dadaluholla

Marvel Comics.

I love them. Really I do. However, I have to say their current standing with me has got to be the lowest it's been since the early-mid 90's. There are just endless titles being churned out monthly with no aim or direction. There is little to no continuity with other titles. Huge crossovers continue to take over a good portion of the regular series making it difficult to follow storylines. Oh, and Joe Quesada is just terrible in general.

On the other side of the coin, there are a few great stories being told like Planet Hulk and Brubaker's Daredevil, so it's not a total loss.

Your thoughts? On a scale of 1 to 10, where does Marvel stand with you right now? Where can they improve? What changes would you make?

madcougar

There are more than a few characters at Marvel that I really, really love. For that reason alone, I can't see myself ever just dropping all my Marvel books. With that said I have to agree with many of your points. There seems to be no rhyme or reason (except for money) for some of their editorial decisions.

It seems as if they have introduced numerous titles over the last three or four years that don't fit naturally into the Marvel universe.

As it was in the 90s we have a boatload of X-Men titles. How do they all fit together? I don't know. In the 80s and early 90s you had "Uncanny X-Men" the main title, "X-Factor" the old team regrouped, and "New Mutants" the new blood coming in. Today, I couldn't tell you what's going on with as many mutant titles as we have. How there can be so many mutant titles with only a handful of mutants left is beyond me too.

We have regular Marvel, Marvel Knights, Marvel Max, and so on and so on. What does this all mean? I'm a regular comic book reader and have no idea.

One of the reasons I actually enjoy the Ultimate line is because there hasn't been this complete inundation of books and characters. Yet.

zombiezilla

Yeah, Joe Q should be fired, that's for sure. He's dug them into a hole and filled it with shite.


Marvel's only saving grace for me (at the moment) are the Ultimate titles, and their Silver and Bronze Age stuff can't be beat.

PalmerJoss

On a scale of 1 to 10, they're probably a 3 or 4 right now. I'm not pleased with how they handled the whole Cap #25 thing, and their response to the demand has been disgraceful at best.

Even before all this I was becoming disillusioned with them because of books constantly being delayed and the never-ending crossovers. I mean, since Avengers Disassembled, I can't remember a period where Marvel wasn't having a big crossover event. I'm just tired of them all and I'm done with them for the time being - you can count me out of World War Hulk.

Most of the changes that they need to make are editorial in nature - they need their books on a regular monthly schedule, and to do that they really get on the writers and artists that can't seem to get off their asses and actually turn in some work. If the writer or artist can't finish the issue on time then I say get them off the book and bring in someone who can. I applaud DC for doing what they did with Wonder Woman - Allan Heinberg was just turning in a script every 2 or 3 months, and they finally had enough, so they interrupted his run and brought in a team to do a fill-in issue before Jodi Picoult's start as writer.

Marvel also needs to stop with the crossover events. I'm tired of them. They need to limit the events to one a year, like it was way back in the day. Have the main story be told in the Annuals and only in a few of the monthly books. I mean, we had Civil War last year and now we're into The Initiative which will, I think, lead into World War Hulk. Or something. Doesn't matter, because I'm tired of it.

Currently I read only 5 monthly Marvel titles - newuniversal, Criminal, Astonishing X-Men, Captain America, and Mighty Avengers. I will stop reading AXM when Joss is done and if Bendis reverts back to old form then I'm done with Mighty Avengers. I read at least 3 times as many DC books as I do Marvel, and that's the first time that has ever happened. I sorely hope Marvel gets things back on track soon.

JustinCleveland

Don't be too harsh, Zombie. They have Runaways, She-Hulk, and some wonderful imprints like Criminal that make up for the problems of the mainstream stuff.

And Ultimate X-Men has begun to stink, royally. It's a damn shame, too, because I just went back and re-read the first fifty issues and I really, really enjoyed Miller and Bendis's work on that title.

