Comics

[Leisher]

I saw an article two days ago about how comic sales are down from last year and it got me to thinking about the industry as a whole.

Let me note, that this is nothing more than a rant. I'm annoyed by Fox having the rights to certain characters, which is causing some of this, but I blame Marvel for their childish response (apparently the head of their comics division is a dick) and both Marvel/DC for their ridiculously stupid decisions of late. I should also note that I don't collect, and haven't for years aside from TPs and grabbing Spongebob Comics for the kid. Thus, my knowledge is a bit general. Those TPs (The Boys, The Walking Dead, Saga, YL The Last Man, etc.) are the only link I have to the industry aside from reading articles on websites.

A few years back DC relaunched their entire line. It was a reboot, but a soft reboot. They did an event to wipe out existing continuity, with the exception of whatever they didn't want to wipe out yet did NOT provide a list of what is still cannon and what isn't, and then relaunched their line "5 years later". To say it was confusing to fans is an understatement. Still, they sold a ton of books and it did really well. The whole thing was called the New 52 and happened in 2011.

DC's sales numbers have since returned to normal, which is a distant second to Marvel. In response, DC is going to relaunch their entire line again this year.

Meanwhile, Marvel has gotten caught up in the push for diversity and lost their fucking minds with it. They didn't just change a character here or there, they changed everything. It didn't help that their boss HATES Fox who owns the rights to the Fantastic Four and the X-Men.
Examples:
-Captain America is now the Falcon (black guy)
-Steve Rodgers became an old man (although I believe he's young again, which is a really recent development...probably due to poor sales)
-Thor is a woman (his mother I believe)
-The original Thor is still Thor, but he has an axe and is no longer "the god of thunder"
-Hulk is an Asian kid
-Iron Man is a villain (last I saw)
-I'm pretty sure Scott Lang is still dead from the "M Day" event (He's Ant Man in the movies)
-Doctor Strange isn't the "Sorcerer Supreme"
-The Fantastic Four is cancelled and Reed and Sue are either dead or have been written off so they're not used
-Wolverine is dead
-The original X-Men (Angel, Beast, Iceman, Jean Grey, and Cyclops) are back in current continuity alongside their current continuity counterparts (the exact same people minus Jean Grey because she's dead) and have been for a few years now
-Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were retconed so Marvel could say they're not mutants and Magneto's not their dad (a DIRECT attack on Fox)
-Inhumans have taken the place of mutants in the Marvel universe, again because Fox has their movie rights, and nobody gives a shit about them (the X-Men, despite being marginalized by Marvel in favor of Inhumans, are crushing the Inhumans in book sales)
-That terragin mist that used to have no effect on mutants has been retconned to kill them
-Captain Marvel became a woman years ago, but she used to be Ms Marvel
-The new Ms Marvel is a teenage Muslim girl with completely different powers than the original Ms Marvel
-Peter Parker is still Spiderman, but is older, owns his own company, etc. Basically, making him completely different from what made him appealing to every kid on the planet.
-Miles Morales is a half black, half Hispanic kid who is the new Spiderman from the Ultimate universe (he's the sole survivor of its destruction), a crossover Marvel said would NEVER happen, but he's getting as much or more ink than Peter these days.
-Silk is a white woman who was also bitten by that spider that bit Peter (thanks retcon!!) who was locked away for years, but now is out and adventuring.

Holy shit could I go on.

Point being, Marvel has gone out of their way to become so diverse and attack Fox for owning movie rights to their characters that they're alienating their audience. Nobody who has read comics in the past could pick up one now and recognize the characters. More importantly, nobody who has seen a Marvel movie can pick up a current comic and understand a fucking thing because none of the Avengers match the ones on the big screen. Somehow Marvel made comics continuity, which was already confusing, even more confusing by an insane degree.

And I have I mentioned that they also kinda, sorta rebooted? That doesn't even count the multiple times in the past decade they've relaunched their titles with new #1s just because (nothing more than a fake bump in sales numbers and profit, a clear abuse of the collector market).

So yeah, shocking that their numbers are down...

[Alhazad]

I could dig Iron Man as a villain, as long as they did it in the same sort of juvenile, self-obsessed, individualist, RDJ way that he's (technically) been a hero lately.

The rest? I could give a shit about any Marvel properties aside from Spiderman and Deadpool, and Captain Marvel and his Marvel Mouseketeers have always been fuck-ups. Spiderman as a successful adult is pretty cool, to be honest, after all his stupid Divorce Court shit.

Another DC reboot makes no sense, though. Seems like the same kind of shit that's ruining TV -- networks pulling good shows before they find their audience just because they're not instant successes.

[Malcolm]

Tony Stark is half a drink shy of being Lex Luthor at any point in time.

[Leisher]

I could dig Iron Man as a villain, as long as they did it in the same sort of juvenile, self-obsessed, individualist, RDJ way that he's (technically) been a hero lately.

