NealKenneth
Civilian
- Joined
- Sep 14, 2014
- Messages
- 762
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I grew up on the Marvel Masterworks and Essential series. My brother and I would pick up volume after volume from the library. Finally, I recently got a large, high-resolution tablet and the Comixology app and I've gotten a chance to read a lot of stories I always wanted to.
Naturally, I wanted to "catch up" and start reading stories hot off the press. But the more I looked into it, the less I wanted to leave the older stories. Here are a few reasons why:
.....
1) Too many options
It's really hard to get a grasp on what issues are "essential" on a month to month basis. Between the Lee/Kirby/Ditko days and the Claremont/Byrne/Miller days, Marvel had to be publishing twenty different series per month AT MOST. Now it's over a hundred. Even for single characters like Thor or Spider-Man, there are two different titles, and my understanding is that neither of the two Iron Man comics are even Tony Stark!
2) The characters I like aren't there anymore
Whether it's because the title has been given to an entirely different person (Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man etc.) or because the character has gotten so far away from the one I know that they might as well be someone else, I feel like the newer stuff is barely related to its own foundation. Peter Parker is a good example of the latter. He's single and he's running some sort of massive busines...my understanding is that he was a high school science teacher at one point and was married to Mary Jane. That seems a lot more like what Peter would grow up to be! Also Aunt May is still alive? If Peter's hitting his thirties, she ought to have had a good sendoff by now. And does he have any children?
3) There's very little content for the price
The average comic from Marvel is about $2.50 right now if you are a subscriber. At first, that seemed like a fair price to me. But then I found out that, compared to the 60s and 70s, an issue is about a third of what it used to be.
4) The writing seems to be very poor
Whether it's the dialogue being the same for every single character (no matter who is speaking) or just bland plots and premises, very little of what I've seen is very intriguing. When the whole year of a series is covering as much story as three or four issues did in the past, this feels especially unnacceptable to me.
5) Overly complicated universe
In the period of comics I've been reading, there were sometimes instances of time travel or alternate universes. But these two concepts were used sparingly and very carefully. Usually, if there was time travel, it was resolved within an issue or two and it was just about having fun with the novelty of seeing what if?? Nowadays, the results of these things are permanant!
This makes time travel and alternate universes (and all their baggage) essential to understanding some of the basics of the universe. Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen, for example...it just seems very wrong to me that such characters can exist in the same city as Peter Parker. Alternate universes also seem to be commonly used when someone has written themselves into a corner but, even then, the stories are treated as canon. It's a mess!
7) Questionable motives
There was plenty of bad writing in the earlier days of Marvel but at least you could count on the writers either A) just having a bad idea or B) just trying to make a quick buck. Now, it seems like quite a few writers at Marvel will use characters and stories for political grandstanding, bottom line be damned! It literally seems to me that they don't even care if their comics sell as long as they get to make a jab at people they disagree with. This makes it very hard to care about anything in the story.
8) Underwhelming digital service
Marvel Unlimited should be the comics equivalent of Netflix or Spotify. It should have digital access to comics the day they come out, not six months later. I would be willing to pay at least $25 a month for that service, even with all the problems I've already listed. There is no technological reason it should not be this way and it irritates me greatly that it's not available.
....
There might be even more reasons than these eight, but honestly, I don't want to think about it anymore right now. I've been a fan of Marvel characters my entire life and it makes me sad to see that they are handled so poorly these days.
Do you agree? Or am I being too harsh?
Also, if you have any recommendations for where to start, like five titles to subscribe to help me get caught up...any help would be appreciated!
Naturally, I wanted to "catch up" and start reading stories hot off the press. But the more I looked into it, the less I wanted to leave the older stories. Here are a few reasons why:
.....
1) Too many options
It's really hard to get a grasp on what issues are "essential" on a month to month basis. Between the Lee/Kirby/Ditko days and the Claremont/Byrne/Miller days, Marvel had to be publishing twenty different series per month AT MOST. Now it's over a hundred. Even for single characters like Thor or Spider-Man, there are two different titles, and my understanding is that neither of the two Iron Man comics are even Tony Stark!
2) The characters I like aren't there anymore
Whether it's because the title has been given to an entirely different person (Hulk, Captain America, Iron Man etc.) or because the character has gotten so far away from the one I know that they might as well be someone else, I feel like the newer stuff is barely related to its own foundation. Peter Parker is a good example of the latter. He's single and he's running some sort of massive busines...my understanding is that he was a high school science teacher at one point and was married to Mary Jane. That seems a lot more like what Peter would grow up to be! Also Aunt May is still alive? If Peter's hitting his thirties, she ought to have had a good sendoff by now. And does he have any children?
3) There's very little content for the price
The average comic from Marvel is about $2.50 right now if you are a subscriber. At first, that seemed like a fair price to me. But then I found out that, compared to the 60s and 70s, an issue is about a third of what it used to be.
4) The writing seems to be very poor
Whether it's the dialogue being the same for every single character (no matter who is speaking) or just bland plots and premises, very little of what I've seen is very intriguing. When the whole year of a series is covering as much story as three or four issues did in the past, this feels especially unnacceptable to me.
5) Overly complicated universe
In the period of comics I've been reading, there were sometimes instances of time travel or alternate universes. But these two concepts were used sparingly and very carefully. Usually, if there was time travel, it was resolved within an issue or two and it was just about having fun with the novelty of seeing what if?? Nowadays, the results of these things are permanant!
This makes time travel and alternate universes (and all their baggage) essential to understanding some of the basics of the universe. Miles Morales and Spider-Gwen, for example...it just seems very wrong to me that such characters can exist in the same city as Peter Parker. Alternate universes also seem to be commonly used when someone has written themselves into a corner but, even then, the stories are treated as canon. It's a mess!
7) Questionable motives
There was plenty of bad writing in the earlier days of Marvel but at least you could count on the writers either A) just having a bad idea or B) just trying to make a quick buck. Now, it seems like quite a few writers at Marvel will use characters and stories for political grandstanding, bottom line be damned! It literally seems to me that they don't even care if their comics sell as long as they get to make a jab at people they disagree with. This makes it very hard to care about anything in the story.
8) Underwhelming digital service
Marvel Unlimited should be the comics equivalent of Netflix or Spotify. It should have digital access to comics the day they come out, not six months later. I would be willing to pay at least $25 a month for that service, even with all the problems I've already listed. There is no technological reason it should not be this way and it irritates me greatly that it's not available.
....
There might be even more reasons than these eight, but honestly, I don't want to think about it anymore right now. I've been a fan of Marvel characters my entire life and it makes me sad to see that they are handled so poorly these days.
Do you agree? Or am I being too harsh?
Also, if you have any recommendations for where to start, like five titles to subscribe to help me get caught up...any help would be appreciated!