Patman

Let's see, I read about 5-7 Marvel titles/month:

She-Hulk (Slott's writing is keeping me on this book for now)
Runaways (might be leaving this title since BKV is gone now, Whedon is hit-or-miss)
Astonishing X-Men (if Cassaday left this title, I'd probably be gone)
Criminal (didn't quite live up to the hype, but I'll give Brubaker one more arc)
Mighty Avengers (mainly for Cho's artwork for now)
Squadron Supreme (buy it out of sheer momentum, but with Gary Frank off the book, and JMS not quite writing a compelling book to read, it's close to being dropped)

I used to read Ultimate FF, but dropped it once Millar/Land left, and it seems I did the right thing after hearing the reactions to the next creative team on UFF.

wlj

i love marvel, but i agree it is hard to keep up with what is going on. too many titles IMHO. I can't wait for World War Hulk though.

Adam Tyner

I would say "you won't have to wait long" since he only has a few issues left, but the current arc is dead in the water until at least June. Oh well. It's not as bad as the delays that plagued Whedon's "Fray" (wasn't there a full year and a half gap between issues?).

"Astonishing..." is the only monthly (I should put that in sarcastic finger-quotes) I pick up. Everything else is in trades/hardcovers, and most of those have been fairly disappointing lately. Just for some variety, I've been trying to pick up a couple random issues of books I haven't been reading. I did really like the new issue of "Captain America", which I managed to tear through without being subjected to any spoilers, and I'm kinda digging "Punisher War Journal".

My usual Marvel trades and hardcovers include "Ultimate Spider-Man" (which was suffering from a steady decline for a couple of years straight, although I hear it has gotten better recently), "Ultimate X-Men" (I don't know why I keep buying this), anything with Dan Slott's name on it, "Runaways", and "Daredevil".

Bronkster

If I had seen this thread/poll before I read Joe Quesada's comments in the Captain America thread I would've given a better rating. Right now it seems the upper staff at Marvel are trying too hard to piss readers off. That said, I'm a long-time Marvel fan who is not happy with things right now.

Superboy

Something i've always appreciated about DC better than Marvel was that DC you could enjoy as a universe as a whole, and it was much less incongruous than Marvel in terms of its themes and how the characters interacted with each other and the universe.

DC for example followed a major trend post-crisis to have more human characters that reflected more realistic themes, while still maintaining a very hard-edged sci-fi superhero bent to it. The Man of Steel, Batman: Year One, Kyle Rayner, all reflected a more human DC that took ideas Marvel was doing - creating more sympathetic characters - and doing one better by still offering exciting superhero stories. If anything DC blended the formula of both Marvel and DC's silver ages much better than Marvel did.

Marvel on the other hand just seemed so fractious to me in terms of the ideas that drove its universe. On the one hand there were human characters like Spider-man that resonated with audiences extremely well, but there were massively cosmic stories that showed how tiny the Marvel Universe on Earth really is. That and Marvel has way too many heroes in New York, with too many things happening in each comic to NOT have it reflected in any other major comic just waters down the punch of the storyline. Planet X for example, seems like it came and went without any consequence but for New X-men.

There was always the issue with how Mutants are treated in the MU as being really inconsistent, I mean Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were ex-evil mutants and yet heroes in the Avengers, which never seemed like a major issue that was part of the weight of the book. Also, Spider-man being a "menace" got tired way too early before it became extremely annoying.

Also, just the way that Marvel handled the Ultimate line of comics really chafed my hide.

GearsWar666

Marvel has nowhere near the quality of comics that DC has. The ONLY Marvel comics that are decent for me are: Ultimate Spiderman, Hulk, Daredevil. The Hulk & Daredevil are a BIG LETDOWN sometimes. DC for ME!!

Sessa17

What I never get about Marvel, is everyone complains they put out too many X-books, too many Spider-man books, too much of the same thing, yet whenever they attempt something new, nobody ever tries it.

I know it's geek trendy to bash Marvel but they do put out some great quality. Captain America has been one of the best superhero comics ever IMO since the relaunch with Brubaker. Daredevil has been brilliant since Brubaker has been on it, giving the book a direction, something Bendis never did in his 2+ year run. Hulk has had one of the all-time classic stories being told in it for the past year with a follow-up that looks just as good if not better. Runaways is one of the most unique team-books in recent years. The Irreedeemable Ant-Man is a completely unique superhero comic unlike anything out on the market, yet, as I said above, nobody reads it. Criminal is a completely unique crime comic unlike anything out on the market, with some of the best art is modern comics. While Civil War was the definition of an over-hyped Marvel event, everyone flocked to that, yet quitely at the same time Annihilation came out & was one of the best "event" comics I've ever read completely revamping an entire genre for Marvel.

