Marvel Now/ReEvolution Ongoing Discussion (Spoilers)

[Icemizer]

Finally looks like a good book coming from the Marvel redo, Indestrucible Hulk.

[Admiral_Young]

I've made my decision...I'm deciding to drop The Incredible Hulk. The art has been fantastic all the way through, but the quality of the story telling has dropped significantly IMO. It's too bad as I thought Aaron was bringing something unique to the character. Am definitely looking forward to Waid on "Indestructible Hulk" (if that is indeed the title).

[Praetor_Shinzon]

Admiral_Young wrote:

---

I've made my decision...I'm deciding to drop The Incredible Hulk. The art has been fantastic all the way through, but the quality of the story telling has dropped significantly IMO. It's too bad as I thought Aaron was bringing something unique to the character. Am definitely looking forward to Waid on "Indestructible Hulk" (if that is indeed the title).

i don't care for it either, but i'm gonna stick it out till the end of Aaron's run.

[Captain Craig]

Praetor_Shinzon wrote:

---

i don't care for it either, but i'm gonna stick it out till the end of Aaron's run.

Yeah, I feel the same way. It's only 3 more issues and I'll have the whole run. Then I'll just do the trade wait when Waid's run starts. Will Waid still be doing Daredevil or did I gloss over that in all the Marvel news? What's that books fate?

[Admiral_Young]

Waid is still doing "Daredevil". He's just adding Hulk to his work load. Normally my original plan was to tolerate the conclusion but I'm starting to get fed up lol.

[Captain Craig]

Cool Waid is still on DD then, thanks.
I actually read IH#12 and kept wondering how or why either Hulk didn't yank the syringe bot off his neck or it didn't get knocked off while Ben and Logan were fighting him. There were a few nice bits of humor though in the story. Hulk breaking off a piece of Thing, pulverizing it and blowing it away. Logan, "I can't see I've got "you"(meaning the dust) in my eye". The weird aliens thinking Earth is destroyed and go back into the bunker for mincemeat pie night.

So all this was once again for an attempt to cure himself of The Hulk. An old school storyline that I thought had pretty much be abandoned.

[Mr Light]

The first arc of Hulk was interesting with Banner vs Hulk, but everything since then has just been silly.

[Turtletrekker]

While "FF" may be continuing into "Marvel Now!", it will have a completely new format. It will be a team consisting of all former members of the main team-- She-Hulk, Ant-Man (Lang), Medusa and She-Thing. Can't build up any excitement at all over this one.

[Mike Farley]

So, it will continue as a completely unrelated book? Lame, Marvel.

[Admiral_Young]

Oh dear. Don't like the direction of FF even though I like the idea of the Four selecting new members. I like the incorporation of the kids into the main book, we'll see how Fraction writes them. I doubt it will be as delightfully fun as Hickman did. I kind of like the Four's redesigned suits, but I dislike the new recruit suits intently. I'm wondering even more what Hickman is planning for his finale for this to happen.

Fraction's "The Defenders" is concluding so he can focus on Fantastic Four.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=40367

I know the book was his "baby" sort to speak, but I don't understand why they just don't continue it with a new creative team instead of cancelling it, when you just know they're going to bring it back like a year later.

[Turtletrekker]

Not surprised about Defenders. It seemed like Fraction was telling a finite story anyway, and with him writing Fantastic Four, FF and Hawkeye each month, something had to give. Man has got to eat and sleep sometime.

Too bad. Defenders is an under-rated gem.

[Captain Craig]

Turtletrekker wrote:

---

While "FF" may be continuing into "Marvel Now!", it will have a completely new format. It will be a team consisting of all former members of the main team-- She-Hulk, Ant-Man (Lang), Medusa and She-Thing. Can't build up any excitement at all over this one.

I must've missed it when Ant-Man was considered a team member of the FF.

I'm still missing out as I wasn't aware She-Thing was back, thought she was one of the few dead characters that was still dead.

I do notice that lineup is the opposite of the normal lineup: 3 female/1male
It's also full of redundancy in She-Hulk&She-Thing, are two brute force individuals needed?

Admiral_Young wrote:

---

Fraction's "The Defenders" is concluding so he can focus on Fantastic Four.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=40367

I know the book was his "baby" sort to speak, but I don't understand why they just don't continue it with a new creative team instead of cancelling it, when you just know they're going to bring it back like a year later.

Marvel is helping me in my budget choices. While I'm all for continuing the book with a new creative team I'm not convinced it's a title that screams 'will be rebooted in a year'. It's a title like Ghost Rider, Moon Knight or Blade and may have a few turns at bat then go away for awhile if it doesn't work out like they want or will tolerate.

[PsychoPere]

Captain Craig wrote:

---

I must've missed it when Ant-Man was considered a team member of the FF.

I'm still missing out as I wasn't aware She-Thing was back, thought she was one of the few dead characters that was still dead.

Neither the CBR article nor the original USA Today one refer to the FF characters as having previously been members of the Fantastic Four, just that they were chosen by Reed Richards to be stand-ins for the Four and the Future Foundation while the Four and the kids are on their time-travel trip.

