Marvel Going Back To "Meat And Potatoes"

[thecolorsblend]

What we heard was that people didn't want any more diversity.  They didn't want female characters out there.

https://www.bleedingcool.com/2017/03/31/marvels-david-gabriel-sales-slump-people-didnt-want-diversity-didnt-want-female-characters

Well this is awkward.

[The Dark Knight]

I could have told them that. But I'm not the only one saying it.

Marvel and other dumb corporations simply don't understand their audience if they keep pushing this crap down our throats.

[The Laughing Fish]

I think people would've been okay with diversity if Marvel used their existing characters (i.e. Sif and Valkyrie) instead of female Thor and a teenage African American girl as the new Iron Man. Better yet, create new characters instead of hijacking iconic ones, but the way Marvel went about things rubbed people the wrong way. The political agenda was too obvious.

[The Dark Knight]

This article from last year by Charlie Nash is spot on.

"Thor? Are you kidding me? I'm supposed to call you Thor?" Marvel villain The Absorbing Man yells at the new "female Thor" during a vicious street brawl in an issue published last year. "Damn feminists ruining everything!"

The dialogue mirrored most sane reader's thoughts during the issue, but we're not all monsters. We are just loyal, long-time readers who are sick of our favorite characters being butchered by nose-ringed lesbians for the sake of diversity, and at the apparent expense not just of dialogue, story and creativity but also, it now appears, the commercial success of Marvel's comic books line.

A villain based on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is to appear in "Spider-Gwen Annual #1" this week. The villain, who goes by the name of MODAAK will be seen rounding up "foreign filth", complete with Mexico jibes, "small hands" jokes, and even Trump's signature catchphrase "Make America Great Again."

In one scene, a female Captain America can be seen hitting MODAAK with her [sic] shield before the villain can complete his "Make America Great Again" catchphrase.

Your mileage may vary on Trump disses. Plenty of readers will have smirked along at jokes made at The Donald's expense. But increasing customer frustration at obscure third-wave feminism preoccupations shoehorning their way into Marvel's comic books is starting to have an effect on sales. It turns out you can't bully people into caring about "microaggressions."

"[A lot of misogynistic filth]", "[Red Pill MRA Meninist Casual Racism]", and even "[Unsolicited Opinions on Israel???]" were all speech captions in Angela: Queen of Hel, a Marvel comic that was cancelled after failing to set the world alight earlier this year. The comic started with nearly 40,000 sales on its first issue, but dropped to just below 25,000 on its second.

By the third issue, Angela: Queen of Hel was at just above 20,000 sales, and by the last issue, issue seven, just over 14,000 people bought a copy. That's right: the comic lost over half of its audience within seven issues.

Is that because the comic industry hates women? Or could it perhaps be because readers don't appreciate being bludgeoned to death with student politics — and because social justice warriors tend not to put their money where their mouth is.

Marvel isn't getting the message. Its latest comic book character is — wait for it — a fifteen year-old black female Iron Man. That's right. Tony Stark, the badass, billionaire playboy businessman who has represented the quintessential white American male since the 1960s is to be replaced by a fifteen year-old black girl with an Afro and hooped earrings.

Other comic book publishers are hardly saints, of course. In an issue of DC's Wonder Woman last year, the popular female superhero complained about a villain "mansplaining" to her before an ally punched him in the face for the crime. "The lasso compels truth, but it can't stop mansplaining," declared Wonder Woman as the "bad guy" had his teeth knocked out of his mouth.

The new social political styles seem a weird choice for publishers who have a predominately apolitical — and disproportionately male — audience, particularly since Marvel CEO Ike Perlmutter also donated $1 million to Trump's U.S. Military Veterans Fundraiser in January.

"We're seeing the worst falloff of Marvel and DC sales in the store's 38-year history," complained one comic book store owner in an industry forum. "Both companies are losing established readers who no longer feel that the company's output reflects the sort of comics they enjoy.

"For the first time in store history, yesterday's Marvel FOCs saw us ordering single digits on more than half of the line items in the Marvel section."

Marvel's readership is souring particularly fast. With the exception of some big-name comics whose characters have, thus far, escaped the SJW purge of anything remotely resembling a straight white male, Marvel readers are simply going elsewhere.

Marvel have radically altered their classic characters by giving in to calls for more diversity, leading to a black Spiderman and female Thor. This has effectively turned the company into a multi-billion dollar feminist zine publisher.

Here's a newsflash for Marvel: race-baiters and gender warriors who complain endlessly about the "lack of diversity" in comic books don't buy comic books. They're interested in identity politics, not fun.

