Anybody else feel like Marvel is done?

Anybody else feel like Marvel is done?

Over the course of the last year or two or three it feels like all their creativity and energy and vitality have completely vanished. Sup Forums would say it's because of their diversity push, but I don't think that's it; there have been similar things in the past that didn't give off this vibe of creative bankruptcy. It feels like Marvel has run out of new, creative things to do with their characters and their universe--and, for that matter, it feels like the tried and true things they are doing aren't being done particularly well. It feels like they're in the death spiral of zero originality and zero competence. There's a kind of storytelling emptiness to a lot of their work, at least for me. It's a feeling I don't get from DC at all, and I certainly don't get it from Image.

Am I going crazy? I don't know what it is, whether it was the Disney buyout or the rise of Bendis or something else entirely. But it feels like Marvel has basically died, and the corpse just hasn't rotted enough yet for everyone to smell it.

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>Anybody else feel like Marvel is done?

Marvel died at the end of house of M

I think the Ultimate Marvel universe is what killed Marvel.

No, that was AvX, there was still some good stuff to come in the next few years (all the cosmic stuff, dark reign, secret invasion, planet and world war hulk).

In fairness, you could go back and read magazines about comics and see people thinking Marvel was creatively bankrupt in the 80's (see: Amazing Heroes and Comics Journal) and the 90's (see: people complaining about Marvel trying to be like Image or whatever).

But I do have to agree, I have major problems with Quesada's time as EIC (most particularly in like 2007 onwards even moreso) but in retrospect, it felt exciting compared to now.

I think it says something when CBR polls are heavily negative about the directions Marvel is going considering CBR is Marvel shill central.

Yeah I don't like marvel that much anymore either
That said I don't think I'd ever stop reading, and I barely pay for them anymore either
Sometimes I'll go to my lcs and pick up a things, like new comics or recent trades but mostly I read online

>all the cosmic stuff
Sure that was decent, but there was no need of marvel

>dark reign
>secret invasion
>world war hulk

>Good

No I'd argue that Quesada's Marvel and Bendis hit their peak at some point and that Avengers Disassembled and House of M were the start of the decline. Civil War was the beginning of the end but things still felt vaguely organic even though illogical. The Quesada era hit their lowest point with the period of Ultimates 3/Ultimatum/OMD.

But the Alonso era is arguably worse and empty feeling in spite of some decent books like Fraction's Hawkeye and the new Ms. Marvel.

Wah wah boo hoo my mummies.

They need fresh writers and for Bendis and most of current editorial to leave

No, because you are too stupid to see the end game. They are moving to an IP creating and testing ground, which is what I've said would make the best business sense for them a long time ago. Not that i agree with it creatively but if you are a company that wants to make money, comics don't get you there, IP does. Why do you think they are launching so many books of nobody's like slapstick and foolkiller? It's just about IP generating and testing. Hell gwenpool was all about that too.

Quesada admits it all somewhere in his luke cage interview
>if we fail at a comic it's a couple of thousands, in a movie or tv it can be millions

Source
youtube.com/watch?v=I_QhjP0H_xs

They need new blood. There are still stories to be told, but not by who they have. When Bendis is writing like six of the books, of course they're going to feel same-y, and no amount of gender/race-swapping or wacky status quo changes are going to change how boring the man's writing is. Even his diehard fans have to admit he isn't at his prime anymore, these aren't passion projects for him, he's just going through the motions. Soule's in the same spot; we know he can write good stories, but now they've burned him out and stretched him so thin to the point he's just the guy they dump books no one else wants on. Why do creators like Lemire who have written well-received books now churn out ho-hum dreck instead? It's time to really commit to hiring new and different writers. Coates's Black Panther has been kinda disappointing, but at least it's a start. At least he isn't the same 5 writers they load up like workhorses and crack the whip on.

Both Marvel and DC have gone through phases where most of the comics suck.

