Over at iFanboy, Jim Mroczkowski is feeling nervous about Marvel NOW!:
Marvel has dominated my pull list for ages, and when they say, “We’re ending just about everything, shuffling the deck, and starting fresh,” my immediate response is not, “Bully and huzzah, a slew of new lit’rature to devour!” The first, unbidden thought in my head is, “Oh, man, it is going to be incredibly satisfying when all those books I read come to a natural end.”I cannot be the only person thinking that way. I know I’m not, in fact; I’ve heard other people ’round these parts say the same thing. Although I’ll be giving all kinds of #1s chances this winter, I can’t shake this funny feeling that’s whispering, “What if Marvel just accidentally engineered the perfect comics Jumping-Off Point?”
Clearly, I’m being contrarian, but I can see as many books I’m curious to pick up (The new Iron Man and Hulk books, the new team on Journey Into Mystery, the new status quo for Red She-Hulk) as are disappearing in the reshuffle. I’m wondering if that’s because I’m not massively enamored with Marvel’s current output in the same way as many, but I’m opening this one to the floor. We heard similar “Well, this is the place to say goodbye” comments when the New 52 was coming up, so is this just the same thing for Marvel? Isn’t there even less reason to drop off considering that continuity stays in place with Marvel NOW!?
September 25th, 2012 at 11:19 am
I am a DC guy, so the only Marvel books I am currently getting are Winter Soldier and Uncanny X-Force. When the current creative team leaves both of those, I will be dropping them, but plan to pick up Uncanny Avengers. Sure, there are lots of things I am interested to try, but my budget will not allow a lot of experimentation, especially in the Marvel sandbox (Where 6 months in, everything will be pulled into an event of some sort). So for me, marvel is losing me buying one book, and saving me $2.99.
September 25th, 2012 at 11:23 am
You’re also missing one thing: it’s not a complete zero-sum reshuffle because Marvel is losing Brubaker and Rucka, the former of which has been a mainstay for years, and not adding anyone really new or exciting to take their place among the A-list. I’ll definitely try some of the new stuff but given my typical buying patterns I’ll almost certainly be reading less Marvel in 2013 than 2012–a year in which I read less Marvel than 2011.
September 25th, 2012 at 11:32 am
It’s kinda a dropping off point for me….but that’s with an asterisk.
I currently get all of my Marvel books in paper form at the LCS. Mostly this is collector mentality stuff. I’m going all digital with Marvel Now.
I’ve switched some other titles to digital in the past and what I often find is that without an LCS employee handing them to me on Wednesday, I find I can live without them. My fingers hover over the $3.99 button on the iPad and I instead read some old back issues I’ve accumulated, something digital I bought in a 99 cent sale or something I’ve wanted to reread.
So….I’ll still be reading, but they better be compelling or I’ll be gone.
But…I am a little cynical about this behavior of swirling the waters around and calling it a “new direction”.
September 25th, 2012 at 12:03 pm
Not adding anyone really new or exciting to take their place? I think you’re forgetting about a certain Mr Dennis Hopeless who wrote such great series as… er… and… er… Wait a minute. Who is he again?
September 25th, 2012 at 12:48 pm
What I’m curious about is why comic readers are always looking for an exit point.
September 25th, 2012 at 12:51 pm
I was a Marvel Zombie. I bought anything and everything they put out. But slowly things changed. Now I get, Punisher, Daredevil, X-Factor, Hawkeye, New Mutants, and Gambit. With the not-reboot-but-really-is-a-slow-reboot I am losing New Mutants and Punisher which really sucks because Punisher is awesome. I see all these NOW titles and some of them I am tempted to get but then I look at the previews and they are $4 and double shipped and I realize that I am not going back. I will not pay $4 twice a month for a comic book. I don’t get Marvel anymore.
September 25th, 2012 at 1:09 pm
I just see a lot of the writers I liked leaving and the replacements are guys whose indie work is fun (Humphries and Hickman especially) but their Marvel work is pretty rote. Other than that, there’s just no new blood. I like the sound of Gillen’s Iron Man, but I cannot spend money for Greg Land art. And Bendis is why I’m not reading any Avengers books. Why would I want to read his X-Men. Waid’s Hulk sounds OK, but Yu isn’t going to get through 3 issues before there’s an uncertain replacement I’d bet.
September 25th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
Let’s face it, events like this are more often going to be jumping OFF points for older readers than they are going to be jumping ON points for new readers.
September 25th, 2012 at 2:41 pm
I know my reading list will be changing — the only book sticking around after December for me will be Daredevil. By design, it’s sort of a jumping off point – since some books are getting cancelled. I’m just not sure what I’m interested in jumping into.
September 25th, 2012 at 2:58 pm
I’m using Marvel NOW as the perfect opportunity for creators to step up and prove to me why I should keep buying their stories. I’m on board for books I would never have considered before (Thor, Hulk-by-anyone-not-named-Peter-David), and a Hickman/Opena/Kubert Avengers I would pay $8 a month for. I wanted to try Iron Man, but $4 is turning me off. I’m giving All New X-Men two issues to wow me, but if Issue 1 says Part 1 of 6, I’m probably not going to continue. as I’ve grown tired of Bendis’ pacing.
September 25th, 2012 at 3:15 pm
I dropped off a lot of DC books with the New 52, but ended up picking up books that I hadn’t before. I’m down numbers now, but I did get a lot to start.
With Marvel NOW!, my concern is that there isn’t really a change. I am confused with the new vision where everything is just mashed up. There are mutants and Avengers and FF and Hulks everywhere. There is nothing that makes sense.
I just want a good story with some pretty pictures. But if I have to read twelve books to get a story, I’m a little tired of that. AvX has been disjointed, confusing, and incomplete. It is costly. It is too much.
September 26th, 2012 at 12:43 pm
If I like a writer, then I will like them on different things, so I will probably be getting the same number of books. It will be like “The Marvel Universe, as seen by Writer A, B and C,” which suits me fine. Not getting Bendis’ X-Men but definitely still getting Aaron’s. Not getting the new X-Force books but getting Remender’s Uncanny Avengers, and so on.
September 26th, 2012 at 12:47 pm
If they get rid of Loki, that will be it for me, I’m afraid.
October 3rd, 2012 at 5:34 pm
This is the perfect jumping off point for me with Marvel. After seeing the new books on line and in the previews, what is being produced does not sit weel with me. Same writers & artists on different books with no ne ideas, just costume changes and slapping a #1 on the cover.
I’ve been through too many relaunches & reboots over the 3 decades of collecting, enough is enough. I can’t accept the current thought process that is coming out of Marvel(Disney) let alone DC with this crazy marketing ploy to get everyone’s money.
I am finishing off the current books I collect and be done with Marvel as I am with DC. I don’t know how much longer everyone else can continue with this stupidity, or are being sucked into the ditigal version of the books. Wake up everybody and look at what Marvel & DC are doing and don’s get suckered into the web.
October 5th, 2012 at 6:47 pm
Really interesting. We found an xfactor daily social buzz tracker that you may be interested in – http://goo.gl/H53DA