When your customers — lifelong comic fans — pick up the latest issue to find a smorgasbord of irrelevant, hectoring social and pop culture commentary, they probably won't buy the next issue. Not because they're sexists and racists, but because the stuff you are publishing sucks.

People read comic books to escape the real world, and readers have had enough of being called privileged cis white men, or misogynist MRAs, in the real world, let alone the one place they get to escape it. If you want to put these things in your comic books, go ahead, but readers are just going to stop buying them.

Marvel is stuck between appeasing gobby SJWs, making SJWs mad by appeasing them and then attempting to fix an even messier situation than just giving the blue-haired elephants a much need middle-finger. They're not too worried now, given the success of superhero movies at the box office.

But while the company is making bank from Hollywood, hoping that audiences remain enthusiastic about increasingly desperate franchise crossovers, there's trouble on the horizon, not just for the studio's core intellectual property, but the creative integrity of its work, too. Serves them right.

[thecolorsblend]

What I find interesting is that DC and Marvel made different mistakes but handled them in totally different ways.

DC launched the New 52 without much of a vision for the future. They made unnecessary changes to continuity just for the shock value of doing so but when the novelty wore off, there was nothing left. So they tried making it work before throwing in the towel with Rebirth.

Marvel replaced anything resembling a white man in their stable of characters. After the novelty wore off, there was nothing left. So Marvel doubled down on their mistake and (at least officially) haven't changed course yet. Yeah, that article I linked to strongly indicates that they'll start correcting their mistakes. But it's not official yet.

I'm a DC guy so I rather like the idea of DC being #1 in the market. I guess I just wish it wasn't such a lopsided thing with great DC comics routinely kicking the snot out of crummy, third rate Marvel comics. If DC is going to be #1, I'd rather they earn it.

Gift horses and mouths, I suppose.

[The Dark Knight]

I love New 52 Batman.
New 52 Superman? Not so much.

I love Rebirth Superman.
Rebirth Batman? Not so much.

Between the two relaunches, DC has given us the best runs for these characters in YEARS.
I'll take that. Marvel on the other hand went all in with the SJW crap and burnt a lot of bridges.
No matter what Marvel do next, we all know where they stand. They were loud and outed themselves.

[Silver Nemesis]

The only Marvel comic I've been steadily collecting in recent years has been Daredevil. Though I also try to keep up with some of the Star Wars comics (particularly the Vader and Luke Skywalker series), and I'm planning to collect the new Defenders title when it launches later this year. But overall, I've not been a fan of what Marvel or DC have been doing with their superheroes in recent years. But at least DC seems to be correcting course with their Rebirth line, while Marvel's quest to purge their universe of white male heroes has only brought disaster on their heads.

In January 2016 Marvel had a 44.38% retail market share in North American comic sales. DC had only 22.16%. Marvel's market share was literally more than double that of DC.
http://www.diamondcomics.com/Home/1/1/3/237?articleID=174561

By January 2017 Marvel's retail market share had dropped to 37.09%, while DC's had risen to 28.93%. The difference between them was then less than 10%, and I believe the differential has continued to decline ever since.
http://www.diamondcomics.com/Home/1/1/3/237?articleID=190648

Now check out the top 100 comic sales from February 2016:
http://www.diamondcomics.com/Home/1/1/3/237?articleID=175761

Marvel clearly dominates, with 7 of their titles appearing in the top 10. Compare that against the top 100 comic sales from February 2017:
http://www.diamondcomics.com/Home/1/1/3/597?articleID=191239

DC dominates, with the only Marvel comics in the top 10 being Star Wars and Walking Dead titles. The highest ranking Marvel Universe character is Spider-Man, who comes in at number 13.

Numbers don't lie, and it should be blindingly obvious that Marvel's diversity push has had a disastrous impact on their sales. I see this as yet another example of an industry capitulating to the demands of SJWs, needlessly politicising their output, then suffering in the marketplace when the wider public rejects their PC product. Other recent examples include the commercial failure of the highly politicised Ghostbusters reboot (which left Sony Pictures an estimated $75 million out of pocket), and the drop in NFL ratings and ESPN's correlative haemorrhaging of subscribers. Then there's that whole business about the Academy Awards viewing figures sinking to a nine-year low.

It's all very well producers and publishers saying they'll sell at a loss to make a political statement, but commercial art by definition is dependent on revenue in order to sustain itself. And if people stop buying their product, they won't be able to continue making statements. Film studios, TV networks, publishers et al need to get the message that the public is sick of having their entertainment politicised. Alienating 50% of your potential audience/readership by shoehorning politics into your product is not smart business. Hopefully Marvel at least is starting to catch on.

[thecolorsblend]

What's interesting to me is how the inverse seems to be true with Marvel Studios output, which, forgettable as some of it can be, has at least erred on the side of being safe and fairly disposable. Their comics... less so.

