No, I think this is more like Dark Reign than New 52. DC’s linewide reboot invovled 52 ongoing titles. Dark Reign only involved launching 26 ongoing titles. Based on what we know about Marvel NOW! (1 new series a week, October through February) I estimate that it will involve only around around 15-20 titles being launched. If anything “New 52″ is more similar in scope to Dark Reign than Marvel NOW! You know what that means.
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NEW 52 IS A RIPOFF OF DARK REIGN!!!! DC HAS NO ORIGINAL IDEAS!!! EAT IT DC FANBOYS!!!

In no other type of fandom (the Xbox fanboys, notwithstanding) have I come across such blind loyalty. When I compare the fans of today to what it was like during the ’70s & ’80s. If the direction was unsatisfying people voted with their dollars. Incremental price increases were acceptable because the reasons for the increase were plausible. The ‘events’ were reasonably spaced out over years, retcons weren’t as prevalent, and the death of a major character was absolutely heartbreaking.

The first sentence of your last paragraph is everything that I would love the publishers to do, and yet I find that it is the film studios who are doing it. Sure they’ll make duds like The Hulk and Green Lantern yet I’m a little more forgiving because there are hundreds if not thousands of people who work on a movie than compared to a comic. To get that many people working together to make even an under achieving film is still quite an accomplishment. I’d like to think that the studios learned their lesson from The Spirit and never allow a comic creator near a camera ever again. Now, that movie was the worst of the worst, and I doubt something that horrendous will be greenlit in the foreseeable future. It didn’t even have the ‘so bad it’s good’ quality like the various Punisher films and Batman & Robin.

Anyhow, I wish the publishers good luck and I do hope one day they right the ship, and minimize the amount of boneheaded decisions they make like what they did to Stephanie Brown (poor Batgirl). There is nothing more that I would want than to have the publishers make me love comics again, though.

@M: Are you saying movies can live off the old stuff? I for one would not trust the Hollywood suits to craft an engaging or updated super hero tale without the past stories and present involved comic creators. Origins have been updated, the Avengers movie is an amalgamation of the Ultimates (newer series)and Avengers. I guarantee you we will see Winter Soldier soon in Cap movies. Plus, are they not taking bits of Extremis for IM 3? These are pretty new stories in comparison and I think by bringing newer stories to the movies after the origins, we could see some better synergy with present comics, which, depending on your point of view, could be a good or bad thing. Note to Marvel: Gwen should stay dead.

Yes, movies can cherry pick (but still, not all are successful, look at Green Lantern, Daredevil) – Like a good comic, a good movie depends on TONS of factors.

ASIDE: I agree with you 100% on Bruce Timm’s JL and JLU series. I am a Marvel fan, not really a DC fan, but I LOVED that series and own all of them.

In terms of being ‘bogged down blaming continuity’. It is a double-edged sword. As a kid, I liked learning about what had happened in the past, it was part of the ‘adventure’. Continuity provides a sense of who the character is and should behave and back story. Now, as an adult, what I like is “in continuity” and what I do not is, well, not in continuity.

As an adult, I realize that this is serialized story telling. Not every story is going to be awesome. Mistakes will be made or what I consider mistakes anyways. I want MJ back, yes. I think Marvel dropped the ball with Spidey and made a mistake with keeping Aunt May and ending the marriage. Does that mean it is all crap since OMD/BND? No. Yes, I considered dropping but ultimately I did keep ASM for a variety of factors, but that does not ‘eating whatever they shovel’ me. I did not read A vs X. I don’t read Avengers. I did not buy into the New 52. I dropped USM as I did not like Ultimatum. I’d like to THINK most fans don’t just keep buying stuff they don’t like but bitch about how horrible it is online, but choose based on what makes sense to them.

After all this blabbing, I do wish the companies could just start telling self-contained stories with long over arching smaller stories building in the background like they use to in the earlier days. Event books are no longer ‘events’. I feel like they don’t let stories build off of what just happened before jumping into the next big thing. One of my fave Avengers stories was Under Siege and they only had a few cross-overs into other series, but the “event” was in the title proper, which is how I think these things should be done.

Crappy sermon concluded.

Marvel isn’t being reactionary. This is the same cycle Marvel has been following all along. Marvel typically follows these kinds of “Event” crossovers with shakeups or relaunches on various books- often branding them with titles like “Dark Reign” or “Heroic Age”. This has nothing but the most superficial similarities with DC’s New 52.

I’m sure a lot of the Marvel anti-fans just have blue balls because they’ve been making incorrect predictions for a year that Marvel would “copy DC” and reboot the MU. They’re probably frustrated by being denied their “I told you so” moment yet again that they feel like they need to pretend that this announcement is somehow similar to DC’s New 52.

I read an article about the publishing side because maybe the industry will make comics worth reading again. I would love for the industry to get back on its feet but as much as the fans complain about its direction they are also at fault for keeping the industry stagnant. Geeks and fanboys are the worst consumers because they will eat all the sh*t that their favourite company shovels into their mouths. Then they’ll b*tch and moan, and yet go back for seconds when it’s offered. Pathetic.

I decided to support the side where the regular consumers outweigh the fandom. A bad film will be made known to the studios, and they will make adjustments to future installments. A bad comic will continue to be sold because the fans are determined to complete their collection.

@ M – If you only come here for “info on the latest comic based films”, then why are you reading AND commenting on an article that is about the PUBLISHING side of things???

Also, those movies you claim to enjoy, take a LOT of inspiration/direction from the expansive history, hard work, creativity and characters of the comics that came before them and they will continue to do so. I’d argue a big part of Marvel’s success is their RESPECT for that very source material. The comics fuel the movies. Without the comics, we would have no movies.

We, the fans, publishers and retailers just need to figure out a better way for the movies to reciprocate to the publishing side, whether it be print and/or digital.

I still want an Avengers North/Alpha Flight comic that you know Marvel would give a fair shake to…

What it’s full of is just the opposite – people who complain too much with no basis to complain. You call it opinion, I call it bitching, which I suppose is also an opinion. I’m entitled to that too, aren’t I?

Not that it matters since I decided to quit. I only come here for info on the latest comic based films not the comics, and certainly not for the video games since it’s obvious the people who cover that have poor taste in games.

@ Dan Slott – Would you like to write that???

I know, name it Avengers: Canada, then create a French Canadian Avengers and have them squabble but ultimately unite to save the day. Instant success, or so the Marvel formula would indicate.

Civil War: The Return does have the distinction of being one of the few Paul Jenkins comics in the last decade that doesn’t make me want to chew my leg off at the knee, so point to that.

It’s called opinions guys, and everyone has one. No matter what any company does, someone isn’t going to like it. That is how the world works.

Everything that this thing is doing is what the bonkers internet has been asking for for YEARS.

Bendis off Avengers? DONE! Remender and Hickman on more stuff you like? DONE! Comics not late all the time? DONE–WAIT! Remember when comics were late all the time? Of COURSE you don’t, because now they’re EARLY all the time which is another cool thing to kvetch yourselves to death about.

YA CAN’T WIN, COMICS.

What was the “ill-fated Captain Marvel relaunch” during Civil War?

SW

Not really. After all, this is not a continuity reboot, but simply yet ANOTHER relaunching of titles.

And Marvel’s relaunching of titles again and again and again got old a long time ago. Hell, they just relaunched several X-Men titles out of Schism a year ago. Avengers titles were relaunched a couple of years ago.