Will Marvel`s fear of change and age eventually destroy them?

[TheCorpulent1]

Bleh. I'm really not on board with this Batman RIP thing. It seems like an exercise in futility to me.

 

[Hans]

Well, what isn't an exercise in futility when it comes to comics? I mean, do you really think Steve Rogers isn't coming back? Bruce Wayne will be Batman again (if he ever stops). The enjoyment shouldn't come from seeing permanent change, but in the fun of the stories.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I know, but Brubaker built up a lot of characters related to Cap before killing him off and having them take center stage. The Bat-family has been in a rut since OYL, as far as I'm concerned. Nightwing's comic just recently pulled itself back up to readability, Tim was uncharismatic and angsty to an absurd degree until Spoiler came back, Birds of Prey has morphed into a weird, expansive, seemingly unorganized team book that didn't really interest me after Simone left, and the less said about Batgirl, the better.

 

[Hans]

What does any of that have to do with Batman RIP?

At first I wasn't too into Morrison's Batman, but it's since grown on me a lot. He's been planting seeds for what's coming for a long time now, and it's been fun to see them grow.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

RIP is affecting all of the ancillary Batman titles as well. I've always tended to favor those titles over Batman's own comics. His supporting cast interests me a lot more than he does.

 

[Hans]

I can see that. Nightwing and Catwoman, in particular are characters that I actually like more than Batman, although Batman's books generally have better talent and stories.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Robin and Batgirl were my favorites. So, yeah, this isn't a good time for me as far as Bat-family comics go.

 

[Hans]

Ouch. Poor Batgirl fans. Really, I feel for you.

 

[The Overlord]

The thing is, this is a problem that all of Western comics face. Marvel, DC, and probably others.

Have all of Image comics aged in real time? Because I can tell you, INVINCIBLE has been going strong for over 51 issues and Mark's still 18 years old and a freshman in college. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of growth in that story and 3rd part companies like Image and Dark Horse have more leeway than Marvel & DC because they're smaller fish; 4% of the industry on a good month (each). Has SPAWN aged? I have no clue.

It's a Western comics thing, which I think comes from taking comics for granted for so long and allowing the commercialism to overwhelm the artistry. Japan has a lot of commercial stuff with their manga and anime but they started that as an alternative to Walt Disney in the 20th century. Much as the original Fantastic Four were an "answer" to old school superhero books of the Golden Age, so was manga and anime, at least in theory.

80 years later and our cartoons still focus on talking animals geared for children.

In a way, that is why I can respect Archie. It's timeless but there are no illusions and no false promises.

Still, it is what it is. Obsess too much about this stuff and it becomes very hard to enjoy the big two. At the very least without becoming very cynical and bitter, which frankly a lot of fans are (with good reason).

The short answer is the "Marvel Time" paradox won't destroy Marvel. The core objective of the Joe Q era was to set up Marvel to gain enough capital from licensing characters out that if the comic sales plummet, they still will be in the black. They've succeeded in that, for the most part. The dilemma of "always selling to the same fans forever" is there, but on the other hand, quite often the kids that start reading comics do because their parents did. That's at least how I started (my mom literally dated an inker for G.I. JOE in the 80's).

Yeah Japan has a better cartoon industry, but we have a better live action industry, that's the trade off.

Sure manga is more popular with kids, but nearly as popular as vidoe games or the interent, that's beats everything in terms of kids attention.

Really now these characters work better as concepts rather then being tied to an individual contiunity, these characters can still sell, just in different formats.

I mean has an anime movie ever made as much as Iron Man or the Dark Knight movies?

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Manga's more popular with everyone, my friend. Anime, not so much in America, but the manga industry is doing about ten times better than the comic industry in America, despite the fact that readership of everything in America (except, probably, the internet) is steadily dropping year after year.

 

[Hans]

I don't get the kids who only read manga, saying that American comics are all the same. I don't get them and I hate them.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

They're as bad as the kids who only read American comics and think manga is all Dragon Ball and Pokemon, basically.

 

[Hans]

Oh, I know it's not all Dragonball Z. It all sucks, though.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Regardless, it's outselling practically everything else printed on paper. I think it's outselling comics in particular because a lot of American comic fans read manga as well, but getting manga fans to transition to American comics is practically impossible; but that's speculation on my part. I certainly can't get one of my friends, who only reads manga, to read any comics (except Buffy, but then I stopped bringing my issues over for her and she just stopped reading it).

 

[Dr. Fate]

RIP is affecting all of the ancillary Batman titles as well. I've always tended to favor those titles over Batman's own comics. His supporting cast interests me a lot more than he does.

A friend of mine once said the exact same thing. Small world, eh Corpulent1?

 

[webhead921]

I don't really care about continuity, I just want good stories. Take a look at all star superman and the dark knight returns. they are both classic stories that have nothing to do with contiunity, yet they add to the legacy of those characters. That's how I view ultimate spider-man (i know it is in ultimate continuity). Ultimate spider-man is just some good stories that add to the legacy of spider-man as a whole, in addition to the 616 comics, movies, and tv shows.

btw, I also like batman's supporting cast (nightwing) better than the bat himself.

 

[Aristotle]

I don't get the kids who only read manga, saying that American comics are all the same. I don't get them and I hate them.

Hear, hear.

 

[Aristotle]

Not really, if you are obliged to do something you can't really claim selfishness as it's not a choice.

