Remember when Marvel was telling us – via Skrull invaders – to “embrace change“? Turns out, it’s not as easy as it sounds:
The more I think about it, the more I have to tell you that I am embarrassed to admit how I still haven’t truly embraced Miles Morales as the new Ultimate Spider-Man. Not unlike dubstep, this might be one of those cultural/media/music milestones that I just cannot get myself to really want to care about. Now, this sounds harsh, I guess — Miles Morales represents a pretty bold move on Marvel’s part and has given Bendis an opportunity to tell some really good stories and introduce new characters, but I just find myself not caring at all. I just miss Peter Parker — I loved getting a chance to see Peter, Gwen, Mary Jane and Aunt May. I wasn’t until that (admitted contrived and overly sentimental, if not outright manipulative) Spider-Men miniseries that I realized just how much I was really enjoying where Peter’s story was going.
What’s that old saying about readers not wanting change, but the illusion of change? I don’t think that’s necessarily true, but it’s definitely the case that there’s always the problem of having to deal with those changes that we don’t actually like…
(Me, I still kind of miss the pre-New 52 DCU, I admit.)
October 2nd, 2012 at 12:49 pm
Since these are corporate properties that, should, continue on as long as people are buying them it seems like the often quote “illusion of change” should be applied, not out and out change. That seems to have been forgotten by the industry today.
October 2nd, 2012 at 1:40 pm
I still unrepentantly miss the pre-Flashpoint DCU. Not all change is good.
October 2nd, 2012 at 7:00 pm
I enjoyed the parallel universe aspect of the Ultimates line, but when they decided to change it so radically as to be unrecognizable, I lost interest. I enjoyed Ultimate Spider-Man as it was like an expanded and revised version of the 1960s series, but killing off that Peter Parker was completely unnecessary and with all of the other changes in the Ultimate universe I just stopped buying all of them. There was a point to the Ultimates line when it began. There isn’t a point to it any more. It’s just a bunch of different comics I’m not interested in.
October 3rd, 2012 at 3:28 am
…and this is why I don’t read any mainstream comic anymore, if they’re just going to tell the same stories over and over again, then why bother purchasing new ones.
Comic books are in an impossible position: change and you lose the hardcore audience, don’t change and people will naturally move on to new content. I think it’s pretty clear where the big publishers believe their bread is buttered. So fret not, Peter Parker will be back from his ‘vacation’ because really that’s all this is, and I still wont be reading it. The sad thing is that I won’t even give the new Spider-man a chance because it’s not going to be around, and even if it is, the book will quickly fall into yet another perpetual A-B-A holding pattern.
SG.
October 4th, 2012 at 9:01 am
“Comic books are in an impossible position: change and you lose the hardcore audience, don’t change and people will naturally move on to new content.”
…but comics have ALWAYS been in this position. The problem now is nobody new is coming into the system. It used to be that the majority of fans would cycle out and new ones were cycling in. The fans that stayed realized and accepted the rules: These Super Hero stories are perpetually in Act II and all change is the illusion of change. That way Spider-Man is the same for new readers and current readers.
As new readers have failed to come in, though, it seems the rules have changed.