As for "She-Thing," the articles actually refer to her as "Miss Thing" and call her a new character. This previous one you've mentioned must still be dead, then.

Some quotes from the USA Today article:

[...] FF will get a new look and a new replacement Fantastic Four squad, with Ant-Man heading up Reed's Future Foundation and teaming with She-Hulk, the Inhumans' Medusa and Miss Thing, an all-new female character clad in a Thing suit of armor.

[The Family will] be gone for a year — which will only be four minutes in regular Earth time — and while there will be continuing plot threads, each issue will be a new adventure and new situation.

Ant-Man and his group stand guard for the four minutes, but nothing happens. Three weeks later, a one-eyed, one-legged, long-haired, half-insane, bearded Johnny Storm walks through the time gateway, shuts it behind him and says, "We can never open this door again."

Reed Richards reaches out to Scott Lang because as Ant-Man, he's scientific, he has things to prove, he's a family man and, because he recently lost his daughter Cassie, Reed feels putting this brokenhearted hero in charge of the kids in the Future Foundation will help him.

Sue wants a woman like Medusa who has a link to the Fantastic Four through the Inhumans but could also be a mother, a hero, a friend, a wife and "seemingly have eight arms to handle all these jobs at once," Fraction says.

She-Hulk has a pedigree with the team since she has been a member of the Fantastic Four, plus she'd be Ben's pick because she's "the one person he knew he could never lick," says Fraction[.]

"Strong guys are easy but you need more than just a strong guy."

Miss Thing is the most interesting choice because, as Fraction puts it, "Johnny spaces it because he's Johnny." She just happens to be a "Lohan-esque celebutante blonde" he's with the night before he leaves and she's thrown into the middle of this situation.

"She's the regular person, she's the human, she's the overwhelmed 'Whaaa?' of it all," Fraction says.

[Admiral_Young]

Yep. This is just an extension of how Johnny chose Peter to replace/succeed him during his "death".

[shivkala]

CBR's Tilting at Windmills has an interesting article on Marvel NOW!, why it may not be a success, and why that's a bad thing for comics, in general. The article is by Brian Hibbs, a comic retailer and covers Marvel NOW! from the perspective of a retailer.

The key problem facing Marvel right now, as I see it, is that, with the exception of AvX, their line is slowly withering. While high-performing miniseries, or one-off stunts like Northstar's gay marriage, can spike some sales up, the bread-and-butter for a periodical company is the month-in-month-out sales performance of their 12(+) times a year regular ongoing books. This is also the bread-and-butter for the retailer, as well.

Prior to AvX crossovers (in March), Marvel's best-selling not-issue-#1 ongoing book (this time: "Uncanny X-Men" #8) had dropped below 60k copies. This is, to the best of my knowledge, the absolute nadir of sales for Marvel's top ongoing. While this was a very long time ago, indeed, when I first got into this business in the 80s, Marvel would routinely cancel books that sold that low.

Here's the thing, though: the Direct Market needs a strong Marvel comics. And as strong as the sales of AvX have been (and they've been spiffy, thanks!), that's really is supposed to be just a little bit more than what the sales of the regular monthly adventures of those two teams should be. Not 2-300% of the regular monthly sales!

Marvel is the best known brand in comics. Kind of indisputably so. I'm a DC guy at heart, and even I know this. There is absolutely no reason that "Batman" should be outselling "Amazing Spider-Man" by 2:1 right now from a straight-up market awareness POV. In fact, I tend to think that Marvel should be kind of destroying DC by 20 points or better any given month, and the fact that they aren't is less about what a great job that DC is doing (though they are doing a great job right now), and more about what a mediocre job Marvel is doing.

As far as "urgency" goes, I strongly believe that staging out a rolling relaunch with "one book a week" for the 20+ week period strips much of the urgency from it. As a retailer, I appreciate the premise of a new opportunity every week, but in actual practice, I think it makes the new "Marvel NOW!" branding seem much more like "The Heroic Age", where by week five everyone was already sick of seeing those no-content slogans bannered to the top of so many comics.

The problem as a retailer is that I don't actually have a hook for "Marvel NOW!" because I don't actually know the full contents of it. I can't "talk it up" except in the most generic way. Instead, I have to make each of those sales connections individually by book as they announce them, and without the benefit of the global branding to tie them together. One thing we were able to do with "The New 52" was to create a specific one-time sell-sheet for our customers outlining the whole program. That intensely focused interest because we're urgently needed them to sign up for these new series within the next month (so we could accurately order!) -- but I can't create 20+ different sell-sheets, and, even if I could, that won't work because by #3, people are going to be saying, "Ugh, not this again".

Unfortunately, the feeling I get from "Marvel NOW!" is "You know all that stuff we've been doing that you don't seem to be responding to? Here's more of it." Which is a hard message to sell.

I recommend reading the whole article, because he makes some good points, I didn't include here. Agree or not, it is an interesting perspective and I wonder how true it is for other retailers.