2017: The Year Almost Everything Went Wrong for Marvel Comics

>2017: The Year Almost Everything Went Wrong for Marvel Comics
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Yeah it was good and entertaining year

>comic article by people who know fuckall about what they're reporting on
Why not link CBR or BC while you're at it

I was fucking amazed that all this happened in a year. It was like when DC had all those PR fuckups around 2012/2013.

>>comic article by people who know fuckall about what they're reporting on

The guy who wrote this was a comic book reviewer on Savage Critic, used to write on Newsarama, and ran the Fanboy Rampage blog that used to link to crazy batshit things comic fandom on places like Millar's board or Bendis' board or others were doing.

I'd say he knows what he's reporting on.

Posting here, don't give clickbait (You)s

017 has been a bad year for Marvel Entertainment’s comic book division. It’s not simply that sales have tumbled (the company’s traditional dominance in year-end sales charts is absent this year), but that Marvel’s comic book publishing arm has suffered through a year of PR disasters so unforgiving as to make it appear as if the division has become cursed somehow. Here’s how bad things have been over the last twelve months.

January

The year started with the publisher announcing a new digital policy intended to increase sales of its print releases: Each week’s issues would contain download codes for three selected issues of other comics. The move prompted outcry from comic book retailers and fans alike as it replaces a longstanding policy where issues contained codes for a digital edition of that release, with both parties asking Marvel to reconsider. Two months later, Marvel did, with a statement from SVP of Sales and Marketing David Gabriel saying, in part, “We heard the message loud and clear on digital same issue codes… We are always looking to do what’s best for fans and the comics industry.”

March

A report from comic book industry site ICv2 caused a stir, when then-Marvel editor-in-chief Axel Alonso was accused of devaluing the contribution of artists during a presentation to retailers, saying “We can hype our artists all we want, but I don’t know if we know how many artists, besides maybe [Steve] McNiven and [Olivier] Coipel, absolutely move the [sales] needle on anything to be drawn.”

An interview with SVP sales David Gabriel, published on the same day as the previous report, provoked an even greater reaction after it appeared to show the exec complaining about characters’ diversity in Marvel’s output. “What we heard was that people didn't want any more diversity,” he said. “They didn't want female characters out there. That's what we heard, whether we believe that or not. I don't know that that's really true, but that's what we saw in sales. We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against.”

Response was so vehement that Gabriel was forced to release a statement clarifying his comments. “Discussed candidly by some of the retailers at the summit, we heard that some were not happy with the false abandonment of the core Marvel heroes and, contrary to what some said about characters ‘not working,’ the sticking factor and popularity for a majority of these new titles and characters like Squirrel Girl, Ms. Marvel, The Mighty Thor, Spider-Gwen, Miles Morales, and Moon Girl, continue to prove that our fans and retailers ARE excited about these new heroes,” the statement read. “And let me be clear, our new heroes are not going anywhere! We are proud and excited to keep introducing unique characters that reflect new voices and new experiences into the Marvel Universe and pair them with our iconic heroes.”

April

The much-hyped relaunch of the X-Men franchise was immediately derailed by controversy when readers noticed that Indonesian penciler Ardian Syaf had hidden political references into the artwork for the debut issue of X-Men: Gold, the lead book of the franchise. “These implied references do not reflect the views of the writer, editors or anyone else at Marvel and are in direct opposition of the inclusiveness of Marvel Comics and what the X-Men have stood for since their creation,” Marvel said in a statement on the matter. Syaf was fired by Marvel days later.

May

Faced with growing criticism over a plot line in which Captain America’s history had been rewritten so that he was — and “had always been,” as per the rewritten history — an agent of fascist terrorist organization Hydra, Marvel took the unusual step of releasing a statement asking for readers’ patience and faith ahead of the launch of Secret Empire, a series which brought the storyline to the forefront of the company’s publishing line.

“At Marvel, we want to assure all of our fans that we hear your concerns about aligning Captain America with Hydra and we politely ask you to allow the story to unfold before coming to any conclusion,” the statement, released to Disney sibling ABC News, read. “What you will see at the end of this journey is that his heart and soul -- his core values, not his muscle or his shield -- are what save the day against Hydra and will further prove that our heroes will always stand against oppression and show that good will always triumph over evil.”