Hell, DC looks like it's just starting to climb out of one.

Marvel's a big company backed by the mouse. They've bounced back before, and they will again.

>Anybody else feel like Marvel is done?

Nah it's never to late.I really hope Nower fails horribly though so Marvel has to have a Rebirth of it's own

Soule is doing great creater owned work, ones where he actually researches new material. Check out strange attractors.

Lemire is a great writer, look at animal man or his current mon knight. But i don't know why they think writers like him can do team books. But these are the same people who keep giving team books to Bendis.

But yes, they need new writers and dropped the ball on king hard. King even admitted he was a bigger marvelfag and still they let him go

But Captain Marvel has failed over and over (and over) yet they are still making a movie out of it.

I think everyone knows that it's an IP farm at this point. The difference is that most of the ideas seem even more uninspired than in the past. Even recent past, for that matter.

You can't really convince me that Tony Stark getting replaced by Riri Williams and Dr. Doom is something shocking when Miles Morales happened five years ago and Superior Spider-Man happened four years ago. Or that Civil War II is something worth any reaction other than outright mocking. Even Civil War I, as terrible as it was, deserved its sales.

I mean, Civil War 2. How inherently retarded is that idea?

When I started out reading comics I was a huge Marvel fan, over the years I've slowly drifted from them more and now I have to say I like DC a whole lot more and between the two of them they're basically all I read aside from a few Marvel titles. I agree with everything you said OP. Spider-Man is still my favorite character and USM one of my favorite comics but there's something off with Marvel, they don't have that "comic book magic" that DC seems to have whenever I open up a DC title. I've been thinking about this too over the past few days and the conclusion I drew, which might be part of it, is that I feel like DC simply has more respect for their characters than Marvel does for theirs. Marvel is always ready to dump an old established character to win some cheap diversity points, and I think that's a microcosm of their overall problem. Too much pandering, too much grabbing for attention, too much flash and not enough substance.

That being said I still like a few of their titles of course but as an overall brand and business philosophy, my mind has been changed and I've swayed toward DC.

Marvel signed their death warrant when they hired Bendis.

You are a fucking idiot, you didn't understand anything in my post.

I never said they are doing it well, they are try to stay current and follow trends and are idiots for it. What they should be doing more of is genuine experimentation. They are digging up old characters, this is a great idea. But they are dropping old ones and i have no clue why they think this is good IP development.

What the fuck are you on about?

This is really it. Whose the new crop of bold new comic book creators? Both Marvel and DC probably should have burned out by the late 80's in a way similar to what's happening to them now, but what saved them was the British invasion. Alan Moore, Grant Morrison, Neil Gaiman, Warren Ellis, Garth Ennis, even Mark Millar swooped in and delivered a huge fucking creativity infusion to the whole industry. They'd all read whatever American comics they could get their hands on as kids, but there were never that many. Then they grew up working on 2000 AD and other smaller British comic lines where they could do all this creative shit and build up their storytelling chops, then the American companies got wind of this and started bringing these guys over and we had a comic book renaissance.
That shit isn't happening now because comics went global in the 90's and really hit the fucking mainstream in the 2000's. There's no isolated island of homebrew comic book creators to be recruited to breath new life into the industry. What we're seeing now is a decade of stagnation finally reaching critical mass.

Brain trust needs an overhaul.

> Sup Forums would say it's because of their diversity push, but I don't think that's it

It is. Comics have always been somewhat politicized, but never to this extent. Virtually all entertainment has some sort of spin, now, and it only started being so damn obvious over the last 3-5 years. Not only that, the amount of public hatred for people who criticize the spins/messages is insane. Don't like feminist overtones because they come across as preachy? WOMAN HATER! MISOGYNIST! Etc. Think it's tacky to make X black? Racist! Think it's completely ridiculous to have a transgender character? Bigot! Twitter and Tumblr are the largest examples of this.