For all those good things their probably something really annoying to match, but what publisher doesn't have their faults. For me, my single biggest problem with Marvel right now, is their sickening obsession with Bendis. While DC does a great job of spreading their much more talented writers around, with Johns, Morrison, Waid etc, all putting their collective stamp on the DC books, Marvel gives every single main event to the same guy, & everything he writes is just so gimicky & redundant. Yet, I realize I have to be wrong, b/c anything the guy writes people buy, & for whatever reason, critics seem to love.

Superboy

That's a bit of an overstatement. Marvel's experimental phase starting in 2000 had HUGE sales numbers. The problem is that editorial decisions eventually outweigh creative ones, and they have to move comics in a certain direction that does not facilitate long-term creativity. Take a look at the Clairmont/Byrne run on Uncanny. There is no other run of comics as long that did so many great things, and look at the state of those characters, the fallout from those storylines, and Uncanny X-men today. That kind of creativity is just naturally stymied in the big two.

Again, another overstatement. Marvel has always been the fan favorite of the big two. Look at sales numbers. I know they're not everything but look at how Marvel consistently dominates the top 25. These can't just be casual readers. The majority of comics are now sold through the direct market, which is through comic stores, which only geeks go to. DC and Marvel both have declining sales numbers for comics that are consistently bad.

And that perfectly fits my point. Those are all great books, but they don't draw a big picture together very well.

And yet, it's so strange that all of Marvel's main titles read like they're in totally different universes.

calhoun07

I would rank them higher than DC right now. They still have some of the best creators making the comics, which is a plus. I am not a fan of the multi issue/multi title story arcs such as Civil War and they also tried doing that with the Spider Man titles and it completely turned me off. I've cut down tremendously on my buying of comics as a whole, but Marvels are always the first of the major publishers I consider buying from when I do buy them.

Quesada started off strong as an EIC. He attracted a lot of interesting talent to write and draw Marvel titles that really got my interest, creators normally associated with independent comics. Comics were FUN again when he started out. I think they have lost that sense of fun some what over the past few years and it shows, but I think he's still doing a better job at it than the previous EIC.

james2025a

For me Marvel is at a peak at the moment. I think titles like Civil War, the beginning at least of Planet Hulk, Marvel Zombies, The Ultimates, House of M, Annihilation...to name just a few, have been excellent reads. I have always liked characters from both Marvel and DC (but mainly Marvel). But after reading Infinite Crisis last year.....man i was disappointed. That series started well but never delivered. Then to have 52 weeks continue it on...and that being pretty damn boring as well. DC is not in a good state. Marvel has taken more chances (Spidey revelaing his identity, Cap being killed) and it has made for more interesting reading. Someone mentioned in their post that DC made their characters more human.......i think this is more so for Marvel. The characters in Civil War have been portrayed with real emotions, feelings and indecisions. As for the concern about many cosmic stories being told in Marvel.....well i LOVE them. I was always a fan of the Infinity Gauntlet/War/Crusade series and love anything like this that omes from Marvel. In fact if anyone can recommend any similar stories form either DC or Marvel i would appreciate it.

stingermck

My interest in Marvel has always been up and down. For every Infinity Gauntlet, there was a Spider-Clone. New Avengers there was a Civil War. Great stories renew my interest, and bad ones drive me away.

My current reads though are Punisher MAX, Amazing Spider-man, and Squadron Supreme.

But I prefer DC heroes by far. I read comics for the mythic stories and larger than life heroes. If I wanted to see real world problems, id pick up the newspaper instead of a comic.

GearsWar666

Punisher is nothing more than a Bruce Wayne rip-off, and Stan Lee himself said that Spiderman took ALOT from Superman.

calhoun07

How does Spider-Man take a lot from Superman? Completely different origins and powers. I guess both work for news papers and both have had a significant caretaker figure in their life die in the early development of their character as a hero, but man, I can't think of too many other similarities. Both have red and blue in their costumes?? Both are kind of dorky out of their costumes?

