Comments on: Will Marvel Reboot? Not Anytime Soon, Says Brevoort

By: Laquita Quintanilla

Laquita Quintanilla — Tue, 01 May 2012 07:44:56 +0000

The Children’s Crusade and Schism all ending at the same time with the unsaid implication that it’s because all of the various franchises will sync up again and the greater Marvel Universe will become a thing again, instead of a series of different franchises.

By: T.

T. — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 14:57:26 +0000

I like the idea that there’s a top ten of possible responses to Marvel losing market share advantage to DC longterm (even though I think Brevoort is right; I doubt it’ll happen, either), and I’m curious as to what those ten would be.

No, what’s actually interesting is given all the screwups and demonstrated lack of common sense of Dan Didio and company, that people are seriously pretending he can pull off a longterm win, like it’s a viable possibility. Come on man…

By: CHALRES

CHALRES — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 14:50:54 +0000

Why are people calling Brevoort a pathological liar? It’s really uncalled for. He’s an employee for a company and simply utters lines that defend his company’s strategies. Anyone in his shoes who doesn’t that probably doesn’t like his/her job.

I’m actually surprised that some people like the idea of re-boots. I sure as hell don’t. I don’t like the idea the stories i have invested time and money have no value anymore. Marvel really prides itself on its interconnected universe and its continuity, it’s been one of Marvel’s strengths. With all due respect to everyone else, if you pick up a comic series and want to know EVERY SINGLE EVENT that has happened up to that point, you really shouldn’t be reading comics or following any form of serialized fiction. Every form of serialized storytelling has continuity, heck, even frickin WWE has continuity. It’s part of the medium and shouldn’t really be a problem.

If Marvel need lose market share for a month or two, then all they need to do is tell better stories (like they did after the original crisis). They tried to re-boot with Heroes Re-born and it came out as crap.

By: I like change

I like change — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 03:43:47 +0000

I liked Civil War. I thought It was great. I thought Iron Man was the Hero and loved everything he did in the comic. I loved his comic afterwards and how the character acted in it. I hated how was portrayed in the rest of marvel comics because they had no idea what to do with the story but I liked it. Civil War brought me into marvel and now that they have pretty much ended every single storyline from it AND have told me that I am wrong for liking Iron Man during that by giving him amnesia. I am done, I am not buying a single comic again. If I want to read something I will steal it through torrents. but i will never give another cent to marvel as long as i live.

By: gmdcma

gmdcma — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 17:59:23 +0000

I’m in favor of a reboot. Just so much convulsion in the past 20 years its hard to undo. But the public at large is buying and speaking its praises for what Marvel is currently doing. It just grew larger with disillusioned classic DC fans jumping on the bandwagon recently. They are blinded and want anything else to succeed that so DC fails and the classic stuff comes back.

Very few modern Marvel titles really are basic in style. Punisher is one of them and while decidedly average it falls back on what Frank Castle does best rather then villian-of-the-week/event style approach Marvel is having so much success with.

By: Glenn Simpson

Glenn Simpson — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 02:21:45 +0000

Just a few thoughts:

I agree that the semantics are confused. Starting over a series at #1 but keeping all of the previous continuity isn’t a “reboot”. Changing Tony Stark’s war from Viet Name to Afghanistan isn’t a “reboot”, it’s a retcon. You can also have a retcon where most of the history is changed, that’s still a retcon. A reboot is where nothing from the past happened. The DC thing is somewhere between a reboot and a massive retcon, because some history is duplicated.

When Roy Thomas originally coined the term “retroactive continuity”, he was referring to the All-Star Squadron series creating adventures that took place during and between the original Golden Age comics. As in “new history being inserted.” Later, the term tended to evolve to mean “new history being inserted that contradicts previous history and takes its place.” So the fact that the All-Star Squadron existed eventually wouldn’t be considered a retcon, but the notion that Liberty Belle was active in 1941 instead of starting up a few years later would.