Comics really need another renaissance, another generation of writers who give zero fucks about the politics and social justice pandering plaguing comics, now. I doubt it will happen, because breaking into comic writing is basically impossible.

This. Trying to bend art into something that exists only to serve a particular agenda is always a mistake.

Problem is that the "big two" are so incestuous. They never hire new people, and when they DO it's always someone that somebody at the company already knows, regardless of how good of a writer/artist they are.

They need new blood but refuse to bring any in because it'd be "too difficult" to have a submissions department.

This.

>Soule's in the same spot; we know he can write good stories, but now they've burned him out and stretched him so thin to the point he's just the guy they dump books no one else wants on. Why do creators like Lemire who have written well-received books now churn out ho-hum dreck instead?

I gotta put the blame for this squarely on editorial. On both of these two they work best when they aren't writing books tied to big events or A-list characters or franchises that will likely be overseen more by editorial (see Lemire's Moon Knight compared to his X-Men). Even if they get new writers I fear that the way things are with editorial oversight right now that any talent they have will ground down to a bland enough paste to appeal to a growing casual audience mostly familiar with MCU-flavored writing and story

Not to mention putting anyone on an X-Men book is telling them to commit suicide. They can't do anything big with them because they have to lose to inhummans

I think the problem's a combination of the posts. Diversity in general is not the problem. We've seen James Rhodes replace Iron Man and Monica Rambeau take the name Captain Marvel in the 80's.

What is a problem is that the way this is done feels like they're only doing it for clickbaiting and shielding from criticism.

Some of this is the editors' fault but a guy like Bendis doesn't have to answer to them anyway. And they really need to stop giving the decent grunt writers 3+ books. There's a reason a guy like Humphries is absolute shit at Marvel and kind of ok at DC. Something is wrong there in the direction creators are getting. Perhaps the seasonal format is a mistake.

Stfu cranky whiner. Maybe it's the old Whiney fans crying about shit.

We need one writer per book. When you're giving someone 6 books to write in a month of course they're all going to be bland.

>Fraction's Hawkeye
>Hawkeye

Not a bad book but a total misnomer if anything.

>seasonal forma a mistake

it is

lax editorial work is another

also orienting shit towards tbp sales is also something that needs to go. its ok to have some decompressed issues, but decompressed volumes are not ok.

>tfw the Ultimate universe was originally gonna have all the characters age naturally and progressivly take over the Marvel Universe
>tfw They fucked it up
>tfw it didnt have to be like this

I suspect it's a combination of writers having to juggle too many books at once and editorial at Marvel not doing its job properly where it counts.

And I think Remender and Hickman talked about getting burned out eventually of having their books derailed by events or having plots they intended for either one book or a small crossover being turned into line-wide events. So that probably plays a factor, too.

with the relative boom of creator owned shit right now, "new" talent that prefers to fuck off to image or whatever. they may sell much less

they know marvel/dc's legal will fuck them out of anything new they create on the big 2

Didn't JMS leave purely because of crossovers?

Both Marvel, DC, and the comic book industry as a whole decided that they were 'done' when the prices of comics soared out of reach for the casual purchase of pre teen and young teenagers.
Previous to this, kids would buy 3-5 mags a month, enjoy the shit out of them and share with friends, and then grow older while still retaining an interest in the stories and characters they cared about.

That shit is gone. The industry has literally given zero fucks about cultivating their next generations. The medium is heading to other directions but kids are being given fewer reasons to stick to them over other choices (see: Anime / Manga).
I have no clue how they will climb out of this situation, if they do at all.

You pretty much have to work and Marvel or DC first to get the fanbase behind you so that your creator owned stuff sells, but creators saving their best ideas for their own stuff would explain some lackluster content at the big 2.

Yes. Maybe it should officially end when Stan checks out.

