And at times brands just drop. 'Tis very common. Bendis & Millar are still having a blast and they believe in Ultimate Marvel. Now with Loeb seemingly leaving New Ultimates, that just might spark even more interest. I've seen people recommending getting Fraction, Gillen and other new hot writers to put their enthusiasm on Ultimate Marvel, not just Bendis and Millar.
But I really don't see these hot new writers hopping on board for Ultimate Marvel. They want to work on the 616 characters that they grew up with. Take a look at all the Ultimate books popping out, almost all of them are by Bendis, Millar, or Loeb. Why work on Ultimate Iron Man, Ultimate Thor, and Ultimate X-Men when Fraction is working with the real versions of those characters? Gillen is still not a big enough name to be put on an Ultimate book.
The only new writer that seems to be willing to hop onboard is Hickman.
And what if the sales still won't help? Shall we just cancel Spidey and Wolverine because they aren't selling fantasticly anymore? Or shall we keep rebranding them over and over?
Wolverine is going to get another rebranding eventually once his issue total adds up to 300.
As for Spider-Man, what Marvel needs to do is if they're going to release a $3.99 book, they should release it only once a month, not two or three times a month and milk its readers dry of cash. A book that comes out twice or more a month needs to be at $2.99 because most people just cannot afford to keep up otherwise.
Which is unnecessary reading, and the new books are promoted as good starts. Ghost Rider fans *have* been reading Ultimate Avengers 2, withouth even having the need to touch on Ultimate Avengers 1 as an example.
From what I've read of Ultimate Comics: Spider-Man and Ultimate Comics: X, you definitely need to know that events from the previous Ultimate line happened.
Hey again last month was very hot with bunch of #1s coming out and whatnot. The trade sales are still high, and you really need to remember that Ultimate books used to be 2.99 and whatnot, now they're all 3.99. 50K purchases for 3.99 is better than say 50k purchases for 2.99. So reallty you're looking at the rank number here too literally.
But the sales numbers are going down as well. Ultimate Comics: Avengers started at 99K and it is now below 50K with the most recent issue.
Well lets just wait and see with the TV series coming up.
I just want talented Jeph Loeb to come back
But it has Deadpool and other heroes. It's a Marvel universe event that... Well noone seems to care about. :P Shall we reband Black Panther and Doctor Doom now? Because they aren't selling fantasticly anymore?
So? You have Superman popping up in Blue Beetle and that doesn't boost up sales of that title. You have Deadpool popping up in Moon Knight with the same effect. Just having characters pop up in a book doesn't do anything anymore.
Also, Doomwar is not an event. It is a continuation of the Black Panther book in which Dr. Doom is the villain. And no, you can't rebrand Black Panther, it is time to give the character a rest. Have him pop up in books such as Avengers, Uncanny X-Men, and Fantastic Four, and then give him another shot years down the line with a more competent writer.