Finally, I think that the “the story begins in this series and then continues in another series and then continues in another series…” like a lot of the X-Men stuff is the worst way to do things. Sure, the people who are already getting all of these series don’t care, but the ones who find themselves having to buy a book they wouldn’t ordinarily buy just to get the full story probably get really pissed.

By: oLen

oLen — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 22:29:05 +0000

The picture above of Marvel’s “Shattered Heroes” mirrors exactly what Marvel is right now. Shattered.

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 15:40:13 +0000

Breevort couldn’t tell the truth if his grandmother’s life depended on it. The fact is that if the DC reboot works, Marvel WILL copy it, deny they are and then claim they had the idea first.

By: Jared

Jared — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 20:46:50 +0000

As a long time Marvel fan, I have to say how disapointed I’ve been in Marvel for the past five years. You had these big changes and they never seemed to know what to do with a lot of them. All the characters seem different now and it’s basically change for the sake of change. I don’t want to read James from Canada. I don’t want to Iron Man from Civil War. I don’t think too many fans believe that was Tony Stark. I didn’t. Cap dying was obvious from the first issue of Civil War. Marvel just blew everything it had with Civil War. You had practically no mutans left in the world because the editors wanted to get rid of the thing that made their biggest comic ever so special. That was stupid. You had heroes fighting each other in an under written book. After you’ve done the worst comic ever, what’s there to do? Apologize for the terrible Spider-man comics they put out. Hell, that stuff was just insulting on top of being really terrible.

I don’t want a reboot by the present regime at Marvel. When some newer guys come up and start writing stories again call me. I’m over reading DC.

By: GJD

GJD — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 19:55:01 +0000

Ok lets see … Daredevil was just rebooted … Hulk will be next month … Capt – been done … Spidey … just do a new book … FF … getting ready to again reboot … Thor .. oh how many times has that rebooted … Iron Man yep been there … X-Men .. a couple times …. Avengers .. just start a new group … and don’t forget the whole Ultimate Universe … so when you say Marvel doesn’t need a reboot, that did you mean???

By: metamorphic

metamorphic — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:03:24 +0000

Reboot, don’t reboot. At the end of the day, I just want stories I enjoy. Justice League #1 was a really enjoyable read for me, even as a long-time DC reader.

As for Marvel, after feeling let down by pretty much all the previous events and not really digging the general direction as a whole (and with everything so tied together, that becomes a bigger issue), I just lost whatever interest I had left. But that’s just me, of course.

By: Ash Talon

Ash Talon — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:48:41 +0000

Some of you obviously don’t know what a reboot is. When Marvel had James Rhodes take over as Iron Man, that’s not a reboot. When Marvel starts a new volume of Iron Man with a #1 issue, it’s not a reboot. When Marvel moves Iron Man’s origin from Vietnam to Afghanistan, it’s not a reboot. A reboot restarts continuity and erases the old continuity.

OMD was a reboot for Spider-Man, although I don’t think it erased continuity as much as started a new one. Therefore it could be considered a soft reboot. Being against it in principle, I didn’t read it or any Spider-Man book since.

Heroes Reborn was an alternate reality storyline. It was always intended as having an ending point. It was only scheduled for 12 issues but got expanded to 13. In other words, it wasn’t intended to be permanent. Calling it a reboot is like calling Age of Apocalypse a reboot.

Marvel has been pretty good about not just rebooting titles and throwing away previous continuity. DC’s continuity has always been more messy. Just look at Hawkman’s history. Crisis could have offered a complete, clean reboot, but they wimped out and only rebooted some of the characters but kept Batman’s history. I’m sure this new reboot will start fraying in time too.

I know people complain about the X-Men titles, but I don’t have a hard time understanding them. They’re depressing as hell but not confusing. I pick up the main trades whenever they come out and don’t have a hard time understanding anything.

