Comic book sales are down because diversity sucks. Or....

A Brief Guide to Marvel Comics' Four Relaunches—Yes, Four—Since 2015

All-New, All-Different Marvel
When Secret Wars came to an end in late 2015, it ushered in a new start for Marvel’s comics line-up, with new series starting over again at issue #1 (some holdovers from before the event were so short-run they actually released two #1 issues in the space of a single calendar year, like Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, which of course made a joke about it), but what was meant to be a complete restart for the actual universe itself. In fact, it began on an entirely new Earth, reborn out of the shattered remnants of the Marvel multiverse that was eradicated in the opening moments of Secret Wars.

All-New, All-Different didn’t completely erase continuity, but it did thrust many of Marvel’s mainstays in new directions. The new Avengers team was half-populated by scrappy young newcomers, like Ms. Marvel and Miles Morales (now integrated into Marvel’s prime universe, after the destruction of the Ultimate Marvel Universe). Peter Parker was now a Tony Stark-ian tech CEO billionaire instead of an everyman photographer. The X-Men were pushed out of the spotlight, while the Inhumans—enjoying new visibility thanks to their then-burgeoning integration into Marvel Studios’ TV and movie plans—were ascendant. There were new versions of classic heroes in the spotlight, from Jane Foster’s Thor, to Sam Wilson’s Captain America, to Amadeus Cho’s new Hulk.

But the good times for Marvel’s mightiest weren’t set to last. June 2016 saw the beginning of Civil War II, an event that pitted the hero community against itself, divided into factions underneath Captain Marvel and Iron Man over the existence of an Inhuman who could seemingly predict the future. It was a long, rough, not-very-good event—one that saw Bruce Banner killed off, put Tony Stark in a coma, and created bitter divides among formerly tight-knit friends. And when it ended we got...

Marvel Now 2.0
Not to be confused with 2012's Marvel Now!shakeup, Now 2.0 began in November 2016 (while Civil War II was still happening) and was less of a dramatic overhaul than All-New, All-Different. While there were multiple new series and restarts at issue #1 (of course), not every Marvel series was reset again. Now 2.0 primarily focused on the bitter divisions that still lingered after Civil War II’s climax.

Tony Stark’s coma lead to the rise of not one, but two armor-clad heroes: Doctor Doom took on the Iron Mantle in Infamous Iron Man, while young MIT student Riri Williams became the more noble successor to the Stark legacy, replacing Tony in the Invincible Iron Man comic as Ironheart. Elsewhere, the young Avengers of All-New, All-Different struck out on their own to form the Champions out of disillusionment with their elders, while the X-Men and Inhumans went to war with each other over the potential extinction of Mutant-kind. Basically, most people were miserable.

Especially miserable? Steve Rogers, who was miraculously restored to his super-powered self (he lost his abilities before Secret Wars, necessitating Sam Wilson taking on the shield as Captain America) through Cosmic Cube shenanigans that also turned him into an agent of the fascist organization Hydra. Steve spent most of Now 2.0 acting as a secret agent for Hydra, back in action as Captain America but secretly laying the grounds for the group’s hostile takeover of the US, which played out to... let’s say controversial effect in the 2017 event Secret Empire.


Marvel Legacy
This time, Marvel’s heroes weren’t divided, finally banding together again to fight back against Hydra Steve’s fascist rule. But a tempestuous reader reaction to Secret Empire, as well as as a growing discontent with some fans at modern Marvel no longer showcasing the classic heroes that made it a hit, led to the nostalgia-trading announcement of Marvel Legacy.

Although Legacy—which only just began last September—was meant to represent a moment where Marvel returned to its roots, a lot of its shake-ups were superficial. Some big things have happened, like Sam Wilson giving up the Captain America mantle and handing it back over to a newly-reformed Steve Rogers in the wake of Secret Empire, or the return of the Ultimate Marvel Universe. There was even a huge resurgence for the X-Men, who bounced back from earlier hard times and dealt with the returns of iconic characters like the original Wolverine (who’d been dead since 2o14) and most recently Jean Grey.

But Legacy’s, err, legacy so far is one of nostalgia rather than anything truly major. There have been details like old-style corner box art on comic covers, or most perplexingly, a return to “classic,” pre-Secret Wars issue numbering that mashes up a series’ previous runs into a single saga, causing issue numbers to leap from the mid-teens to multiple hundreds at the blink of an eye—Invincible Iron Man, for example, jumped from issue #11 all the way up #593! While we’ve still got a few months of Legacy left, it’s hard to see what further impact it could have beyond a message that Marvel wanted to return to its glory days.

“A Fresh Start”
And that brings us to last week’s news that yes, we’re going through this all over again in May 2018. Marvel heralded its May solicits with a video declaring a “Fresh Start” for the company’s comics this year, just five months after the last fresh start truly began. We still don’t know what this new shake-up will completely involve—we don’t even know its official name yet.

