Fist book ever and even I was like 'hold on, am I gonna have to Wikipedia all this shit?' Trying to remember his continuity up til now. Also, it ticks me off when they make progress with a character like Davos, and then immediately revert him to being a one dimensional asshole villain. That's so fucking tired.


I'd be more excited about Joe Mad if he wasn't off the book after issue 3. And if he could make deadlines. The books already like 4 months behind schedule and only one issue has come out. Its retarded the most development in the Inhumans plot happened in Hickman's New Avengers this month and not in their own felching series. That book will last 12 issues unless they announce a movie at SDCC or something.

[jjreason]

Yep, dude was the worst with deadlines right from the beginning. I wonder why they keep letting him come back - I would have guessed he would have needed 2-3 issues approved before they even started finalizing them for release, he's that bad.