Yeah this
DC just went through a rough patch and now they're getting better. It took creative teams getting fed up with stuff and leaving, people getting marvel exclusives, and DCYou selling poorly for them to get back into shape
I'm hoping Rebirth doing well and CW2/Marvel Nower not doing as hot is the kick in the pants marvel needs

What happened to your mummies?

You mean people who actually know anything about comics at all?

only Soule seems be investing himself in really creating OC at marvel lately

Marvel will always have the success of their movies to fall back to.
They can keep going with this trend of terrible comics for a very long time

I'm convinced if they looked harder at webcomic creators they would find people.

I know they picked up Ryan North (Dinosaur Comics) and Brian Clevinger (Dr McNinja) but both of those writers tend towards the wacky/comedic end of the scale and their stuff has felt sequestered away from the 'main' Marvel comics plotlines.

This isn't ten years ago when it was 90% gamer comics, wacky roommates and fetish fantasy. There's some GREAT dramatic webcomics now and if the big two took a deep dive they could find that talent.

Same. In general Rebirth has done a good job so far (with a couple of misteps here and there) and I hope that continues and translates into sales.

At the end of the day I want good comic books from both companies and a strong DC might force Marvel to stop being so lazy with their comics. I'd also say that DC is currently doing better in terms of how they handle diversity than Marvel.

>not filtering namefags and tripfags

Clevinger could easily tackle more mainstream marvel chars

Imo they just don't trust him to follow editorial/Bendis mandate since he still has some integrity

Nah you know nothing but I do.

I will go as far as saying this is the lowest Marvel has ever been in terms of comics content.

They are acting reactionary to people who complain on Twitter and do not read their comics.

As garbage as Ultimatum was at least it was something they made on their own.

No OP. You're just getting old and are now realizing how retarded comic books are. The only hope for you now is to find a girl who would be willing to grow old with you as you both veg out on the couch and watch nothing but Law & Order and NCIS.

Nah, they died when Disney bought them. It's been a drastic change ever since.

To be fair to DC they have lowered their prices. That's actually a big factor in why I dropped Marvel and only pirate their books. If DC can afford to be $2.99 then there's no reason Marvel can't and I won't be their bitch

marvel wants to phase out singles

some books are $5

thats telling people to fuck off and wait for the tpb

No they aren't. DC is trying to phase out singles, that's why they're double shipping their biggest titles now. Doubles the speed at which they can get TPB's out which is where they make their most money.

Marvel's books should probably actually be cheaper than everyone else's since they ship so many titles, should split the raw production costs.

The only part of their process that seems to be higher quality than average is the binding on their hardcovers and even then they're cheap about paper quality sometimes and have fewer issues in their collections on average compared to others.

>DC is trying to phase out singles

No DC is trying to make money from both floppies and trades. DC dominates the tpb market anyway

they're double shipping so they can get more money from a listers
batman #1 sold more than all of omega men and midnighter combined
Trades are a bonus so having and pushing more of them is good, but not their first priority
anyway the first trades aren't out until January 2017.

Marvel died 15 years ago when Bendis stopped writing solo noir books and was given the Avengers to destroy.

And/or when they first split their fan base with the assinine idea of the Ultimate universe.

But its cute that you're so late to the party.

nah.

anything outside bendis' influence was fine up until 2010 or so

says someone who started reading comics post-2000

Yes Seige brought down asgard, something he had been rebuilding for a long time. And is probably the best run of Thor after Simonson. Oh yeah another bendis event where he doesn't care about other writers.

Marvel is putting out a ton of books for kids now. And DC has lowered their price. We shall see who wins

i started around '94 on vertigo stuff, but i didnt read anything marvel until morrison's xmen. that doesn't mean i didnt read old stuff to catch up

maybe that shaped my perception. so be it

What do you read from DC?

Remember when Queseda said the kid audience doesn't exist?

It was destroyed to feed his legion.

Multiverse-2. Reduced to the carcass that we know today.

The day will come to Multiverse-1.

Empty is his Hand.

>maybe that shaped my perception.
>maybe.