The finale of the series would see the fascist Captain America beaten up by a magically-created non-fascist version, using his muscles and his shield, but we’ll get there soon enough.

Based Graeme

June

After an April tease, Marvel announced the launch slate for Marvel Legacy, the fall relaunch of its entire superhero line. The announcement was unusual, to say the least, with the series being revealed via animated gifs released with varying amounts of information across multiple websites, as well as Twitter and emails from Marvel’s PR department. More confusingly, the launch line-up as announced in June turned out to be incomplete, with Captain America being added a month later.

Despite a press release that promised the relaunch would “change the comic book industry,” response to the announcement was muted to say the least, with many noting that the relaunch was cosmetic at best — the majority of series were continuing publication, with the same creators attached — and also surprisingly backwards looking in its attempts to evoke nostalgia for days gone by.

The fact that one of the Legacy gimmicks involved renumbering certain series using math that didn’t really make sense didn’t help matters, either.

August

After Marvel announced order terms for the first issues of its Marvel Legacy relaunch, a number of comic book retailers announced that they wouldn’t be carrying certain releases in protest over what they considered unrealistic expectations from the publisher.

September

As the Secret Empire comic book series neared its conclusion, Marvel inexplicably spoiled the end of its own Secret Empire comic book series days before release via a New York Times story. Featuring artwork that showed the fascist version of Captain America being beaten up by the classic version, the story featured then-editor-in-chief Alonso saying that Marvel editorial “thought the story had something important to say about democracy, freedom and the core American values that Captain American embodies.” The NYT didn’t seem to be too impressed; the opening line of the story began, “Surprising absolutely no-one…”

This wouldn’t be the only time Marvel would spoil its own comic books that month, though; days ahead of the release of Marvel Legacy No. 1, the company announced the identity of the character who would return from the dead in the issue. (It was Wolverine, who had died in 2014.)

October

Marvel’s October started terribly, with a week which saw everyone discover that the special lenticular covers that had drawn criticism from retailers didn’t even work, as well as a presentation to retailers turn into a full-scale revolt, and finally, a deal with military contractor Northrop Grumman get pulled within 24 hours of its announcement because of backlash from fans and Marvel’s own creators. That this happened to be the same week as New York Comic Con was just unfortunate timing, really.

The outrage over Hydra Cap is stupid. It's a mainstream superhero comic. Nothing you hate will last. Enjoy the ride.

Plus Cap has been crazy on meth and a werewolf.

November

In a surprise move, top Marvel writer Brian Michael Bendis left the publisher after nearly two decades to sign with DC Entertainment. That was far from the biggest departure from the company that month, however; within two weeks, news broke that Alonso was stepping down immediately as editor-in-chief in what was described as a “mutual decision” between himself and Marvel.

His replacement was C.B. Cebulski, a former writer and editor for the company, who — just eleven days after being named to the position — admitted that he had defrauded the company a decade earlier by pretending to be a Japanese writer called Akira Yoshida from 2003 through 2005, during which time he worked as a freelancer on Marvel comics while also, under his own name, working on staff as an editor for the company. Beyond his initial confession, Cebulski issued an additional statement on the subject to The Atlantic this month, but Marvel has yet to officially comment on the matter.

In other personnel news in November, it was revealed that Marvel had hired former Image Comics staffer Ron Richards as its VP/Managing Editor of New Media. His hiring was greeted by multiple accusations of sexual harassment. Neither the company nor Richards have responded to the allegations as yet.

December

As excitement grows for Marvel Studios' Avengers: Infinity War, the man who created the movie's central villain, Thanos broke up with Marvel's comic book arm. Jim Starlin aired his grievances on Facebook, naming Marvel executive editor Tom Brevoort as the reason he wouldn't be working with the publisher anymore, but helpfully adding that it was only the comic book division he had a problem with. Marvel Studios, he explained, "has treated me very well and generously. Them I like."

Meanwhile, the solicitations for Marvel’s March 2018 releases signals the cancelations of a number of comic series, including Gwenpool, Luke Cage, America, Generation X, Hawkeye, She-Hulk and Iceman. As has become customary, Marvel as a company has yet to comment officially on the cancelations — and declines to comment when specifically asked about them — with confirmations coming directly from the creators behind the comics on social media.