If you are forced at gunpoint to kill someone, you still choose whether or not to kill them. Some ethics are higher than the law (and that leaves aside the question of whether the law really requires such selfishness.) Don't want to be forced into selfishness? Don't go public. Or hell, work for changes in capitalism to accommodate more ethical business practices.

 

[Aristotle]

Agreed! I actually like that Marvel characters don't age.

Stop right there. It's not trendy to talk about why comics are good. Comic fandom is in full self-loathing mode and has been for about ten years, so focus on all the things that are wrong with comics so all the sad pathetic nerds can pretend like they don't really love comic books.

God, what a situation we've been forced into. Don't you get it, people? We won! We ****ing won! Now is the time to celebrate the comics we love, not look for artificially generated reasons to hate them!

 

[Aristotle]

Surely marvel time makes it more difficult to write in a shared universe, i mean if you want to reference the first iinferno crossover when in continuity did that occur?

Actual time divided by four=comic-book time. Simple equation. For anything more than forty years ago, selective continuity applies, as dictated by the company or by your own personal selective-continuity-o-meter.

Its easier than you think.

Yeah. It sure the **** is.

I am saying that to do that you have to ignore the official mandate on when the stories should occur.

We've all been ignoring the Clone Saga, Genesis, Millennium, and Iron Man's nose-mask for years. What's the beef?

See. John Constantine, Savage Dragon, Goku and Judge Dredd. The best characters are real time.

Technically, Constantine moves in real-time. You'd be hard-pressed to find any more real development of the character than Batman has seen in the same amount of time, however. That's from one of the biggest Hellblazer (and Batman) fans that you'll ever meet.

the x-men used to age they stopped in the late 80s. Imean if they aged properly they would be in their 50s/60s.

And who doesn't want to read about Dazzler at age 67? Sign me all the way up!

What about Magneto? Its fine to change punisher from a vietnam vet to being a gulf war vet but how can magneto still have the interesting duality without the holocaust being part of his backstory? There is no other event that would be able to have the power of the holocaust in his origin.

For one thing, you can easily transpose him to a number of different contexts that have just as much pain and suffering as the Holocaust. In fact, as a Jew, I'm tired of seeing the Holocaust exploited and exploited and exploited over and over again as a source of dramatic tension, to the point when nobody even cares about the actual tragedy anymore.

 

[Aristotle]

We're talking about Marvel, not DC. I don't agree with what DC is doing on that front since I consider it unnecessary.

"Is doing"? They did COIE once. Since then, all of their efforts have been either neutral or PRO-multiverse/hypertime. Especially right now.

 

[gildea]

If you are forced at gunpoint to kill someone, you still choose whether or not to kill them.

Thats a completely different circumstance.

Some ethics are higher than the law (and that leaves aside the question of whether the law really requires such selfishness.)

Some ethics are, making spider-man isn't on of them.

Don't want to be forced into selfishness? Don't go public. Or hell, work for changes in capitalism to accommodate more ethical business practices.

Wheres the incentive though?

Frankly your analogies are all irrelevant and needlessly sensationalist.

Making spider-man isn't anywhere near similar to having a gun at your head.
Making spider-man doesn't require a higher ethical code
If you're working on spider-man you don't own him and the decision of going public was taken a long time ago and being in business to make money is not unethical, if it works properly it's actually very very ethical

 

[The Question]

Stop right there. It's not trendy to talk about why comics are good. Comic fandom is in full self-loathing mode and has been for about ten years, so focus on all the things that are wrong with comics so all the sad pathetic nerds can pretend like they don't really love comic books.

God, what a situation we've been forced into. Don't you get it, people? We won! We ****ing won! Now is the time to celebrate the comics we love, not look for artificially generated reasons to hate them!

Artificially generated reasons? All I see are people who have actual, granted fairly minor, complaints with a fictional universe they have an investment in. I don't see how it's self loathing to talk about how things could be improved.

 

[fifthfiend]

=gildea;15653587]Marvel readers are not, by definition, selfish[/quote]

Yes they are.

ps your analogy doesn't work entering into a commercial relationship is not by definition selfish.

And again, yes they are. This is why we have a word called "commerce", which is you may note totally different from the word "charity".

I was ascribing the position to readers wanting iconic characters to complete a life cycle not marvel itself.

Which is exactly the problem, because you're ascribing standards to one party in an exchange to which you won't hold the other party to the exchange.

As pointed out it's not a personal choice which is where i personally make the distincition. I don't really believe marvel has one in this regard. I would probably describe it as "rational" btw.

If you want to call it rational instead of selfishness then that's fine, in which case Marvel fans who want Spider-Man to be changed to suit their tastes are equally rational. Marvel as an entity wants as much money from its comics as possible, fans as customers want the maximum value as they see it for their Spider-Man buying dollar. Any assessment of selfishness or rationality or whatever you want to call it applies equally to both sides. Otherwise you're just arguing that people are obligated to hand corporations their money out of the pure goodness of their hearts, because... I don't know, you tell me.

 

[Iceburgeruk]

For one thing, you can easily transpose him to a number of different contexts that have just as much pain and suffering as the Holocaust. In fact, as a Jew, I'm tired of seeing the Holocaust exploited and exploited and exploited over and over again as a source of dramatic tension, to the point when nobody even cares about the actual tragedy anymore.

Fair enough.....name one. The only one i can think of is the genocidal cycle in the balkans area and even that is not as powerful as the holocaust.