Meanwhile, DC has been playing it safe lately while WB has been taking a fair amount of risks with the DCEU.

Overall, it's fair to say the recent past has been kinder to DC than it has been to Marvel all in all.

[The Joker]

Alienating 50% of your potential audience/readership by shoehorning politics into your product is not smart business. Hopefully Marvel at least is starting to catch on.

THIS.

I've heard some rumblings that Marvel is finally going to shift from all the SJW preaching, and get back to the basics. Unfortunately, I honestly can't get my expectations up very high at all due to Marvel still employing the same very staff that got to this low point, correct? How optimistic can one be with that sort of arrangement, and what's really stopping them from going right back to the lib agenda once long time, but clearly disgruntled readers decide to come back?

Both DC and Marvel have displayed a certain stubbornness in changing their business model due to noticeable dissatisfaction and thus, a drop in sales. DC, to their credit, and even though it took 5 years for them to realize the entire New52 initiative was a bust, decided going the Rebirth route was the best way to go, and it's worked out incredibly well for them. Marvel on the other hand, has been pushing an agenda, and incorporated relaunch after relaunch to the point where the '90's would be envious of all the #1's that's been spewed out. The sheer output by Marvel has typically been much more than DC's, but if you were to ask a long time reader of quality over quantity, I think DC wins it hands down.

Especially since that Geoff Johns' DC Rebirth one shot back in May of last year. 

[thecolorsblend]

Both DC and Marvel have displayed a certain stubbornness in changing their business model due to noticeable dissatisfaction and thus, a drop in sales. DC, to their credit, and even though it took 5 years for them to realize the entire New52 initiative was a bust, decided going the Rebirth route was the best way to go, and it's worked out incredibly well for them. Marvel on the other hand, has been pushing an agenda, and incorporated relaunch after relaunch to the point where the '90's would be envious of all the #1's that's been spewed out. The sheer output by Marvel has typically been much more than DC's, but if you were to ask a long time reader of quality over quantity, I think DC wins it hands down.

This reminds me of something I've noticed.

I listen to some talk radio occasionally. You can find some really decent journalism in the news radio format. I don't mean political talk shows with popular hosts. I mean just plain meat and potatoes news. The on-air talent may have guests who discuss the subject (whatever it might be) and that fills out the news coverage a little bit. But the host doesn't necessarily call the shots on the program. He reports but he answers to an editor or program director or station manager or whatever. The talent doesn't manage the production in talk/news radio.

In the wider publishing industry, yeah, you have the occasional author serving as the head of a publishing company or something. But by and large, book publishing is managed by professionals, managers and the like. They gather talent and then publish what they think is the best material they can find, and usually in variety of genres. There's a pretty clear divide between the writers and the publishers. The talent doesn't manage the production in publishing.

In the music world, you occasionally find a musician who starts his own record label. But extreme examples like Madonna aside, mostly those are vanity labels. Most musicians make poor record label executives. In the music world, there's a clear divide between record label mogul and artist. Yes, Madonna ran one hell of a tight ship in her day but she's the exception which proves the rule. The talent doesn't manage the production in music.

Comics are different.

Geoff Johns started off as a comic writer. Jim Lee started as a comic artist. Brian Michael Bendis was also a writer. The management of both Marvel and DC is stacked with talent. Lee has proven time and again that he's a solid business manager. He survived the 90's, y'all. His teammates at Image either lost their shirt or else survived only because they diversified their portfolios. But Lee survived.

Still, Jim Lee, like Madonna, isn't normative. He has a nose for the business but that doesn't mean everybody does.

But that doesn't seem to matter. In the comics world, the talent manages the production. And this isn't just about Marvel's political edge lately. That's a symptom. But the deeper issue, I think, is that Marvel is run by its own talent. And talent doesn't necessarily make wise business decisions.

Suppose back in 2013, Marvel poached an actual book mogul to manage their titles. Might this person have made better decisions regarding the publishing of comics? Given the circumstances, the better question might be how could an actual veteran publishing tycoon possibly have done worse? Because I don't think Marvel would be any worse off now than they are. And they might be better off.

This predicament would be understandable back in the 60's. I bear no ill will to Marvel or DC (or NPP as it was then) because they were both operating more or less independently back then. But now Disney owns Marvel and Time-Warner owns DC. Both parent companies own (or have relationships with) actual publishing houses.

How hard would it have really been to find someone from the publishing world to manage DC's affairs in a sort of "editor in chief" type of capacity? Might DC have benefited from someone in a leadership role who can take a step back and see the big picture?

In case I'm not being clear, what I'm saying is that I don't think DC or Marvel will ever be great again as long as the talent manages the production.