My biggest problem with Marvel is the need for crossovers that will “change everything” but don’t really change much. The Heroic age was supposed to be a new start, but it feels just like Dark Reign. And we’re already being prepped for the next crossover. At some point, they have to just let the various creative teams tell their own stories. I don’t mind all the various franchises interacting more, but stop forcing crossover events on creators and fans.

By: JD

JD — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:51:46 +0000

Marvel Comics, stay the course. And be patient — if JL #1 is any indication, this whole thing is going to self-destruct.

By: Harlock999

Harlock999 — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 15:19:18 +0000

Just a quick note to say I really enjoy reading through a series of posts on a forum (including this one).

So why are the majority of Newsarama’s stories now NOT doing this? I mean, not everyone is a fan of Twitter…

Color me confused.

By: Dartfin

Dartfin — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:27:12 +0000

I don’t care about sports, I find them boring, my friends all LOVE them, ‘Go Yankees, no Red Sox suck blah blah’. If the teams suddenly move to different cities or change rosters or get new rivalries, I STILL WOULDN’T CARE. Because I’m not INTO it, I find the very concept of watching people throw balls around boring; kids find the very concept of reading boring, and they’re more apt to find the concept of reading about people in tights childish and boring. It’s the rare child that’ll pick up a book on their own let alone comics which you really have to go to a comic shop to find. Reading and comics are traits that are passed down usually; is it impossible? No, but you need a damn strong hook to grab them from another dynamic medium (movies, tv shows) and bring them into the static comic book medium. Hell, people were more content to watch the Harry Potter movies-despite a wealth of character development and plot points being left out-over reading what is considered one of the greatest fantasy series of all time. How many of you have heard that walking from the theaters?
“Oh you should read the books they’re great!”
“Nah, I’ll just wait for the next movie.”
It’s the era that we’re in, and changing the game to lure these people in is foolish and does a disservice to the majority of us who do read.

By: Dartfin

Dartfin — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:20:59 +0000

I’ll take a new number 1 every month on a book that I read so long as it’s recognizable as the book that I read over a hard reboot any day. As for the ‘gotta catch ‘em all’ philosophy, I don’t see it. I buy the books I want and don’t buy the books I don’t want. I haven’t bought a single issue of Fear Itself but understand completely what’s going on in Uncanny X-Men. Big Guy with Hammer unleashed Hammers and Juggernaut got one. Ok, cool, I like the story they’re telling with that, no need to read Fear Itself since I don’t care about it, but I like seeing the X-Men face a new threat. I think it’s the obsessive compulsive fanboys-which mostly reside online-who have this issue with not buying things and being ANGERED when something they don’t read merely exists.

You don’t want to read five Spider-Man books? DON’T buy one and be done with it. If the story-arc bleeds into the other books, well guess what, THAT’S HAPPENED SINCE THE 70s!!! If you started reading in the last 30 years it’s normal, and therefor you can’t bitch, you knew what you were getting into! All this complaining makes us as a collective looks silly.

What companies don’t seem to get is that in today’s world, kids are internet savvy, they are practically born with brand recognition built in. Disney bought Marvel to reach the young male audience, ok cool, but that won’t make them watch Disney films just because you own Marvel. Marvel and DC want to attract new readers, ok fine, but a relaunch won’t do that as the kids who don’t read don’t read because they have other things they’re interested in! They’re AWARE that comics exist, they don’t care.

By: Jesse S!

Jesse S! — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 04:36:41 +0000

And DC really should just STOP looking at its stupid continuity, and tell stories. The past five years seem to be nothing more than lame attempts to retell origins and make sense of them or try to fix or gloss over some stupid glitch of lame forgotten continuity over and over and over again.

By: Jesse S!

Jesse S! — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 04:35:03 +0000

Good stories will always find readers. Sandman for example, I love, even though some issues had atrocious art. Plain and simple. Spray painted superheroes, continuity debacles and price points aside, it really is that simple. Good stories would thrive. Marvel should look to its need for constant renumbering, and DC to its constant rebooting and maybe they’ll get a clue and start working on their stories and less on their marketing.

