generally how OVER is it for Marlel?
>>155678212Depends how well Doomsday does
>>155678234i was talking about the comix
>>155678212Nobody knows yet. Right now they're in the process of moving out to California because Disney demanded it, and they also now have a different bunch of people in charge at the top but the editorial remains the same for now
>>155678262can they make an answer for Absolute ?
>>155678268Yes. Read Dimensions, by Alex Ross. That's it!
>>155678212It hasn't been good since the 2000s aside from Ennis in the 2010s. Let that sink in.
>>155678212You can tell editorial under Akira Yoshida just thought they could coast off of being the IP farm for the MCU and licensing, but DC shifting into overdrive the last couple years and actually paying talented creators to make good books has just revealed how creatively bankrupt Marvel Comics has been for 20 years. I gave up on Ben Percy's Punisher this last month when it stopped being a self-contained book and was the second part of a Deadpool crossover that didn't match the tone of the current Punisher book at all, now I'm just getting DC and Image books from my LCS. Personally I think Marvel completely lost their soul when they dropped the corner boxes in the 90's, it's been downhill ever since. It was so much of their branding and legacy, it really came off like telling their history to fuck off.
>>155678240Its been over for almost 2 decades now. They only make any money because of Spider-Man and rereleases of older, better comics.
If Marvel truly wanted to make money, they fire all the talent making floppies and they find new people and team up with Abrams to make tailored stories. You'd think Disney would just do their way of thinking and actually protect the fucking brand but nope, they just create goyslop.Man...Spider-Nam by Abrams and Stokoe could be kino....
is absolute really selling that well or are DC cucks just acting uppity on the interwebs ?
>>155678268>can they make an answer for Absolute ?The relaunched Ultimate line was supposed to be that, and they prematurely killed it because editorial is retarded. Now they're positioning the Midnight line as an answer to Absolute, but Midnight comes off as creatively bankrupt and just treading already covered ground in past books (Vampire X-Men? Already done. Body horror Spider-Man? Already done. Cosmic horror Fantastic Four? Already done.)
>>155678240Well ASM 1000 was a complete turd
>>155678338Jim Lee just said this last year was DC's most profitable year ever, and that includes the heights of the late-80's.
>>155678381>The relaunched Ultimate line was supposed to be that, and they prematurely killed it because editorial is retarded.i gotta be honest most of my hype for it (which was mostly spider man anyway) died pretty quickly into it. decompressed storytelling, the month gimmick making things feel disjointed and setting up cool things that we didnt see get paid off and just got told how they paid off, and the book was too crowded with side character shit not enough actual Spidey stuff. so even if it continued post Hackman they would have had to change how the line worked at the very least to get rid of the month gimmick
>>155678212Marvel is trying to wait DC’s Warner Bros bankruptcy when the Paramount deal falls through.
>>155678400and you believed him?
>>155678416https://www.thepopverse.com/comics-jim-lee-spotlight-panel-sdcc-2026-dc-comics-kicking-ass-best-year-everIf he's lying, he'd have to answer to investors and executives. Also keep in mind this includes book publishing, and from all accounts the Compact line has been cleaning up big time.
>>155678212It went south around the time they balked at bringing petes parents back. The 90s cartoons, then the Crow then Blade showed the IPs could be more than the comics.
>>155678240>>155678262Its still too early to tell because of next year's big LA move. Outside of the Midnight and Avengers pushes, Marvel Comics is in lame duck status. Look at the December solicitations: there's no sense of momentum building up to something exciting. Steve Wacker was made EIC bc he's already had success in TV animation giving Disney the synergy they want. But the synergy itself is in a precarious position. Doomsday is going to make money - even if it is a steaming pile of shit. Secret Wars is more of a question mark, if enough normies think Doomsday is bad/boring, it could crash and burn. And if the messy, erratic way of filming continues, it could be a bloated production disaster (that looks like shit)Disney really really needs Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling to do well with both their Star Wars movie AND with Ghost Rider. Without those being hits, Disney is going to get panicky and would tighten the leash on Marvel like never before. This is all to say that Marvel Comics has no leverage if a bigger house of cards collapse inside Disney. All it takes is one comics flop and Disney will clean house. Rich the Leech at BleedingCool said Brevoort and Lowe ARE moving to LA. He also said that the chatter is more Marvel employees took the LA relocation offer then Disney was anticipating. In a year of two, there could be a very shitty situation where staffers - even senior ones like Brevoort - uproot their whole lives to move to the West Coast... and then get laid off anywayI don't know Wacker's relationship with guys like Brevoort and Lowe. I don't know if he would advocate for them to Disney suits... or throw them under the bus to save his own ass.
