Marvel Solicitations Previews for July, 2010

[Dread]

Yeah, that's been part of Marvel's strategy for a long time

It is a dangerous game, is my point. More so now than two years ago, even. I am just not sure if Marvel realizes it, or just doesn't care. If they don't care, I think retailers deserve some honesty that Marvel doesn't give a crap whether they sink or swim, because they make a mint on movies.

"We thank you for your years of loyalty and service during our bankruptcy, and the years it took to rebuild our company into it's current position of strength. Now, you're irrelevant. Good luck, suckers. You can use unsold copies of Deadpool comics to heat your homes after your stores die, or to spark an 'insurance fraud' fire. It's on us."

My thoughts on this is that, no it probably won't help Nova's sales much, but there's a better chance of it helping than New Avengers did for Iron Fist. The reason being is that the New Avengers really didn't do anything to benefit Iron Fist or make him a relatable or likable character. He was pretty much just background. I can't think of a single thing he did other than punch or kick things in the background. So if someone, like me, read New Avengers, there's nothing in it to make me WANT to check out Iron Fist. Fortunately, I had a friend at work who kept begging me to check it out so I downloaded the first couple of arcs and fell in love. Went out and bought every issue and own the entire series, anticipating another series if ever they come out with one.

Now the differance is that Brubaker is better at utilizing his characters than Bendis. If nova's in bru's story he's going to actually do something and seem cool while doing it. So if he comes accross as an interesting character in Secret Avengers chances are more people are going to be curious and check out his solo book.

So hopefully, Secret Avengers WILL boost his sales. Here's hoping.

Hey now, Iron Fist did plenty on NEW AVENGERS. He usually funded their affairs, especially without Iron Man around. He occasionally punched something and often had at least 3 lines per issue (so what if most of them were 5 words or less, like "Woof!" or "Ugh" or "Yeah"?).

You do have a point that Brubaker may likely have Nova do more in SECRET AVENGERS than Bendis had Iron Fist do in NEW AVENGERS. But what of Spider-Woman? Bendis has pushed her as hard as Luke Cage on ALL of his books for years, yet not even he and Alex Maleev can keep her comic running for longer than 6-7 issues. They can make up all the excuses they want, but sales were abysmal for a series in mainstream Marvel written by THE GREATEST WRITER OF ALL TIME (as Marvel brands Bendis). So if NEW AVENGERS and years of Bendis investment couldn't do jack **** for Spider-Woman, believing that SECRET AVENGERS will do anything good or long term for NOVA or VENGEANCE OF THE MOON KNIGHT is, at best, very optimistic. Almost unrealistically optimistic.

But, like I said, I do appreciate the gesture. Whether it does anything for NOVA sales or not, the Avengers are Marvel's hottest franchise. Some could argue that if Marvel is serious about "amping" any character, they have them show up in Avengers. Certainly Nova is worth the same effort as Iron Fist. The gesture is unlikely to yield tangible results, but it is appreciated. THANOS IMPERATIVE will be Nova's main book; SECRET AVENGERS just a bonus. However, it will be the main book for, say, Beast or Valkyrie, and to a degree Steve Rogers.

Apparently, only Hank Pym is willing to dismiss a call to arms by Steve Rogers for other purposes.

Hopefully Brubaker has been paying attention to NOVA all these years. Richard has really grown up a lot, and has quite a lot of battle hardened experience. He's not usually a jerk about it, but he's far more confident and assured than he used to be even in 2006 MARVEL TEAM UP issues. While Brubaker is the writer behind the greatest run of CAPTAIN AMERICA ever as well as reviving Bucky, he also is the writer who wasted Banshee in DEADLY GENESIS. So some wariness for new ground for him, at least to a 20% degree, is not totally unfair. Of course, Brubaker is hardly the first, or last, good writer who just couldn't make an X-Men run work, especially since M-Day.

Is there a graph that has the trend of Marvel ongoing comics as a whole? Or even comics in general?

Comic sales overall in 2008 fell 2%. They are also down overall for 2009, but I do not know to what degree. While comic sales overall are up compared to where they were in, say, 1999-2000, they are quite a bit down from where they were in 2006-2007. So while some of it is relative, it is not worth ignoring historic lows for some franchises. The 1-3 year sales falls for some titles all down the Top 100 line are ghastly; sometimes as much as 20-50%. Only in comics are such things treated with a shrug.

Wolverine's comics are actually selling horribly low for the character's history. Marvel's ploy to push Daken on readers in the core book has backfired horribly on them. Wolverine literally is a worse seller now than he has ever been. But, Marvel does not acknowledge mistakes or misfires; Joe Q time and again has claimed the market moves too quick to "dwell on failures". The problem is not learning from them leads to them being repeated, and this era of Marvel, for all it's successes, has proven slow to realize when a strategy is not working, and to adopt a new one. It takes Marvel 2-4 years to realize something that outside, pro bono analysts online have often griped about for years. That is quite damning. The problem is many of the people who run Marvel are not businessmen; they are artists pretending to be businessmen, who usually cannot see objective reality. Joe Q is not an editor. He is an artist who is working as editor because he happened to capitalize on a fluke with Marvel Knights (and on Kevin Smith's then buzz factor). It is not the same. I can promote a plumber to be a tax analyst because he once saved a mansion from flooding, that doesn't mean he'll be perfect at it. In fact it'll take years of on the fly learning just for him to be average, at best.