I started reading in the mid80s and that definitely shaped my perception. You could argue that the MU was already dead by the time I started reading as Peter had just gotten married, the New Mutants were turning into XForce, and time suddenly came to a stand still and killed the evolution that made early Marvel Comics great.

But seriously it ended between 2000-2002 when they dropped even the charade of time moving, created the Ultimate Universe, and let king of all decompression destroy the Avengers.

Morrison's Xmen is crap. If that's your introduction and favorite thing in the Marvel Universe your opinion is completely skewed from reality. There is nothing Marvel about that run at all.

I spit on it. Pttui

Was the Multiversity good? I saw it for 40 bucks and didn't now if I should get it.

>hard bound book

Can't be bad right?

>Trades are a bonus so having and pushing more of them is good, but not their first priority
They literally make more money off trades now, so yes, it probably is their first priority now.

It ranges from medicore to amazing.

Treat it as many different comics.

Either he is being overridden or he changed his mind. What is squirrel girl, hellcat, moon girl and devil dinosaur?

You say that like Marvel's trades aren't heinously overpriced as well. Telling people to pay nearly $20 for a poor quality paperback that barely contains 5 issues might as well be telling them to fuck off by your logic.

>What is squirrel girl, hellcat, moon girl and devil dinosaur?
tumblr shit.

>Morrison's Xmen is crap.
Agreed but whedon managed to do some great stuff with his short run

>There is nothing Marvel about that run at all.

probably thats why i liked and some of the stuff after, while nothing but a few claremont runs before it grabbed my interest from their entire comics line

If floppies don't sell then the trade won't exist

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Yes, for little girls and man childs

A bunch of shit that doesn't sell.

>If that's your introduction and favorite thing in the Marvel Universe your opinion is completely skewed from reality. There is nothing Marvel about that run at all.
Millar pls

>children are tumblr shit

Its not that. A lot of talent left and Bendis/Joe Q/Alonso are all pissed that Feige told them to fuck off from the movies. So giving him less material with the characters that the MCU has while trying to force new characters where they will have to bring them on as creators and shit.

AKA being bunch of bitch bois.

Those books have very shitty sales. You really think kids are buying them?

How many children bought that book?

Squirrel sells fantastic in trades, so yes their parents are buying them
Too early to tell for the other two but copycats usually sells less than the original

>Parents buying their kids this
Are parents this retarded?

>Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1 Squirrel Power 6,838 (2015)
>Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1 Squirrel Power 514 (Jan 2016)
>Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1 Squirrel Power 428 (May 2016)

>Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 2 Squirrel You Know Its Tru 3,199

>Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 3 Squirrel Really Got Me No 2,340

For comparison Starfire and Black Canary vol 1 sold 2.3k first month, didn't chart again, and were one of the bigger DCYou numbers on comichron

And we all know DCYou failed. Why are you comparing a book to failures in order to demonstrate that it's a success? I'm sure fucking Avatar Press has books that sold better than those DCYou books.

>instead of trying to emulate perez, giffen or miller's art; those kids are gonna """"learn"""" to draw emulating erika henderson

>f-fuck you, DC is worse!

Squirrel girl sell good in trades and moon girl devil dinosaur and hellcat are continuing despite lower sales. You have all failed commerce. If you want to cultivate a new audience you need to take a bit of a loss in turn for future sales. Even if they take a hit now if they turn 1% of them into long term customers they have made a profit. These books aimed at kids are not for you they are for kids and marvel hasn't really had that recently. They need it.

Besides if they see 5books a month to an adult and 1 to a kid that is great cause it hits another demographic.

Marvel has problems but Sup Forums would ruin it and the audience on spite

I just wanted to trigger Sup Forums more since it loves DCYou and hates squirrel girl so much that 500+ reply threads can happen at any given moment

Nice damage control, bro.

Is your extreme reading incomprehension supposed to "rustle my jimmies"?

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