>>155678462Even if he is lying DC comics are in a bit of a renaissance in terms of quality and renewed interest, they've got actual young people reading the books again and a bunch of returning lapsed readers.
>>155678639>they've got actual young people reading the books againbut are they buying them ?
>>155678574to add on:Spider-Man and X-men comics are mismanaged messes.The Ultimates relaunch flamed out. Midnight is not going to be an Absolute Batman level gamechanger. Nor is Miraclemen and the New Avengers. The Marvel/Star Wars crossover will top the retailer sales with thousands of variants. But it'll just be a vapor comic... like Hush 2. It dominates the sales chart but no actual readers care or like it and down the line, shops will be stuck with bloated Marvel/Star Wars junk to sell. Marvel Comics have no juice. There's no big storylines to get excited about. DC is getting momentum. The Absolute line is a success. The Next Level-Black Label-Vertigo books are getting a lot of buzz for the creative experimentation. DC always did trades better but they have found a new win with the Absolute U + the Compacts line + the Finest line. Marvel has NOTHING like that and all of their blatant attempts to ride coattails are met with derision and don't click in the same way. Plus there is a genuine optimism for Man of Tomorrow and Lanterns is a viewer success. The general vibe for DC movies is more optimistic and that bleeds into more casual wanting to dive into some comics and DC is better suited to cater to them while simultaneously publishing comics for the hardcore Wednesday Warriors. The real concern is if Kirkman/Skybound strike oil with something and IMAGE starts to eat into Marvel's marketshare.
>>155678673last thing is Disney is outsourcing more Marvel Comics to other publishers. Dark Horse and Fantagraphics are doing stuff with the archives. Plus dynamite is getting access to more and more Disney properties for comics; they entrust Dark Horse and Mad Cave to make Star Wars comics for kids and not Marvel. I genuinely think its possible that using the Secret Wars movie as synergy, that Disney mandates a brand-wide "new 52" style reboot for the comics to go along with a new generation of MCU movies that will start recasting the Phase 1 era charactersAnd then we see a much more limited in terms of publishing Marvel Comics line that has to follow a strict Disney synergy mandateAnd if you want archives or "classic" depictions, it will be dependent on a boutique third party publisher licensing it a la the Alex Ross books for Abrams.
>>155678756>>155678673>>155678574actual comic discussion? on my pedo forum?
>>155678672Considering >>155678462 talks about book publishing side doing well (aka GNs and TPBs) then yes that means they are buying them.
>>155678756>last thing is Disney is outsourcing more Marvel Comics to other publishers. Dark Horse and Fantagraphics are doing stuff with the archives. Plus dynamite is getting access to more and more Disney properties for comics; they entrust Dark Horse and Mad Cave to make Star Wars comics for kids and not Marvel.This is the part I was surprised about, with how many different publishers are publishing Marvel stuff, whether all-new or reprintsDark HorseFantagraphicsAbramsClover PressTaschenPenguin BooksScholastic
>>155678756Genuinely, I think the best thing possible for Marvel Comics would be to cut books down to the bare minimum to focus on quality rather than quantity. Just Amazing Spider-Man, just X-Men, just Fantastic Four, just Incredible Hulk, just Iron Man, just Captain America, just Mighty Thor, just Dr. Strange, just Daredevil, just Punisher, just Avengers. Focus on a high quality, core book for each headline character, actually spend money on a great writer and a great artist rather than farming all the work out to third worlders who shit out garbage for pennies. Actually INVEST in quality rather than trying to flood the market with as many mediocre books as possible to clog up the sales charts. Really just resetting and going back to the basics would be the best thing possible for them right now.
>>155678212They went bankrupt
>>155678852Because unlike DC, they don't really have a book division right now. Outside of collections through the Omnibus and Epic imprints, they have zero interest in collections of old material, or creating stories for the book market in-house. Why do you think the Masterworks line now has to be handled by Clover Press to keep it alive?
