Yesterday, I went into a comic book store and I picked up a comic book set in mainstream Marvel continuity for the first time since…2007? The last thing I really remembered reading was ‘World War Hulk’, which I gave up on because I realized that it had been four years since a major Marvel story had actually involved superheroes fighting bad guys. I may have bought something since then, but if I have it didn’t stick in my memory. Which probably doesn’t argue well for it anyway.
What changed my mind? The new ‘Ms Marvel’. I read about it and decided that a) a superhero who had a different point of view than other superheroes, written by a writer who had a different point of view than other writers at Marvel, might result in something (surprise) interesting and surprising and different. And b) I had, on my own blog, taken Marvel to task for writing something that was designed to appeal to people other than its existing fanbase, only to market it squarely at its existing fanbase because Marvel Does Not Know How To Market Things, and then shrug lazily when it fails and say that all the whitebread fanboys who say that Marvel should stop trying to appeal to anyone other than them must be right after all. And I realized that if I was going to do that, I should really actually buy the comic instead of talking about how it deserved more support and not actually supporting it.
So I went in, and I bought the ‘Marvel Now Point One’ special. And what did I think? Well, first off, it’s almost impossible not to notice the way that Marvel has changed itself to be more like the Marvel Cineverse. It’s not just the obvious stuff, like Coulson making a cameo on the SHIELD helicarrier where he and Loki had a scene together on the prison set from the ‘Avengers’ movie. There are fundamental changes to the basic personalities of the main characters and the dynamics between them. Loki has transformed from a cartoonish supervillain into a complex antihero solely to take advantage of the Tom Hiddleston death cult. (Of which I’m a member as well, don’t get me wrong. I did not expect to walk out of ‘Thor: The Dark World’ thinking I’d want more Loki, but that’s exactly what happened.) The Avengers, as a team, are turning into a partial adjunct of SHIELD, primarily because that’s what makes sense to the new comics fans out there. Black Widow is being given new prominence in the Marvel Universe because to someone just walking in the door from the movie theater, she’s a major player in the superhero world and significantly more famous and important than Captain Marvel. Even the space opera stuff feels like it’s getting ready to tie in to the future ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ movie.
In case it’s unclear, this is not a complaint. This is actually a lot of appreciation for Marvel’s editorial savvy; in a world where comics are a weird, ghettoized marginal medium that’s perpetually five years away from being unviable as a business model, the only possible way to survive is to latch on to whatever freaking trends you can and milk them dry. In the Seventies, Marvel survived by picking up the ‘Star Wars’ license and riding that pony, and in the Nineties, they hung their hat on multiple covers and shock twists. Right now, the movies are making money on a scale ten thousand times what the best-selling comics do; they would be foolish not to adapt. I am proud of them for doing so. And even thought it’s not enough to tip the scales and get me back into buying Marvel comics in general…yet…as someone who has counted himself as more of a “Marvel movie fan” than a “Marvel comics fan” for quite a while now, it was nice to come back into a comic book and feel like I was being made welcome.
Second, it was tremendously amusing to watch Norrin Radd try to grow hair and fail.
And third, I really liked the new Ms Marvel. The character is smart, she’s self-determined and has interesting and accessible character conflicts, she has a good sense of humor and a cool powerset that she uses in fun and visually dynamic ways, and the art really lends itself to the story. (Oh, and I like the costume. It looks homemade in a good way.) It’s only an eight-page preview, but it left me really looking forward to issue #1 and thinking that while Marvel Does Not Know How To Market Things, they picked a great creative team. I’m excited about this.
Although I confess that I still expect it to be canceled by issue #12, and the character to die in a crossover within the next five years when Captain Marvel becomes Ms Marvel again. But I may just be a pessimist at heart.
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I’m going to be more optimistic: the new Ms. Marvel will keep her name when the old Ms. Marvel takes the name, and the two will have adventures together, except when the new Ms. Marvel is off with the Young Avengers, and the old one is off with whichever Avenger team she’s on at that moment.
Precedent: Hawkeye (Clint Barton and Kate Bishop)
Er, Loki’s changes date to before his first appearance in the movies. It’s a Kieron Gillen thing. Not to be rude, but if you’re unfamiliar with the Marvel comics universe for the last seven years, you don’t have enough information to understand which universe influenced which.