There have been a few comics announced as part of the roster shakeup, however. There will now only be one Avengers book(by Jason Aaron and Ed McGuiness), after years of multiple teams bearing the name, which will unite Black Panther, Thor (the Odinson version), Iron Man, Captain America, She-Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Ghost Rider. Odinson will be reinstated as the God of Thunder in his own Thor series, by Jason Aaron and Mike Del Mundo. Black Panther by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Daniel Acuña, will pick up on the thread first teased in Marvel Legacy #1 of there being a vast Wakandan Space Empire. Following his death in Civil War (and his bizarre re-appearance in Secret Empire), Bruce Banner will be restored as the Hulk in Al Ewing and Joe Bennett’s The Immortal Hulk. In another out-there announcement, multiplying mutant Jamie Madrox—a.k.a. Multiple Man, a.k.a. future Marvel movie star—is getting his own series as part of the relaunch, too.

That’s pretty much it so far, but we do know of at least one other shake-up this latest relaunch will include: An undoing of Legacy’s arcane plan to bring back the old-school numbering for Marvel titles pre-Secret Wars. Every new and relaunching series will start off once again at #1, making the decision to release months of titles with issue numbers in the multiple hundreds before reverting back look just as silly as it ended up being. In fact, some titles will feature two separate numberings, continuing the Legacy number and a new relaunched number for good measure. Which is... not confusing at all.

Again, that's all since 2015. What a fucking shitshow.

Link:

https://io9.gizmodo.com/a-brief-guide-to-marvel-comics-four-relaunches-yes-fou-1823281867

I read a while back that Marvel figured out that relaunches sell more issues, so they relaunch once a year. They treat each year like a TV season on an ongoing story. Even new universe thing really just added Miles Morales to the 616 universe. Something that I hated because I liked the Ultimate line and the various supporting characters.

Marvel’s biggest issue is that comics just aren’t selling like they used to, like all of print media. It isn’t really diversity, confusing storylines or changing characters, younger audiences just aren’t coming in like they used to. So they’re left with an aging fan base who scream at every attempt to bring in new readers.

Reading comics is a habit, and doing major reboots breaks the habit for a lot of people.

Oh, well. Hopefully, Marvel's done with the SJW crap and can concentrate on the characters people know and love. With the overpowering success of the movies, I can't for the life of me imagine why Marvel hasn't been mirroring the film universe (to some extent) with their content.

I want a Squirrel Girl movie, her comic is the best thing Marvel is putting out. It could be the adorable alternative to Deadpool, maybe toss in Howard the Duck as a sort of sidekick. His most recent comic was great too.

For context, Howard was kidnapped by aliens and appeared to be killed. It’s a running gag in his comics that Spidey is constantly having breakdowns when he just missed someone and immediately assumes they’re dead. When Howard returns he finds Spider-Man camped out in the same spot near a shrine he made to honor Howard.

To be honest, the constant reboots and relaunches have made me DETEST the comic book industry.

I think DC did ok with "Crisis on Infinite Earths" in the 1980's, but Marvel hasn't done one good relaunch / reboot. Ever.

Or, yanno....they could do both because neither takes away from the other :/

Crisis on Infinite Earths is pretty close to a textbook example of how to reboot your universe. It (mostly simplified) and streamlined the DC universe.

But I always felt that it, like Marvel's recent Secret Wars reboot, left the new universe a bit crowded. If comic book characters are going to share a world, there really can't be too many of them. If Superman's dealing with a problem that threatens the world, I'm wondering where Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, the Flash, etc. are.

Eh, readership appears to be fairly finite.

And the SJW crowd at Marvel sure didn't seem interested in doing both. They killed off Banner, gave Thor's hammer to Jane, took Tony Stark out of the armor, killed Wolverine, made Captain America a nazi, etc., etc.

I'm not the biggest comic nerd, but...making Cap a Nazi seems to miss the entire point of his existence. He was created in WWII....back when we were literally fighting Nazis.

That goes beyond "not being PC" and into "idiot fanfic fodder."

If that decision is the general trend for Marvel, no wonder they're failing.

Oh jebus, what the hell are most super heroes if not social justice warriors. Even those that work outside of the law like bat man are social justice warriors.

Stop whining about a term when you follow it like a sheep. This idea that some group of sjw is not an sjw because they happen to align with your idea of social justice is just silly.

It's time to kill Earth-616. Forever. Start fresh.

See, that is not at all what they did. It was precisely because his original enemies are Nazis that the ultimate threat of this storyline was those same Nazis, specifically Cap's original nemesis the Red Skull, brainwashing Cap to betray his most fundamental values and join them. It's the very basic idea of putting a character in a place that is as thr perfect opposite of what he is supposed to be, to then watch him fight to become himself again, while exploring what that is in the process.

It was an amazing, smart, riveting story, and its fulcrum is Captain America asserting himself against the evil version of himself.