>>155678212It's not like they are dipping below Image, so they'll be fine.
>>155678904>Outside of collections through the Omnibus and Epic imprints, they have zero interest in collections of old materialI'm not sure what you want. Collecting old stuff is easier than it's ever been.
>>155678212Marvel HAS been shit. They haven't put out anything good for years. I personally dislike 98% of Marvel books. That is my own preference.BUT! What I can do is still objectively assess whether what I have read has something to it, and sadly it doesnt. My biggest point of criticism are the X-Men. What the X-Men have become is so ridiculous that it truly genuinely makes me wonder how anyone who isn't mentally ill can enjoy that shit.Krokoa being a orgy island and everyone having sex with eachother is something that bothers me so much. It is just obscene and does nothing for them. Like picrel... really Marvel? Was editorial too busy sucking eachother off or did they really fuck with this decision? This is plain disgusting. It's on the nose obscenity and that has no place in a superhero book some kid could pick up. Besides this immoral, subhuman direction their books have taken, their stories are truly shit. I recently came across a few pages because some fag on reddit posted something about it, and it is literally unreadable. It's as if a tranny with the experience of 7 femboys and 3 prostitutes mixed with the personality of a chick from 7th grade who's into anime wrote this shit. Like genuinely, every character sounds like some retard like i just described wrote them.Marvel can never be like DC and that's fine. They are different, both have a different air to them. But genuinely, execute these execs, editors and writers and for the love of god just train some AI to think like Ditko and Kirby or something because these newfags clearly are not capable of writing anything worth the paper its printed on.Fuck that felt good.
>>155678865Marvel puts out anywhere from 12 - 18 floppies a week, including minis, synergy tie-ins, web reprints, and star wars. Somewhere around 60 books a month. Going "back to basics" which I can understand creatively, would slash their monthly product by 50% or even more. I dont know if the business model can even survive such a massive reduction in sellable product. For one thing, it would mean a permanent gutting/downsizing of Marvel editorial. And honestly when you're only publishing something like a 12 books a month, it becomes more cost effective for Disney to shut down publishing altogether and outsource "the marvel comics project" to Dark Horse or whoever is willing to pony up the cash for licensing. I don't know what the magic number is for DC/Marvel in terms of how many books should be published for a shared universe. There's always bloat. Absolute, Ultimate, Energon have buzz partially because fans can keep up with the *entire* universe without wasting money on hundreds of pages of crap per month. 1-2 books per week seems like the magic number for the readers... but thats not probably enough sales for a company the size of Marvel. But a dozen books per week is just slop.
>>155679056>This is plain disgusting. It's on the nose obscenity and that has no place in a superhero book some kid could pick up. Ok, Mr Wertham
>>155679088>1-2 books per week seems like the magic number for the readers... but thats not probably enough sales for a company the size of Marvel.You don't think consolidating titles would mean more readers buying one Spider-Man book, one X-Men book etc, meaning that they could see much higher sales overall? I think having half a dozen Spider books or X-books has led to the consumer confusion that led to dwindling sales in the first place, and being able to tell potential readers "Want to read Spider-Man? Just pick up Amazing Spider-Man" would ultimately mean better sales for the core books.Also part of the reason Marvel is in the problem it's created for itself is farming the book-market side of the business out. If they cut the monthlies down to 8-10 titles a month, they could put more staff on book-market publishing and titles and stories dedicated to the book market, the kind that Abrams is publishing now under their Marvel Arts branding (and that DC has continued to produce in-house)
>>155679193>You don't think consolidating titles would mean more readers buying one Spider-Man book, one X-Men book etc, meaning that they could see much higher sales overall? I think having half a dozen Spider books or X-books has led to the consumer confusion that led to dwindling sales in the first place, and being able to tell potential readers "Want to read Spider-Man? Just pick up Amazing Spider-Man" would ultimately mean better sales for the core books.It doesn't work like that. Venom and Mary Jane comics are not siphoning off readers who want to read about Spider Man. There is currently one primary Spider-Man book. Its already reached its ceiling in terms of sales. > they could put more staff on book-market publishing and titles and stories dedicated to the book market, the kind that Abrams is publishing now under their Marvel Arts branding (and that DC has continued to produce in-house)Original graphic novels take more production time and cost more money up front. For less quantity overall. DC has kept it simple by focusing on Elseworlds style comics for kids and teens, with a lot of Batman to build up the library. But its not a huge staff.
