honestly im not even sure what it is. is it just those team ups? team ups that we have seen before many times. amadeus cho was introduced in the hulks book. he know bruce banner. how many times has spidey teamed up with miles morales? a bunch. kate bishop and hawkeye have shared books together one during the matt fraction/ david aja run then the follow up by jeff lemire and the completely underrated ramon perez. steve and sam and bucky are teaming up woo hoo. carol danvers and kamala kahn ? i know some of these take place at different times for the characters. in their personal timelines. but whats so special about 99% of these one shots? it kind of reminds of what bendis did with the x men. bringing the original xmen team when they are teenagers forward to the present day.
nothing about this seems new nothing about this seems special. it just seems like damage control.
here look at some marvel sales
www.comicsbeat.com/marvel-month-to-month-sales-chart-march-april-2017-strategies-of-doom/also these things are going to be 5 dollars a piece. are team ups ive seen before worth that price?
the cap team up is also going to be written by nick spenser, the current cap writer, for both cap books. what is he going to say that he isn't already?
more on the damage control thing
ok there has been a culture war going on geek or nerd culture since the whole gamer gate thing. those gamergaters can say it was a consumer revolt but it was also a culture war and gatekeeper. the angry puppies book award thing.
by and large geekdom has been associated with nerdy white guys since forever. remember the classic william shatner SNL star trek skit. but now all that stuff like super heroes and of course doctor who are more popular,
more mainstream. so more and more calls for diversity are everywhere. in dr who, for example, when are we going have a black doctor, when are we going to have a woman doctor when are we going to have a black woman doctor etc.
so back to marvel. i noticed when the movies hit big, especially the billion dollar avengers. mainstream press kept calling them out, on where are the female superheroes? where are the black superheroes? marvel has a
diversity problem. i have read this sentence way too much. " marvel is just waking up to the fact women read comics too." well marvel has had diversity you just weren't around to support it. black panther is 50 years old.
the falcon nearly so. how long have the wasp, scarlet witch, and black widow been around? over 50 years. doesnt half a century get you anything? so those type of articles tick me off. and of course the comics press were all to happy to beat
that same drum.
go look at that link i posted for marvel sales, pay attention to the black and female lead books. they dont sell. the comic industry would love to sell people books about women and black folks. they need the money. they
would love to have a whole new customer base. they need the sales. if you put aside sex and race for a moment and take a look at movie sales and their comic book counter part comic sales. comic fans go see movies, but movie
fans dont buy comics. i know there are executives at marvel entertainment and the disney corporation, sitting around meeting rooms scratching their heads trying to figure out why that is.
marvel has courted new fans, movies fans, women and black folks. they dont seem to care. look at those sales figures. not just the comics but the trades as well.
so that struggle has been going on in the industry. how do they get movie fans to become comic fans? how do we silence critics about diversity?
so marvel hired a whole bunch new writers, that would not only portray diversity, but were diverse themselves. in order to appeal to those new demographics. female, black, gay, sometimes latino, almost never asian.
and the sales aren't there. for a long time i felt the comic press would see white guys as the reason those books dont sell. the nasty white guys dont buy those books. but the reality is white guys are pretty much THE ONLY
ones buying those books!!! the demographics that are howling for super hero representation are NOT buying those books.
so back to marvel again. people are constantly saying " marvel is catering to SJWs." i dont think thats, it well not entirely. what these folks fail to realize they arent catering to SJWs, they ARE SJWs!!!
they want the black spiderman. they think its time for a black captain america and 15 yo black female iron man. and they went out and hired even more SJWS who are even more hardcore than they are. i have no doubt alex alonso, tom
breevort, and sana amanat, think their traditional costumer base are all the -ists they can come up with. sexist racist etc etc. they fail to realize brand loyalty. comic fans have their favs staked out already iron man fans want tony. thor fans
want thor. etc. they don't want any replacements. never mind that they are women and/or minorities. but the new staff were hired specifically to replace their white male line up with non white males. which of course means side lining the
traditional customers favorite characters in favor of, not their favorites. as my buddy says you have to diversify by addition not subtracting. so marvel fans feel slighted and the new costumer base hasnt materialized.