Geez, if you're going to hate Marvel for that, then you got to say that about just about any superhero character in the last 30-40 years. Not much new and original out there anymore, folks, and Heroes is just another in a long line of "new" heroes that desperately borrows on old superhero types.

dx23

I think the big problem here is Joe Quesada. He is not respecting the vision that many of the original Marvel comics creators and writers develop and establish through the years. The stories he aproves have no direction, the continous delay of comics is astounding ( not as bad as Image in the 90's though) and the bad decisions (Cap's death, the CW ending, drastic makeovers) have made Marvel #2 in my eyes.

MovieExchange

Joe Quesada is the Vince Russo of the comic world...

Being one of those people that, according to Tom Brevoort, has been in longer than the normal reader they try to cater to, I remember when Quesada took over at Marvel. He cited the Clone Saga and the other stupid shit that was pissing off the fans, and swore that he was a fan and he would bring Marvel back to being a company for the fans.

Since then, Joe has turned into yet another corporate type that has lost the vision of what it means to be a comic book fan.

It's not about 5 different incentive covers for one comic. It's not about company wide crossover events that last for years on end. It's not about doing something simply for shock value. It's not about chromium - lenticular - X-ray - die cut - polybagged with a card and a copy of Joe's latest colonoscopy cover books either.

It's about telling a story that entertains and makes sense in the confines of your "universe." Preferably a story that doesn't make you think "hey, this is just the (whatever) storyarc from 10 years ago retold....

For example, Civil War. I'm sure someone else here mentioned it, but Civil War is just the Mutant Registration Act from 20 years ago.

As for the Ultimate Universe, its shine is fading for me. I want to see more original stories, not just raping and pilaging of the classics.

I wish we'd see another company like Valiant start up, but that was probably a once in a lifetime thing. Even Jim Shooter, creator of the Valiant universe, couldn't capture the magic when he tried again (and good gods, was Defiant horrible).

Chew

From day one of my comic collecting, I've been a DC fanboy. Marvel sorta slides back and forth between a middle of the road 5. I'm rating them a 4 right now just for the fact that there is very little I actually read from them anymore.

Superboy

First of all, Joe Quesada and Bill Jemas's "rules" when it came to revamping Marvel around 2000 was a joke. You saw every promise they made quickly broken. Most of them centered on the elimination of the hype-driven artificial speculator market and replacing it with genuinely creative storytelling that would bring back real interest in comics. The Ultimate universe was the greatest offender of this, starting out as pure storytelling and eventually sliding down into the same sort of short-term gain long-term pain model that only hurt the comics industry.

I decline to compare Civil War and the Mutant Registration Act. The MRA was such a potent piece of storytelling. Then again Civil War does has a more contemporary significance...

The Ultimate line for me always seemed sadistic.

boredsilly

OK, you might not like Marvel's books, but you think Joe Q should be fired, really? Isn't Civil War one of the highest selling comic series in the last how ever many years? Sure, that has nothing to do with it's quality, but people have got to realize Marvel and Joe are there to make money. Period. In that regard he is doing a fabulous job. Also, I think he's done some really good things on the creative aspect of Marvel as well. Joss Whedon on Astonishing, The Anita Blake and Dark Tower stuff? That is just good for the industry as a whole, not just Marvel. It just irks me when people start calling for people to get fired when they are doing the job. It just seems hyperbolic.

MovieExchange, Joe IS a businessman. It shouldn't be surprising that he's trying to do things to sell books. I think we have a nice solid group here of people who know what they like and just want good titles instead of stunts. I would be all for that, but it doesn't negate the fact that events sell like crack. And those tie-ins to events sell like mad. I do think they're in trouble of busting that bubble, but until then...shit they had TWO events running at the same time! How insane is that? Personally, I think it was a stupid move that lead to Annihilation getting overlooked (I don't like cosmic so I didn't read it, but it seems well received), but they still put it out there. Your comparison of him to Russo seems off to me. To stick with wrestling, wouldn't comparing him to Vince McMahon make more sense? Dominant force in his industry, with some really good workers(titles), but a promotion(publisher) whose overall direction you may not personally agree with or enjoy.