By: Hyperstorm

Hyperstorm — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 04:20:36 +0000

Brevoort is right: you don’t need a reboot to bring in new readers, just a good solid story. And DC themselves proved it with Batman #608.

Let’s face it, all of us were new readers at some point and whether is was Uncanny X-men #304, Action Comics #800 or Incredible Hulk #397 we started buying a title and either enjoyed it enough to continue buying or looked elsewhere.

Marvel on the other hand have shown us with titles like She-Hulk and Young Allies that #1′s seldom work and giving characters like Hercules and Black Panther existing books with higher numbers can sell as long as the story is good.

Where DC is doing something right with their reboot is the return to only using as many issues for a story as are needed as opposed to decompressing every story to four or six parts just so you can fill a trade with one story.

We’ll see who’s right soon enough though.

By: AAB

AAB — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 03:42:03 +0000

$3.00+ for a ‘comic book’ is ridiculous… Its the 21st century: value of the dollar is weak, gas is going up, price of food is going up (or will stay expensive), the period of being unemployed before finding another job is longer than ever – and the rate of pay for minimum wage has not significantly kept up with all of this…>>>By the time all of this ‘gets better’ we all with have been culturally digitalized in ways that we cannot fathom >>>>>> ‘not talking sci-fi culture, I’m talking beaurocratic, monitoring, real-time pretentious passive-aggressive plastic wireless culture that will consequently create no interest in plastic bags for little books that are flimsy and over priced…<<<<<>and it will NEVER expand based on ‘super-hero’ ‘comic’ books.

: …UNLESS there is a global consciousness in some form that will base a culture/slang-dialect/music/cloths upon the events that develop from Marvel… or DC… or Image,…or DarkHorse… or SOMETHING NEW THAT DOES NOT MAINLY TELL CHEESE DRAMA ‘SUPERHERO’ COLD WAR HOMO-EROTIC POWER FANTASY FULFILLMENT STORIES W/CONVOLUTED HISTORY … the death of the super-hero comic (good-by 20th century) would mean the birth of a new 21st century cultural medium of sequential story telling… not based on events and sales and a majority of creepy comic book stores and ….just the words ‘super-hero’ and ‘comic-book’ need to change, GROW UP -in order for the medium to survive. I’m saying, the market base needs to expand, >>>and it will NEVER expand based on 20th century ‘super-hero’ ‘comic’ books. Market share/sales will increase when ‘super-hero’ tales (directly or sublty) include an emphasis ABOUT PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT, MATURITY VS IMPULSIVE SELFISHNESS, RELATIONSHIPS, …REALISTIC TAKE ON CHARACTERS APPEARANCES AND AGE,

Im say’n, work the next ten years on REBOOTING THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF SEQUENTIAL STORY TELLING. These are NOT ‘comic’ books. Reading about sci-fi adventure, noir, history, politics, romance …ect are neither comical nor funny pages… They are fantastic stories. The name ‘comic book’ applied to the ‘sequential story telling’ of super-heroes is lame, and thwarts the growth and survival of the market. >>>AND if the ‘super-hero’ is going to LIVE, THRIVE AND SURVIVE, it needs to increase market share/base, >>>>AND this will NEVER happen by marketing, selling sequential story telling books as ‘comic books’. ESPECIALLY USING PICTURES OF NAKED MEN WITH COLORS PRACTICALLY SPRAY-PAINTED ON BODIES with images of them ‘fighting’ and ‘posing’. Sorry, the actual stories can be cool, and the combat is entertaining, but it looks gay/SILLY/inane. The new superman movie… he looks like a blue naked guy, with boots, cape and an S on his chest… ACKNOWLEDGE it for what it is ) . “BUMP-ba-DA-Daaa!!!!”>>>”It’s the ‘DOESN’T-REALLY-NEED-TO-BE-NAKED-BUT-IS- NAKED’-MAN!!!” ).