Honestly, Loki’s always been a pretty complex character, going back at least to the Walt Simonson era (and possibly before, I’m just not sure). In my opinion, Marvel Comic’s Loki is one of the greatest characters in all of fiction, and the current popularity of the character is based on that fact almost as much as it is on Tom Hiddleston’s massive talent.
Loki has always been a great character and I look forward to his new series. Its going to be by Gillen, right? He’s the first writer to really “get” him in a while.
Really looking forward to the Silver Surfer series too. Still, I don’t expect that to last much longer than Ms Marvel.
Think you’re spot-on with Black Widow. She isn’t even the most important female Avenger but people who don’t read comics think she’s A-List. Where are the Wasp and Scarlet Witch comics? At least She-Hulk is finally getting her own book again.
Edit: It sounds like the GotG movie is just hoping to mimic the magic of a DnA run from when you stopped reading Marvel so you have that one backwards.
Gillen already wrote a long Loki series (30+ issues). I forget who’s on the new one; it’s a relative no-name.
I really don’t see why they’d make Carol Ms. Marvel again. They need to keep publishing ‘Captain Marvel’ books to hold onto the trademark, and she’s proven extremely popular in the role. It’s not like they’ve got any particular incentive to change her back, since the man on the street doesn’t know who Ms. Marvel is anyway. It’s not like Bucky Cap or Superior Spider-Man, where the original character is always going to come back because they’re the iconic incarnation of the character. Mar-Vell’s main character trait in modern marvel is ‘dead’, and has been that way for decades (bar Skrull imposters/time travel, and that’s always reset). None of the other claimants to the name have been terribly inspiring in the role (while many of them are great characters in their own right, the only reason why most of them got the title was the aforementioned trademark keepaway), whereas with Carol it makes perfect sense for her to take the name in keeping with the legacy (which is why Bucky Cap, who despite being temporary, was so accepted by the fans). I’m not so sure about the new Ms. Marvel lasting (although I really, want her to), but I just don’t see Carol going back to that name any time soon.
If they make her a movie in phase three (as the rumour mill keeps suggesting) I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s featuring Carol as Captain Marvel.
As for what Marvel is doing right these days, I’m enjoying Superior Spider-Man, which has already been discussed to death around here. I tried other several titles relaunched in Marvel NOW but have given up on all of them by now for various reasons. I kept up with Guardians of the Galaxy the longest, but I was ambivalent about Tony Stark on the team, didn’t like the second artist, and quit when the plot got subsumed into the “Infinity” crossover.
On a related note, that’s not the first time that’s happened to me. I like a title until its characters and plot get hijacked indefinitely for a crossover that has nothing to do with it. Publishers really should consider that there’s a downside to that kind of thing.
Do they? I thought DC gave up on that fight. That’s how I interpreted the fact that Billy Batson’s alter ego is now called “Shazam.”
But anyways, I agree with you, I like the idea of Carol as Captain Marvel. I admit that’s one of the titles I started but didn’t stick with, but I think it worked fine, it just didn’t grab me enough. No hard feelings.
The Loki thing has a lot to do with what Gillen did in Journey Into Mystery, which you kinda sorta absolutely need to read.
Gillen did go on record as saying that he expected his changes to Loki to get undone almost immediately after he finished, and was both pleased and amused that, because of Hiddleston, they almost certainly would not be now.
Yvonmukluk: It’s not like Bucky Cap or Superior Spider-Man, where the original character is always going to come back …
Which is why Dick Grayson is still being Robin.
Cyrus: On a related note, that’s not the first time that’s happened to me. I like a title until its characters and plot get hijacked indefinitely for a crossover that has nothing to do with it. Publishers really should consider that there’s a downside to that kind of thing.
I’ve had the same experience. Oh, I did my far share of contributing to Marvel figuring crossovers boost sales. I picked up copies of Secret Wars crossovers, etc.
But now a crossover is a major dis-incentive to buy a book since it’s extremely rare it’s anything other than a hijack of the book’s plat and/or characters.