That the majority of series confirmed to be ending feature female leads or men of color didn’t escape the notice of many fans, with discussion of a boycott of the publisher soon following. This led to the unusual sight of a Marvel editor asking fans not to stop buying Marvel titles on social media:

>he thinks every hollywood publication doesn't pay attention to Marvel Comics now that the MCU literally changed how hollywood operates
lol

twitter.com/cracksh0t/status/946371240683589632
>I understand being upset about comics being cancelled--trust me, those of us working on those comics are likely AT LEAST as upset as you are, probably more upset. But that being said... please reconsider a knee-jerk "boycott".

Going into 2018, Marvel faces significant challenges, from reversing sales slides to convincing disillusioned fans that the company remains committed to diversity. New editor-in-chief Cebulski has yet to give an official interview as the new leader of the comic book line, nor answer direct questions about his time as Akira Yoshida — and if the company could stop spoiling its own comics days before their release, that would probably be a good idea, as well. It’s a super heroic task — but then, that almost makes it perfect for Marvel to handle.

And they still have one more day to fuck up again!

>>That the majority of series confirmed to be ending feature female leads or men of color didn’t escape the notice of many fans, with discussion of a boycott of the publisher soon following.

I would be surprised if anyone unhappy about this even read comics more than casually.

>the MCU literally changed how hollywood operates

>asking fans not to stop buying Marvel
Who is that editor and why is he so ill-informed? Fans dropped Marvel years ago and SJWs never buy comics.

Ike the Kike continues to fuck up.

>political references
Hmm Yes. Political references.

Hollywood had never even thought of big budget blockbuster sequels before Marvel, I guess.

>every studio is attempting interconnected universes and locking in actors for 5 picture deals, effectively bringing back the a producer focused studio system rather than putting director visions first
Are we going to pretend this isn't reality?

It kinda did. Every studio is trying to do a Cinematic Universe now. Universal with their monsters. Fox wanted to cross over Fan4stic and X-Men before the former failed miserably. WB has the DCEU obviously, and they want to do the same with Harry Potter by expanding past the books.
The MCU prints money with halfassed effort. You'd have to be insane to not want that.

Oh, you're just shilling.
>producer focused studio system
Shilling the worst crap ever, in fact.

Jesus christ fanboy nobody's saying the effect is a positive one. You do get that, right?

The interconnected universe shit isn't working for random properties/badly run studios, and actors have been locked in contracts for sequels before the MCU.

>You'd have to be insane to not want that.
I am hyper-sane. I know when they're selling me a cheap burger.

>backpedaling

>actors have been locked in contracts for sequels before the MCU.
With the usual consequences, such as typecasting.

>Who is that editor
See

Universal has had monster cross-overs before, none of them memorable. It's hardly a new thing for Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman to run around in the same movie. It's probably happened a half-dozen times.

Fox could barely deal with the cast of the X-Men, let alone the Fantastic Four, it's not surprising.

WB's DCEU is even worse of a result than Fox's go at it.

Spinning off new stories set in the same universe with new characters isn't an Extended Universe. These new stories aren't going to intersect with Harry and Hermione.

It was hilarious. I'm waiting for more next year, marvel!

Next year the MCU is officially ending, so it's going to be a very very wild ride.

Whether its working or not isn't the point. The fact is every studio is attempting it and wasn't before the MCU. Even longstanding series like FoX-men were just that, longstanding series. They aren't interconnected with, say, Fantastic Four or hell, even maintain much continuity between each sequel.

>DCEU
>Dark Universe
>Hasbro Universe
>WB's King Arthur
>Ghostbusters
>21 Jump Street is apparently crossing over with Men In Black
>Sony's attempted Amazing Spider-man universe with unrelated Sinister Six movies

All of these are or were planned cinematic universes. If this will continue who knows, but as long as the MCU is utterly raping box offices, everyone else is going to want a piece of that success.

>being this asspained about facts that aren't even company wars related
what a fag

It is a testament to just how powerful the Big 2 are that Marvel can have a string of catastrophes like this and still not even be remotely in danger of going under.