Now, more along the spirit of the thread, I think Marvel is operating at a 6 overall, but at an 8-9 on the titles I read. I just read Planet Hulk and it is the most fun run of comics I have read in a great long while. X-Factor is always a good read. Peter David is doing some really neat things with that title. Captain America is simply "the shit". Mighty Avengers I really liked. Fantastic Four the End is good stuff. She Hulk has been really fun. I'm really looking forward to seeing what Dwayne McDuffie does on Fantastic Four, as well as looking forward to a lot of stuff Bendis has coming down the line.

To me it just feels like the in thing is to hate on Marvel right now.

MovieExchange

Why is it that this is always the excuse that someone uses when others complain about something the person likes?

It's not the "in thing." I don't bag on Marvel because they're popular, or because doing it is popular. I do it because right now Marvel is at one of its lowest points ever in my 30 year history of reading comic books. They're cranking out an overflow of crossovers and tie-ins because that's what the masses mindlessly buy up. The events have gone from meaning something to meaning absolutely nothing other than to pad Marvel's bottom line. Yes, they're in business to make money, but isn't it possible to make money *and* deliver a quality product?

A good businessman would stop and say "hey, this is what caused the last comics bust that we're still trying to recover from... maybe we should reign it in a bit?" Instead, Quesada and the rest of Marvel... hell, DC also, are short-sighted and are gladly taking us down the road that caused that bust, just because they can make a quick buck now.

As for Peter David, I don't know how he's doing on X-Factor. All I know is that his writing was so horrible on Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man that I don't pick up anything that he writes now... which is a shame, because he used to be one of my favorite comic writers.

Bendis has severely declined. It's another "said it before, I'll say it again" thing, but he needs to lower his workload. His quality has pretty much proportionately gone down as his work quanity increased. Ultimate Spider-Man is just a complete and utter mess right now, with its version of the Clone Saga rivalling the original one in how bad it was.

boredsilly

Fair enough about the "in thing" business. Though the page on Marvel did seem to turn out of nowhere to me, and I have seen my fair share of "FIRE QUESADA!!!!!!!" and "I'm NEVEerrr BUYING MARVEL AGAIINN!I!I!I!" type posts around to see that some people really are just jumping on a bandwagon (or at least that how it seems to me). I wonder if those mindless masses buy that stuff up because they like it though? I bought a lot of tie in stuff for IC because I was really into that and I'd like to think I wasn't doing that because I'm mindless. A lot of guys probably did the same for Civil War.

We're going to have to agree to disagree that they're at one of the lowest points in 30 years, because for all that they're doing wrong (and they do have their problems), I still think they have a lot of really strong titles with great talent on them. So your trash, is my treasure.

Right, but what business ever pulls back on something that's working? It's a good theory, and looking at things from a fan point of view it makes sense, but when they see CW selling like it does (or DC seeing 52 selling like it did - which sold 100,000+ for almost each issue) of course they are going to go right back to that well. Thus WWH and Countdown. Or to go with your Wrestling analogy, WWE and the zillion PPV's they have now. Not to say too much is a good thing, I'm just saying it isn't the first time a business kept doing what works and keep doing it until it doesn't. I can't even think of an example of a business doing what you mention right now. In these kind of discussions, it's best to leave the business aspect out of the discussion and focus on the perceived quality of the product.

I'm not a Spidey guy, so I don't read that, but X-Factor is the shit. The only problem is that their have been something like 1000 artist on the book. I'm not going to say anything silly like I'll buy the trade/issues from you if you don't like it, but I do think you'll enjoy it. Especially when you take into account your concerns about Marvel. It works a lot like Astonishing does really. A contained (mainly) story. I can't recommend it enough.

I have only read the first 50 issues of Ultimate Spidey and enjoyed it well enough, but it's not a title I felt like I needed to read. Again not a Spidey guy. But everything of Bendis' I have read I really liked, so to each their own. New Avengers was pretty good until the reboot and Mighty Avengers knocked my socks off. They might not be as personal as Alias was, but I still think Bendis has chops.