So I wonder if they have any real data on how many people pick up a book because of a crossover, vs how many drop it.
The new Loki series is going to be written by Al Ewing, who’s currently writing Mighty Avengers.
Infinity had superheroes fighting bad guys.
I’ve been a bit leery of the upcoming Silver Surfer title, it looks a bit too much like The Adventures of Silver Surfer and Manic Pixie Dream Girl, which is so not something I’m interested in.
I don’t think Carol Danvers is likely to get demoted to Ms Marvel again anytime soon though. Marvel doesn’t have enough A-list standalone superheroines, and Black Widow alone won’t cut it for long.
That being said, does anyone else find it a little weird that the Carol Danvers Captain Marvel gets so much praise when there was already a female Captain Marvel in Monica Rambeau, and a women of color no less? It’s a little eyebrow raising that everyone is happy to forget the black woman and play cheerleader to the blonde haired blue eyed white lady. Then again the Avengers as a whole are pretty Aryan right now, and Rambeau was Capt. Marvel quite a while ago, but still, I felt it should be said.
Regarding the above, many of us know Monica best from Nextwave, years after she’d changed her code-name.
I just want more nextwave.
I think everyone (who has read it) wants more Nextwave.
I believe Warren Ellis has indicated that if he became wealthy enough to cover the page rate Immonen deserves, there would be. This may be wishful thinking. It’s like Gillen said about McKelvie with Phonogram, only in the 616.
Ellis doesn’t own rights to Nextwave. It’s Marvel that has to decide to do more.
If its the guy one Mighty doing Loki then I’m fine with it. I’ve enjoyed the current Mighty series more than I’ve enjoyed an Avengers team since Slott’s Mighty. Besides, Gillen was an unknown too when he got the Beta Ray Bill gig that lead to all the other Marvel works.
Really bugs me that no one mentioned Phyla-Vell; she’s the only woman with any right to the Captain Marvel name anyway.
And crossovers have been a jumping off point for me for a long time. I left Green Lantern Corps because of the Sinestro War. I left X-Factor when it started to tie into six billion X-events.
> Phyla-Vell; she’s the only woman with any right to the Captain Marvel name anyway.
Gotta disagree with that; Carol has plenty of reasonable ground to stand on- She’s got an actual military rank, which could easily be shifted to Captain if needed, she’s the most direct inheritor to Mar-Vell, owing her powers to melding with his DNA as well as actually KNOWING Mar-Vell unlike Genis or Phyla, and she was actually an active superhero when Mar-Vell died.
Unfortunately, Marvel is just really indecisive when it comes to naming Captain Marvel (or for that matter Marvel Boy). They have a tendency to swap around names like they were pairs of underwear.
I never consciously gravitated to ‘Marvel’ or ‘DC’. Having said that, my only regular Marvel buys currently are Superior Spider-Man, Miracleman and Daredevil. Years ago, I was buying all regular Spidey titles (and minis), Astonishing X-Men, Captain America, Young Avengers, Runaways, Fantastic Four, Avengers, etc etc. Gradually my interest in each waned and they were dropped, and I’ve never seen an incentive to pick another up. I read the first arc of Uncanny Avengers, mainly for the art and that’s it.
What’s been amazing is how many Image titles I find myself devouring regularly : Saga, Sex Criminals, Satellite Sam, Saviours, Umbral, Nowhere Men… And you know what? – the vast majority are $2.99 – a huge motivation to pick up the first issue of a series to ‘try it on for size’.
I won’t tell Marvel how to run their business model, but the ‘$3.99 for everything’ model has meant I haven’t tried out a LOT of series.
In the above possibly-imagined continuing Nextwave scenario, Marvel was already inclined to do so. (I hope I am not bringing down the wrath of Ellis for reporting a pleasant dream. The more I think about it, the more I doubt my memory.)
Having just bought this, I was surprised that the Silver Surfer showing the wonders of space to a human companion passed without comment by someone who talks about Doctor Who rather a lot.
I think you might really dig Indestructible Hulk. Mark Waid hinges much of the action on Bruce Banner’s feelings of inadequacy when compared to the “Big Scientists Club” of Reed Richards, Tony Stark, Hank Pym, etc.