I think you got that backwards.

>facts that aren't even company wars related
Backpedaling again.

>Next year the MCU is officially ending
Officially they have like 18 movies slotted for the next 10+ years.

I agree, you are backpedaling hard.

>Sony's attempted Amazing Spider-man universe with unrelated Sinister Six movies
How does this qualify as an extended Universe?
Even remotely?
And they were planning on making separate movies about the individual ghostbusters?
or King Arthur's knights? How does that = an extended universe?

>This led to the unusual sight of a Marvel editor asking fans not to stop buying Marvel titles on social media:

>please buy

It literally was babbys first radical comicbook change.
Like we had a cosmic cube and everything. Caps gone thru altered reality shit like every other week. New fags are literal cancer.

I mean "you" the producers and marketers; the guys that stand to make money off of it. Not you, a nameless, unimportant consumer.
Studios want to make money, not kino. If you don't recognize that you need to get off your computer.

What % have Marvel Comics revenues dropped against 2015 or 2016?
If it's 1-2% then it's not a catastrophe. 10% is a catastrophe.

>pls

We need a counter, like how we had the 'X days since DC fucked up' counter back then.

A more modest company could have potentially gone out of business from almost any one of these PR disasters Marvel had this year, but the company is simply too storied and massive to fail when they piss off millions of people.

"Kino" just equates to "movies for autists".
As loud as you guys are on the internets, like your SJW sisters you just aren't a large enough audience to sustain anything expensive.

Studios should make movies like Super and Defendor for you peoples, not quarter-billion dollar Superman vehicles. Studios are waking up to that.

You're confusing rights ownership with how cinematic universes go.

Sony wanted to make a cinematic universe that composed of individual Spider-man, Sinister Six, Spider-Woman, Silver Sable and Venom movies, THEN have them all unite in a major movie. That is a cinematic universe.

Same thing with Ghostbusters, where they wanted to have individual teams in their own movies then team up. And WB was looking to start a King Arthur universe where some of the knights and merlyn get individual origin movies.

Now you're getting autistically angry.

Keep shilling, maybe you will get one last cent before the year ends.

>A more modest company could have potentially gone out of business from almost any one of these PR disasters Marvel had this year
I seriously doubt you can cite any examples of major companies committing sudoku over a bad PR stunt or unfortunate public stance.

are we going to pretend these two are old enough to make these statements? Nobody who'd been to a cinema before Iron Man came out can think this.

Is X-Box live down? Sup Forums and Sup Forums have seemingly been infested with children acting older than they are today.

>"Kino" just equates to "movies for autists".
Like Winter Soldier? I agree.

>a nameless, unimportant consumer.
Welp, Marlel shills are learning from their bosses: always insult any prospective consumer.

>and if the company could stop spoiling its own comics days before their release
Doesn't dc also do this? If not then they are definitely more classy than Marvel. Hell their cross media royalties are better.

United Airlines had a lot of bad PR this year.

I'm impressed with how hard you're autisticly samefagging itt.

Sorry, Winter Soldier isn't self-important garbage composed of bad writing and "muh mythical images".

It's just another good Marvel movie, one of the best ones in fact. It doesn't cater to autists at all. It has quips and everything!

They forgot Marvel asking LCSes to participate in "Hydra Takeover" by dressing up as hydra

I think LCSes had to pay to participate as well

If I knew he was gonna write this article I would've brought that up to him on his podcast page.

oh I can't wait for this. please, respond to them all. I'd love to see which posts you're attributing to me.

that's literally my first post ITT

Volkswagen had one of the worst public relations disasters in decades.
Literally lying and cheating to sell people cars that didn't do what they advertised, putting many owners in violation of State laws.

Cost them billions upon billions of dollars. Marvel is supposed to die off because they made Jane Foster into Thor and had a hero go villian for the 1,400th time?

>Marvel is supposed to die off because they made Jane Foster into Thor and had a hero go villian for the 1,400th time?

What the hell are you talking about? I was agreeing with you by bringing up United.