That you have such a different idea of this story showcases that the alt-right snowflakes whose yammering gave you that impression are now literally too distracted to follow and understand a comic book story.

The Secret Wars I remember was from the late 1980's.

I actually think the comics that some fans complain about being just for diversity actually sell well for Marvel.

The Big Two have been a creative wasteland for over a decade. It's indie titles and foreign books for me.

Houseki no Kuni (Land of the Lustrous) has been my latest obsession. I like it so much I bought the official translations.

The comics should be following the film franchise more closely with the likeness of the characters matching. A kid watching the MCU isn't going to buy Jane foster weilding the hammer or anyone besides Peter parker being Spiderman.

Fuck no, they don't need to go anywhere near that watered down shit.

Let's see, when they killed off Banner, she-hulk just became the hulk, and went through a 10 issue run where the hulk didn't smash. They turned cap into a Nazi because reasons. Fem Thor pretty much only smashes men who bash feminisim. Jean Grey turned ice man gay, so he turned a friend's funeral into a Grindr hook up, ended up with his younger self from another universe hanging around, and spent multiple issues on his coming out to his parents. Riri Williams stole the plans for a suit from stark, stole the materials from MIT to build a suit, which barely worked, was called a genius for it and was given a suit by stark. She invaded Latveria and proclaimed herself queen, starting a civil war, she reads like a villain and a sociopath.

It's definitely bringing in people who otherwise wouldn't be reading Marvel at all.

They still can read those comics, they’re still publishing comics with Peter Parker as Spider-Man and Odinson as Thor. You’re complaining about Marvel making more comics.

Yeah no.

When you look a little deeper than your preconceived notions you see that Marvel is starting to cancel all the SJW experiments because none of them sell.

Generation X, Gwenpool, Luke Cage, Iceman, Hawkeye, America, and Jessica Jones.

In addition to that Marvel is also going back to basics. No more female Thor, Bruce Banner back from the dead and taking Hulk away from the current version, all the other legacy heroes back.

The "SJW" crowd doesn't support comic-books. They don't buy them. Not in the numbers needed to sustain the series.

Marvel should have left the legacy heroes alone and brought in new characters with new powers. The tokenism move was stupid. You alienated the current fans while failing to get the new fans to buy the books.

I'm shocked that comic book fans can be closed minded assholes, I really am.

Wait, what?

Googling it:

In 2012's All-New X-Men #1, the adult Beast of the present day travels into the past to recruit the original five X-Men on a mission to stop adult Cyclops. As these young X-Men come to grips with seeing how their future selves’ lives played out, young Jean Grey (who’s new to her telepathy) inadvertently reads young Bobby’s mind and discovers that he’s been living in the closet. Over the course of the series, Bobby gradually warms to the future and the idea of living openly as a gay teenager in an age where his queerness doesn’t necessarily carry the same kind of burdens it did back in his original time.

Eventually, young Bobby confronts his older self about their lives and older Bobby tearfully admits that he’s gay as well and that he’s proud of his younger self for being so mature for his age.

If SJW sold well for Marvel, they wouldn't be rebooting with an emphasis on their original characters.

Just stupid.

What pissed off fans was replacing the characters with what essentially was tokens and changing some other characters like Iceman.

The stories were crap. A lot of the artwork was crap. An example is Carol Danvers. In a lot of the books Danvers looks like a man. It’s just terrible.

Last but not least the artists and writers of these books were vicious bastards to anyone who dared complain.

Fans aren’t against new things. They are against being forced to accept crap.

And they stopped buying what they didn’t want.

If Thor being a woman or Captain America being black pissed off even one mouth-breathing Neanderthal comic fan, then to Marvel I say BRAVO.

We'll see if the sales of the reboot shit goes up, or stagnates.
If it stagnates, the "it's SJW!!", people have to apologize.

But that never happens, does it?
No one apologizes.
They just pretend they didn't say it, and tiptoe away, and I have to dig the quotes up.
And when confronted with their hypocrisy and cowardice, they go "oh yeah? Well you have a stupid face!", and run away.

Why, it's why we have this thread in the first place.
We had this same exact thread before, and I brought out all the figures for all comic sales being down across the board for everything but fucking Batman.
It's like we never had the conversation.
Fuck you idiots.

But they didn't replace them! Peter is still around and appears in more dedicated books than at any time since the mid-90s. Tony is still around. Odinson is still around. Steve is still around. Carol is still around. Bruce was admittedly dead for six months, but he's all better now, and that's pretty much an occupational hazard for superheroes ever since Superman died. The legacy heroes weren't gone.

And if it's just other characters picking up the mantle of established heroes that bugs people, why didn't we see the same backlash against Bucky as Cap, or more recently Victor as Iron Man? Or Dick as Batman over at DC?
Could it have anything to do with those being white males in every single instance?