It may sound trivial for the old school readers, but Im talking EXPANDING…gaining NEW 21st Century readers/$penders. Thankfully the past decade had provided ‘upgrades’ of looks of Thor, Iron Man, Captain America, Beast, new Vision, and just for most of the newbies that have been created in the Marvel U. I like to always note: please check out the animated Avengers2 DVD Special Features interview of Millar and Hich regarding this, and their 21st Century take on ‘super-heros’. What I’m talking about is what made Ditko and Lee’s SPIDER-MAN more interesting and enticing, even the way Ditko depicted the characters were ‘real’, this just lost momentum -I think one comic could of stayed ‘Ditko’, and another SPIDER-MAN title could of then proceeded with Romita Sr’s popy-romance look. Both are great, but the market of Super-heroes will NOT survive (w/dignity) nor expand based on the past way of depicting a singularity of the ‘super-hero’. …Peace.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 01:26:41 +0000

You guys really have no idea what you are talking about….it is funny how much you complain and complain about Marvel yet they still kill it in the market share…you guys just bitch and moan about everything. Marvel has great stories over and over again. DC had great stories but this reboot is stupid…if you are going to reboot go full tilt not have a full reboot then with Green Lantern it is a soft reboot.

P.S. Since you guys have a collective IQ of 20….a renumbering is not a reboot morons

By: Fred

Fred — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 23:53:58 +0000

If marvel wants to get back Market share from DC after this 52 gimmick thing all they have to do it wait a few months. When everyone drops the crappy Dc tittles and stick to oh i don’t know Batman, Action comics, Green Lantern, and Justice league and things go back to normal. There wont be a long term sales jump for DC the first couple of months they will crush marvel then all the normal fans will stick to the comics they like and all the trendy fans will get distracted by the new shiny thing and forget to pick up I Vampire #4 on their way to the next thing.

By: Ziyad

Ziyad — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 23:53:02 +0000

The ultimate U kind of showed the main marvel U writers how to be more easy to jump on too so we dont need a reboot with marvel.

By: silvanthalas

silvanthalas — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:12:29 +0000

For Marvel, it ebbs and flows. They’ll have everything grow together for a few years, then it will grow apart again.

DC just hits a reset button every now and then.

By: Lesya

Lesya — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 22:10:44 +0000

The two publishers have some things in common: Lack of vision, arrogance and a complete disconnect from their potential audiences.

By: Grez10

Grez10 — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:21:49 +0000

@sniperboy4
Yes and yes.
I hope Marvel’s “Next Big Thing” is focusing more on art and stories and less gimmicks and giving these overhyped “architects’” egos stroke jobs.

By: K-Box

K-Box — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:13:46 +0000

This is coming from the same man who actually begged fans to KILL HIM if he ever allowed Harry Osborn to be brought back from the dead. Calling Tom Brevoort a compulsive liar is actually an insult to compulsive liars.

By: James Hardin

James Hardin — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:07:41 +0000

Thank you Marvel!!!! VOTE NO TO STUPID REBOOTS!!!

By: ddub222

ddub222 — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:52:07 +0000

Marvel has rebooted a million times. Maybe not as an entire ‘universe’, but anytime they back themselves into a corner they wipe someone’s memory, or kill someone off and re-do everything when they come back, or just put someone else in the costume.
I railed against the ‘reboot’ at DC like most everyone else, but very early on I am intrigued by how they are handling some characters.
Add in the $2.99 price point, the same day digital, more often than not on time issues…hard not to ‘make mine DC’

By: sniperboy4

sniperboy4 — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 19:26:15 +0000

I like Marvel’s plan of launching new universe books every so many years like Alex Ross’ Marvels, 2099, MC2, Ultimates. So what if DC reboots their universe? In ten years from now it will have ten years of baggage and so forth. I think it is better to launch new universe books like Marvel which can created to fit the times while keeping the core universe intact.
‘Nuff said!

P.S. I miss Tom DeFalco as editor!