Marvel Now!! A Worrying Update & an Angry Fanboy Rant!
Here at Sidekickcast we like to think we keep our finger on the pulse of what is important in the comic book world, which is why, on Sunday we discussed Marvel Now! on the upcoming Sidekickcast Espisode 71 (make sure to listen its a riot).
During the conversation we speculated if many titles would be thrown to the wolves, and, at the time, we were reassured, by interviews that we had read, that no, this would not be the case. There would be some loses, but nothing significant.
Then Marvel released their solicitations for their October releases; which contained some disturbing news, the X-world is being cut in half (Que dramatic music)!! You may have heard my Darth Vader-esque ”NOOOOOOOO” when I read this news, but there was more to come.
On further examination of the solicits, I discovered that in addition to the X-titles, Marvel are also ending Captain America, Invincible Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Mighty Thor, Fantastic Four, and FF. All of these titles, a grand total of nine including the X-verse will end in October.
Now, there are those of you who will look at this, and think, so what? Well lets look at it this way; on examination of the books being stopped, only Iron Man has been running consistently since its inception without much change. Uncanny will end after only 20 issues, with quite a lot of those issues being taken up by the very crossover that will cause its end. Legacy had a reboot following the events of Schism, Fantastic Four took a break following the death of Johnny for a year. And the rest of the titles all end at between 15-20 issues, most of which are titles that span out of Fear Itself.
I’m not naive, and I know that these titles will all be back, after all, there is no way Marvel are not going to have books featuring four of the stars of their highest grossing movie, and their first family of superhero comics. The question is, why bother restarting them….again?? Sure, Marvel will make a load of money, because the fans will buy everything that comes out. Does this mean they should cancel everything though?? Another look at the solicitations for many of the books are worrying as well, Uncanny X-force writer Rick Remender is leaving the title in a story called Final Execution, the story doesn’t end in October, but the solicit says the end of the story is coming soon. Will we lose Uncanny X-Force come November? Both Avengers and New Avengers are running a story called “End Times“, sure we know these titles will be part of the big shake up as well but I just don’t see the point in it.
For the past few years Marvel have been shoving “Point One” issues down our throats, and most of these have been completely pointless; but Marvel assured everyone that they were the perfect jumping on points for readers (most of them weren’t, particularly the Spider-man one which was all about the then upcoming Venom series). They even went and collected all the Point One issues in two trade paperbacks. So why, after all that, are they changing gear and doing this new shake up.
Marvel say this is because they are looking at great writers, and great artists making great books. This idea is fine, I completely subscribe to this, but you don’t need to slap a number one on a book in order to do that. Throughout Marvel’s history we have seen creative teams come and go without the need for renumbering. Lets face it last years Uncanny X-men, Captain America, Incredible Hulk, issue ones are not going to be as worth anywhere near as much as the their golden/silver age equivalents, so just let the numbering carry on. Heck I started reading Uncanny X-men with issue 248, did i worry that I didn’t have the other 247 comics? no I didn’t, I just knew, that over time I could learn what had happened previously. Marvel have millions of old comics being sold everyday on E-bay, and with people’s compulsion to collect everything these days, keeping the numbering going is a perfect opportunity to get people to buy them all. But Marvel don’t make money from that, so we are going to get a whole host of new number one issues that are number one for the sake of it.
I’m sure that some of the answers will come out during this week’s San Diego Comic Con, and I really hope that some fans grill the Marvel higher-ups about these sweeping cancellations that they indicated wouldn’t happen……keep a watch on the site, as I will hopefully be posting more on this topic over the next few days.
Oh, and one last thing, Wolverine MAX, really Marvel? Really?? Does the world really need another book featuring Wolverine?? In October, Wolverine will appear in 13 different comics that are published, 16 if he makes appearances in New Avengers and Avengers vs the Marvel Universe. Enough of the Wolverine
RANT OVER
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Obviously I’m one of those people that doesn’t really get that bothered by relaunches and cancellation of books, I’ve learnt the hard way that we’re fighting a losing battle. I almost stopped reading all Marvel books when they cancelled Kieron Gillen’s SWORD, one of the best books at the time, the same was true of Captain Britain and MI:13, a topic that seems to come up way more than it should in these comment sections.
What’s my point? It’s the nature of the business, it’s how Marvel shake things up without rebooting the whole universe a la DC. Do you have a right to be angry? Yes. Did I enjoy your rant? Hells yeah, and I hope it made you feel better. Will it change? Not a snowball’s chance in hell, we just have to accept it or speak with our wallets, stop buying their books.
All that being said, if they cancel Uncanny X-Men, I’ll be kicking off right with you brutha
I have got to the point where I just don’t think it matters and I am past caring about renumbering as it seems to all be geared towards trade paperbacks now anyways.
They will sell Uncanny X-force as Uncanny X-Force by Rick Remender Vol 1,2,3,4 and 5, the same goes for the rest of the titles. I think they just get an initial burst in sales when renumbering to #1 and on the back of the success/publicity DC received they feel they need something too.
I am personally looking forward to it and will probably end up getting at least a quarter of them but its Marvel though so they will probably at issues 15 or so put them back to there original numbering in some other kind of scheme hahaha
As for Wolverine I agree, I really like him as a character and I like reading hin but I am sick to the back teeth seeing and reading him.
I suppose what is really annoying is the fact they have cancelled Uncanny X-Men, New Mutants and X-Men Legacy while it looks like X-Factor is splitting up, we have Uncanny X-Force which is all a bit up in the air and with Wolverine and god knows who else from force joining Uncanny Avengers this could be for the chop too.
Newserama: Does that mean that Uncanny X-Force is ending?
Remender: It doesn’t. It just means that after issue #35, aspects of the book shift over into Uncanny Avengers.
Then we have X-Men and astonishing which both are set before AvX at moment so god only knows what will happen to them when they catch up or when the current arcs finish.
And this is where it gets crap because we are getting X-Treme X-Men which contains alternative X-Men, We are getting the Bendis All New X-Men with time travelling X-Men from the past and we are getting First X-Men which is based before the X-Men started.
Really, Really, Really crap three new titles to be getting considering the cancellation of what has been announced and what might be happening because I am not a big fan of alternative versions and versions of characters from other places in time.
The cancellation of books gives me the perfect jumping off point for Captain America and The Incredible Hulk. I picked them both up with the relaunch, have been kind of “meh” about them and now I can just leave them when they are cancelled! I don’t even have to update my pull list! More cash in my pocket for more creative non-Marvel/DC books!