>>155679088>would slash their monthly product by 50% or even more.good. quality over quantity
>>155679508>good. quality over quantityThat's where I'm coming from. Also if it's quality, it will continue to be evergreen stories they can repackage and reprint in books and collections for decades to come rather than the disposable slop Marvel keeps shitting out lately.
>>155678212How over? NONE over. They're still making good comics. Even good X-men comics. Plus good Moon Knight, FF, and Daredevil. They're over relying on events and mass teams again, though.
>>155679508>>155679563it is less sales. putting out one x-men book doesn't mean that all the readers of all the x family books combine to buy that one book. not all of them stick aroundIf you have 6 x men books and they each have 10 readers, its not automatic that one x men book will hold onto all 60 of those readers (plus gain more)i'm not advocating for quantity over quality, but i'm saying the idealistic "focus on a dozen quality books" is unfortunately unrealistic and unsustainable for what the modern comic book market has evolved into.
>>155679733Couldn’t you theoretically make up for the loss in “x-family” sales by adding even more variants to the remaining title
>>155679836lol no
>>155679733You're absolutely right. I enjoy Uncanny and adjectiveless. I can't stand almost anything else put out. For a team like X-Men, there's too many characters that people are fans of to mash them all into one book, "quality" be damned. Consumers still want variety, and their favorite characters. That anon believes there's objective "quality," which isn't the case. Not that I'm calling Marvel's strategy perfect, but even DC still has multiple Superman-family, Batman, and Justice League books that people are buying.
>>155678756on a somewhat related note, it took Clover Press to pick up Marvel Masterworks (starting with 4 books [Dracula, Marvel Villain Team Up, Mighty Thor and Uncanny X-men] on kickstarter, physical only) when those books and many others were close to finishing some famous creator runs. Uncanny was like 20 issues away from finishing Claremont's run.Omnibus is too far back to pick up the slack immediately and it's one of the things I hate about Marvel TPB. starting and stopping shit all the time to move between one of the various collections and focusing on events.
>>155680069so theyre fucked? ok
>>155679706>They're still making good comicslike?
>>155678212If ASM 1000 doesn't sell over 1 million copies it's over
>>155681127when was the last time ASM sold a million or any western comic for that matter
>>155681126Not OP but the current Thor run is pretty good.
>>155678319>I dropped a book because there was a brief crossover with another title, not because it was a shitty comicOy
>>155681203>or any western comic for that matterStar Wars #1 in 2015, though Marvel lost that momentum almost immediately.
>>155678381How is Absolute any less creatively bankrupt when it’s just “what if more edgy and violent but like anime?”
>>155678462>all these news and DC still fails to restablish in NYC so California does not hoard two of the IPs
>>155681127>>155681203It's inflated by variant cover sales
>>155678395Didn't it get 400,000 preorders? Marvel's not gonna care as long as it sells well.
>>155678212Deadpool found dead in a Turkish prison, more at 11.
>>155682266Also, Dr. Doom looses to Hungary after brief border conflict.
>>155681583>How is Absolute any less creatively bankrupt when it’s just “what if more edgy and violent but like anime?”That's not at the core of Absolute at all, all you've revealed is you haven't actually read any of the Absolute books outside of seeing Absolute Batman memes.
>>155681591rent too high
>>155683274The mayor is literally a pajeet.
>>155682297The core of Absolute is "underdog heroes fighting against a corrupt system" which they lifted from the new Ultimate line, but they went the extra mile for better art and manga-style storytelling.The only books people care about are Batman and Wonder Woman with Superman as a distant third. No one cares at all about Flash and Green Lantern. The minis are carried by hype. Deniz Camp's Martian Manhunter wasn't any better than his panned Ultimates/Endgame, it just had better art, and after it ended, everyone agreed to stop talking about it.
>>155678212Why does marvel use fantagraphics to sell their old comics ?
