House on Fire, by Danny Donovan – Mad Science #10
March 15, 2012 Danny Donovan 0 Comments
Recently Joe Quesada came out and said that DC’s New 52 was the equivalent of ‘burning down the house’ and it was done as a response to what Marvel had been doing for years.
This came as a response to a question as to whether their Avengers vs. X-MEN thing was a response to DC’s success in the relaunch. Of course what are they going to say?
“Yeah we totally ran out of ideas 10 years ago… Not sure what to do now.”
What is irksome is that what Marvel has done very little to create excitement outside of the Wednesday audience, and instead of trying to get ahead of the game again, they seem to be doubling down on the same old same old.
Sort of reminds me of the GOP and they’re intent to keep going back to the social issues when the majority of the country has moved on to more important things. We make strides to help remake the country for the 21st Century and all of a sudden here comes the Santorums of the world saying “Birth Control is ruining the country!”
I am not coming at this like some DC Fanboy/leftist “My side is better than yours” sort of way. Growing up I was complete Marvel Zombie, hardly read any DC books, but now the opposite is true.
From a creative aspect, Marvel stopped challenging me as a reader, whereas DC restructured their universe to offer a variety of different storytelling options, Horror, Sci-Fi, Super-Hero, Western, etc. Marvel gives us multi-colored Hulks, making Flash Thompson a black-ops version of Venom, and now going back to the well with an Avengers Vs. X-MEN thing that’s been done since at least the 1980s.
Of course there was also the “BloodTies” Cross-over in the early ninties as well. To say DC is making moves to respond to Marvel’s exciting new books is to overlook the Green Lantern crossover Blackest Night, that wound up getting aped in the pages of X-MEN during their “X-Necrosha” event after the Green Lantern started making a lot of waves and gaining a lot of sales.
Currently, Aquaman outsells a majority of Marvel books… AQUAMAN! Seriously? Marvel has one of the greatest universes in the history of publishing and the guy that talks to fish is moving more copies. Now not trying to deride the king of Atlantis but seriously, its just embarrassing.
I was fortunate enough to have one Marvel check under my belt and I dream of the day I can make another one, (same with DC!) but it’s really silly when you have millions of potential of new readers from the films and the animated series, are you really going to be grabbing their attention with this type of material?
DC has their animated line, their Vertigo line, and a wide variety of genres in their main line. Marvel keeps canceling their younger reader initiatives (I recall Joe Quesada saying he doesn’t think 8 year olds read comics anymore, and probably never did) and their Marvel Max line, which despite being run by Axel Alonso really doesn’t hit the same notes Vertigo does.
The ICON imprint is actually closer to Vertigo than Max is, aside from Supreme Power, I can’t think of any Max book that was more “mature” than “dirty” . The little augmented reality QR thing that was shown off at SXSW was interesting but not sure how that’s going to generate more new readers or even lapsed readers the way DC’s publishing strategy has worked.
As a fan, as a creator, I am wondering when the hype will end and the competition begins? A competitive Marvel and DC means a successful industry in general. Seems like Marvel’s rolled over and played dead. Lets see them get in the game and fight creative team vs. creative team. TELL STORIES! Win readers, not marketshare. Units sold to the retailer means very little as comics aren’t returnable so its not like you can say:
“Okay, Amazing Spider-man sales are down, retailers sent back 50% of the orders, we need to move more copies.”
Now they are doubling orders for free, and losing money so they can claim better marketshare. Where is the next Fall From Grace? The next Age of Apocalypse? Where are the stories that make the reader put the book down and say “Wow, oh my god, what happens next?” Marvel lost that feeling years ago, overtaken by books like Walking Dead, Marvel used to be the industry leader. When do the excuses stop and the stories start?