One of Marvels worst years on recent memory
While with DC it has been an amazing year
How many comics has comics have ended this year
How many new lines of comics has started
How many actually diverse comics has DC made and were actually good and fun to read

It's a testament to how big Disney is

>Winter Soldier isn't self-important garbage
No, it's just garbage.
>It has quips and everything!
Definitely garbage.

>another good Marvel movie
Are you implying there are good Marvel movies? lol

Marvel is never going to come close to the peril it faced in the '90's.
It has a sugar-daddy with unlimited funds,
And it's IP's are making that sugar mouse a fucking fortune.
GotG generated more revenue than the entirety of sales of either DC or Marvel Comics.
The Civil War movie's box office was more than the entire sales of all comics from ALL companies in the United States.

I hate Marvel more than anything

>ESPN isn't dead!

...

Its an accurate article though. Why wouldn't you click it?

>meltdown.jpg

He's a marvel shill

At least I have a job.

fuck both of you. It's because if you'd been here for more than a moment you would know to include the archived version instead.

Articles have and should always been archived and posted and or the content greentext quoted. If you don't work for THR then you're clearly new.

Either way lurk more and stop posting.

ok marvel shill

Yeah, like an unpaid "intern" job

>an unpaid job
FTFY

nothing I said is even pro-marvel?

You're literally shilling your or a coworkers article.

you knnow, the way you go under is really slow and then really fucking fast
i think we are entering the really fast phase, sure
they didnt lose so much money but they lost consumers and where only able to draw the numbers by being shady as shit, there will be none of that next year

t. retards mad they don't get paid to post on anonymous image boards.

>i really have a paid job guys!

Sure. """paid""".

Marvel was already hiring tumblrina snowflakes long before 2017

>the people who weren't buying comics which got all their books cancelled threatened a boycott
I'm amazed anyone at Marvel even addressed that shit. I guess Yoshida is the only one at the company who understands how things are. But he's editor-in-chief so maybe that's enough.

They already have. The create your own comics thing.

>where only able to draw the numbers by being shady as shit
Hey it's true, the article doesn't mention the overshipping.

No, I mean tomorrow. That happened yesterday or the previous day.

Sounds like you're saying the opposite.

Sounds like he doesn't really know what's going on at all.

I mean he starts out with a total non-issue from January where fans screamed "GIVE US LESS!" and Marvel did give them less as early as March and fans were pleased and nobody, apparently including the guy writing a hit-piece on Marvel itself, understood that people had asked for and been given less by a publisher *willing to give them more free comics*.

I wouldn't shake hands with this guy, user, because you really cannot trust him to wipe his own ass properly.

This. It was fun as hell this year. The VP of sales saying diversity doesn’t sell anymore, the partnership with war profiteer Northrop Grumman, the failed Inhumans push, Civil War 2 (anti-Thanos missles especially), cancelled books, Nazi Steve Rogers, etc.

Of course, this year probably be much better for Marvel (Bendis leaving, most of the SJW books cancelled, more streamlined Nostalgia status quo, pushing the X-Men again, bringing back the FF and other characters, etc). But man was it an entertaining year.

Too late to damage control, son.

Both of the big two sell, like, 100,000 comics a month something. Neither of them have multiple millions of fans buying their shit. The biggest thing is they pissed off a bunch of people who don't really buy their shit anyway.

Quite a bit of that is totally inoffensive too. Particularly the marketing meetings saying women led or minority led comics sell less, or that artist barely affects sales. If they're true, they're just true and it makes perfect sense to be discussed in a marketing meeting. It may be bad PR, but that doesn't make it wrong.

Funny the article doesn't even mention the inhumans dumpster fire

IVX, CW2, and the TV show, just an unholy feces trinity, they'll never recover from this as a line

They forgot about the deal with Northrop Grumman announced during comic con.

>Sup Forums seemingly infested with children
You'd like that wouldn't you

You type like a 5 year old, so...

Marvel Comics isn't Marvel Studios

It's here

>...
Because I left out a comma? Cry me a river.

>Funny the article doesn't even mention the inhumans dumpster fire

Cause that and the comics division are part of Marvel Entertainment, This article just focused on the comics.

Otherwise, it would've mentioned the Iron Fist TV show reception and how at NYCC they had to cancel the Punisher panel.