>>155678381>The relaunched Ultimate line was supposed to be that, and they prematurely killed it because editorial is retarded.The only Ultimate books people cared about were Hickman and Checchetto's Spider-Man and Peach Momoko's X-Men. They were done. Marvel wanted them to stay on, they said no. Those were the best teams they had, and all the replacements they had on the table would have been an embarrassment and a near-immediate sales drop. So Wil Moss cooked up a white lie to Deniz Camp saying "It feels like it's naturally coming to an ending here" to spare his feelings about not wanting to continue the universe with him specifically. They already teased its return in the finale, so they may have some good teams already lined up for a relaunch, they just couldn't get them organized and ready to go in time.
>>155683466Believe it or not, the Fantagraphics guys love capes. Classical ones, at least.
>>155683436So?
>>155683683Just tell him that you'd hire pajeets or some shit then fire them once the mayor quits.
I think most of their properties completed their natural progression in the 00s. we don't really need any more, even if one run or another is charming, it's just spinning wheels.
>>155681126Hulk, Moon Knight, and ThorF4 is decent when its not dragged into events or movie/Rivals synergy
>>155683462>No one cares at all about Flashwrong>Green Arrow is carried by hype. wrong>Deniz Camp's Martian Manhunter wasn't any better than his panned Ultimates/Endgame, it just had better art, and after it ended, everyone agreed to stop talking about it.wrong
>>155683736you are a retard who doesn't know how the world works. you must still live with your parents and have never had to earn a living to provide for yourself
>>155684051Calm down kamala voter.
>>155684041If you had facts on your side, you would have posted them.
>>155684152shutty
>>155678673>The real concern is if Kirkman/Skybound strike oil with something and IMAGE starts to eat into Marvel's marketshare.https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/63475/kirkman-reveals-energon-universe-sales>Skybound Entertainment founder Robert Kirkman revealed sales of key titles in the company’s Energon Universe line (see "Skybound Brings G.I. Joe and Transformers Together in Universe") in a The Hollywood Reporter interview, and the numbers are impressive, even among the high-flying comic sales of 2026.>The biggest number was on Transformers #1, the issue that kicked off the universe, which has sold over 350,000 copies in 14 printings, with a 15th printing on the way. Around 170,000 copies were sold of the first printing, with 180,000 copies sold of the subsequent 13 printings combined. The title has sold over 3.5 million copies across all of its issues and the 67 reprints of those issues. Sales of all the Energon universe issues and printings combined are over 7.6 million copies, according to the report.
>>155684794every #1 sells like crack, anon.
>>155678212Dude unless you're over forty-five it's been over since before you were born.
>>155678212Dunno. With exception to maybe current Moon Knight, none of Marvel's current ongoings interest me.
>>155686733Moon Knight is so bad. I don't get how people can read that shit.
yes
>>155678268They're making an answer and it's the entirely wrong one. They're mistaking Absolute for "dark and horror" when it's a little bit more than that.
>>155678212>>155678240Comics haven't been relevant to Marvel's success in decades
>>155678574>Steve Wacker was made EIC bc he's already had success in TV animation giving Disney the synergy they want. But the synergy itself is in a precarious position.There’s been good Marvel cartoons lately?
>>155678240Both Marvel and DC make the majority of their money from licensing their characters
>>155691432
>>155691445X-Men 97 is good enough but I doubt Wacker had much involvement there.
>>155690017This.
>>155691486He didn't have anything to do with X-Men 97, wiki lists his Animation credits as:>2014 - 2015 - Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. (26 episodes) - supervising producer>2014 - 2017 - Ultimate Spider-Man (52 episodes) - co-executive producer>2014 - 2018 - Avengers Assemble (78 episodes) - co-executive producer, supervising producer>2015 - 2017 - Guardians of the Galaxy (51 episodes) - co-executive producer>2017 - Marvel's Spider-Man (11 episodes) - co-executive producer>2017 - Rocket & Groot - co-executive producerKeep in mind he took over Animation from Loeb so USM and Agents of Smash and Avengers Assemble were already some seasons in
Comics are the retarded rump state of the company.Vidya and the Movies are where the money and cultural impact is.
>>155692852What about manga isn’t that just comic books but asian
>>155692951They make money and have a young audience.
>>155692852>rump staterump status?
>>155692970I didn’t know young audience had money
>>155678212I know it was over for marvel, when they started to announce future events in comic-cons like if they where MCU films.No, you're not gonna create the next war world hulk, secret wars or the evolutionary war. Just make a good story for God's sake.