on top of that, i keep hearing about twitter wars between marvel staff and fans. so thats not good. and of course now, they have a polarizing meta event with secret empire, and folks are not buying. some of them are swearing
off marvel till its over. well who's to say those fans will be back. a friend of mine thinks they will just get their superhero fix from movies and TV.
so now marvel damage control. their sales are dropping and their new characters are not selling. their old fans feel snubbed, in favor of new fans who dont even buy comics. i think marvel thought yup we will phase in the new
characters into the books and names of our old characters, and yeah they would lose some readers but we will get so many new ones. and you cant blame them for trying. comic sales havent been good for a while, now for marvel
at least they are even worse i do think they honestly believed that. because thats what they kept hearing! from the comic press and the mainstream press. and anyone who said,i dont think thats going to work, was dismissed as
a racist or sexist or a homophobe or a transphobe. now bad blood not just from the customers but on the side of the creators. like i said they are SJWS. so not buying the new diverse line up, was not only a slight to their
vision, but also a declaration of bigotry. how do you bring those 2 sides together?
i think faced with dismal sales, the possibility they would have to cancel a chunk of their line up, and most of their diversity titles, as well a meta event that isnt selling and, is getting hated on like the clone saga, and
heroes reborn, they thru together marvel legacy. my suspicion is, they think having stories where the old favorites pass the baton to the next generation, will be the fix. it wont. i firmly believe thet are all in on the
new characters and will try anything and everything to make them happen. i dont think anyone should expect the return of old favs. i think this event is a new try to sell old fans the new title holders.
some miscellaneous thoughts
captain marvel is the perfect example of marvels troubles. carol danvers is what i would call a C list hero. a character that is popular enough to get a book but not popular enough to keep it. she as ms. marvel has had a
couple ok runs her first series 23 issues and her second went 50. she has been a decent avenger since the 80s. the character she spun off of was a C lister as well btw. so he being dead and all, and no one currently being
called captain marvel gave the name to carol and launched her title with much fanfare and a female writer to boot. this was everything the press and feminists were asking for. a gender neutral code name, a none sexy costume,
and a female writer. and how did that turn out for marvel and carol... well her book has been retooled 5 times since her debut as captain in 2012. none of the 5 series sells any better than the rest. also marvel has been
pushing her as their flagship character. kamala kahn's ms marvel outsells her. not that ms marvel is any great seller. she has been around 30k a month for a while, but i think even that dropping.
so marvel did everything they were told to do in order to court female readers and its failed. now what? nobody has the answer to that.
www.avclub.com/article/marvel-learned-wrong-lessons-carol-corps-218003 ta-nehensi coats was a stunt or celeb hire. marvel got an award winning writer who usually talks about social and political topics in the atlantic. he fit right in as a writer who could appeal to the hipster audience they
were courting. so they launched his black panther series with much fanfare. his name got them and the title plenty of attention. it worked. black panther was the biggest selling book for april 2016, it sold 253,252 copies.
beat out thhe number 2 book by around 75,000 copies. thats got to be black panther biggest launch. so mavrvel green lighted some spinoffs the world of wakanda cancelled with issue 6 and black panther and the crew they
announced its cancellation with issue 2 . coats and the panther could not keep those readers. panther sales last month were 30k. coats is a good writer and if he sticks with it a good comic writer, but the black panther is
another c list character. he has a small fanbase, which inccludes me, but he hasnt won over many new fans from the black community.
both these characters have movies coming up in marvel movies phase 3. i think the world really liked the panther's debut in civil war. and have him be the first black hero to have his own movie will get a lot of buzz, but
will that get sales? wonder woman is doing great at the box office. is that because the world was waiting for female super heroes? or just wonder woman? the captain marvel movie will tell. marvel has staked a lot on
these 2 characters. their comics sales hopefully are no indication of their ticket sales.
I think Secret Empire will resolve it. Marvel's not going to weather THAT storm for a relaunch. 