In terms of comic strategies, there is a parrot at the Marvel bullpen and all it can say is, "AWK! Relaunch with a new Number One! AWK! Relaunch with a new Number One", and they always listen, and that all they do. And it has ceased to work. Ceased. It no longer works for more than a month, and it will not work again without years of rest at it. But, Marvel doesn't have the time to learn. The medium moves too fast for that. And Marvel seems to have an inability to put aside personal feelings regardless of results. Joe Q may love M-Day, but the X-Men have not worked in 5 years since, for example. Brubaker, Carey, Fraction, not even Alan Moore himself could make it work with M-Day gutting the central metaphor.

 

[runawayboulder]

I think the reason Brubaker is using Nova in SA is because he HAS been paying attention to how cool the character has become. So has Marvel too really. Nova is hardly a top seller but Marvel is recognizing how popular he's become with the fans recently and he's being thrust into their top franchise because of it. That's why I think we can let it slide that he'll be in two far away places at once.

I remember back when Nova was on New Warriors and everyone (Erik Larsen in particular) would always scream at how cool Nova is, but a solo book or mini would never get off the ground.

 

[hippie_hunter]

The line will be dead? The comics still sell greatly. The price tag with 3.99 is bothersome and how do you know whenever it's been too streamlined or not when you don't even read it? Since you know, you happen to be wrong.

Or well the thing is the whole point of Ultimatum was to change the universe and now it is. You don't find streamline Spider-Man living alongside Iceman, Human Torch and Gwen. You don't find the streamline mutants being created by the goverment and now being registered by the law. You don't find Avengers as an black ops group and so on so on.

Ultimate Line is doing great, i just wish Warren Ellis was writing more for it.

I wouldn't call the Ultimate Comics line dead like some are putting it as, but it isn't doing great at all either. I would call it rather sad.

Millar's Ultimate Comics: Avengers is selling nowhere near where his Ultimates was selling.

Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man is selling lower than Ultimate Spider-Man.

Ultimate Comics: X was propped up by six covers. Ultimate Comics: New Ultimates had 3. Let's see how it will do without them.

Warren Ellis' Ultimate Comics: Armor Wars again sold much less than Ultimate Iron Man did.

The Ultimate line used to sell fantastically but waning interest and Marvel focusing on the 616 Universe just ruined it. And Ultimatum was supposed to revitalize interest in the line but made it worse.

 

[Silver Knight]

Where are the Hulk covers?

 

[Tron Bonne]

Looks like those World War Hulks minis will be take their place in July

 

[Silver Knight]

So Hulk Thor vs Hulk?

Anyone got pics of Ice Hulk?

 

[Dread]

I think the reason Brubaker is using Nova in SA is because he HAS been paying attention to how cool the character has become. So has Marvel too really. Nova is hardly a top seller but Marvel is recognizing how popular he's become with the fans recently and he's being thrust into their top franchise because of it. That's why I think we can let it slide that he'll be in two far away places at once.

I remember back when Nova was on New Warriors and everyone (Erik Larsen in particular) would always scream at how cool Nova is, but a solo book or mini would never get off the ground.

To be fair, NOVA as well as GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY and the other space mini's over the years, through up's and down's, have maintained a steady audience of 18,000 - 20,000 readers that buys up all the space books. Roughly, the space line is the RUNAWAYS of the last three years; it doesn't always sell so hot, but it's small audience is devoted. 60,000 + readers popped up for WAR OF KINGS, so Marvel does know this audience has potential.

When Erik Larson was doing NOVA, it was the end of the 90's and few 3rd tier characters sold well or for long back then. That, and his series wasn't that hot. ANNIHILATION and everything after 2006 really has done a lot for Nova, and Abnett & Lanning have been there ever since his 4 issue mini from 2006. They took over after Keith Giffen left for DC exclusive work and have gotten better every year.

So, you do have a point that Brubaker & Marvel likely think Nova has enough buzz to justify an Avengers placement, or at least as much buzz as Moon Knight or Beast - both of whom, by sheer "coincidence", are also in books that either sell in the 19k range (Moon Knight) or just got canceled (Beast in SWORD).

I don't expect it to tie in well with THANOS IMPERATIVE at all, but I suppose if you just care about character exposure vs. if everything ties together as a cohesive whole, it's super. It does say a lot about how far Nova has come when some claim, "serving on the Avengers is a bit beneath him" and they actually have a point.