From what I understand, it's more of a god complex.

Captain Marvel and his Marvel Mouseketeers

Who are the Marvel Mouseketeers? I thought Captain Marvel was a solo star? The Kree that died of cancer, not the black chick with the big 'fro who became Photon or whatever.

Spiderman as a successful adult is pretty cool, to be honest, after all his stupid Divorce Court shit.

You mean his deal with Mephisto or was there an arc where he was, literally, in divorce court?

[Alhazad]

Who are the Marvel Mouseketeers? I thought Captain Marvel was a solo star? The Kree that died of cancer, not the black chick with the big 'fro who became Photon or whatever.

Both the Captain and Ms. Marvel titles get passed around like a sorority girl with a weed addiction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_M ... on_history

To retain their trademark, Marvel has had to publish a Captain Marvel title every year or two since, leading to a number of ongoing series, limited series, and one-shots featuring a range of characters using the Captain Marvel alias.

You mean his deal with Mephisto or was there an arc where he was, literally, in divorce court?

Nah, I just mean his 'with Mary Jane', 'fighting with Mary Jane', 'not with Mary Jane anymore', 'with Gwen Stacy', 'oops gotta almost cheat on my wife with Spiderwoman because of spider hormones' crap. Spiderman has always had a pervy adolescent aspect and it's always been mildly irritating.

[Vince]

I agree a lot with Marvel and the diversity thing, but honestly wonder how much of that is the Disney influence. After all, Disney started the push to hit every ethnic group to create their very own princess/heroine starting around Aladin.

You say you haven't collected comics in years, and I haven't either, but this really got me to thinking. When I was a kid I'd buy a comic when I could, but never much followed a series. Then mid teens to mid 20's I collected pretty seriously. There were a couple of shake-ups in those years. Marvel had their "Secret Wars" and then the "Beyonder Saga" that was wide reaching in implications. DC had their "Crisis on Infinite Earths". I guess for me it happened a couple of times while I collected and was cool at that time. Now that I'm (much) older and it's gone from a "couple of time" during 10 years of collecting to "more than half a dozen times" simply because it was happening every 5 years or so, it seems like it's just all too much.

[Leisher]

I agree a lot with Marvel and the diversity thing, but honestly wonder how much of that is the Disney influence. After all, Disney started the push to hit every ethnic group to create their very own princess/heroine starting around Aladin.

They were doing some of this prior to Disney, but it got insane within the last year. The guy running Marvel now is apparently a total asshole who FOX hates and vice versa, and Disney had to step in an remove Kevin Feige from reporting to him in fear of losing Kevin. Comic writers have always been really liberal/progressive too, which tends to happen when you work in certain industries where you're sheltered from the real world.

You say you haven't collected comics in years, and I haven't either, but this really got me to thinking. When I was a kid I'd buy a comic when I could, but never much followed a series. Then mid teens to mid 20's I collected pretty seriously. There were a couple of shake-ups in those years. Marvel had their "Secret Wars" and then the "Beyonder Saga" that was wide reaching in implications. DC had their "Crisis on Infinite Earths". I guess for me it happened a couple of times while I collected and was cool at that time. Now that I'm (much) older and it's gone from a "couple of time" during 10 years of collecting to "more than half a dozen times" simply because it was happening every 5 years or so, it seems like it's just all too much.

Event fatigue is a legit thing. I'll sit in Barnes and Noble and read a couple of their event trades, and to steal a word from the British, they're complete rubbish. I've sat and chatted with my local comic store owner when picking up TPBs and he says a lot of his customers complain that characterization is completely lost these days. Everything is about new #1s and jumping from event to event. He says he finds it interesting that the publishers can't figure out why folks don't accept new characters when the publishers don't give them any time to develop.

Characterization is everything. If people wanted action without purpose Hardcore Henry and Shoot 'Em Up would be the #1 films of all time and not box office bombs.

[Malcolm]

Are you shitting me? Hardcore Henry made 5x its budget. In terms of absolute numbers, it's not astounding. But percentage wise, it's not a bomb. Shoot 'Em Up on the other hand...

[Leisher]

See, here's where you've got to pay attention to the math behind movies, particularly costs beyond budget.

Hardcore Henry was made for $2 million. It earned $14 million worldwide in its run, so $12 million profit, right?

Wrong.

The costs you're missing here are the $10 million distributor SFX paid for the film, and the easily higher than $2 million in marketing costs.

So 10 + 2 + 2 = 14 and it pulled in 14. The best case scenario is they broke even.

Also, opening a movie in 3015 theaters means you're expecting more than a $2300 average per theater. (Just counting domestic earnings.)

That, sir, is a bomb.

[Malcolm]

They yanked it from 2.5K theaters on the second week? Someone paid $10M to distribute that POS?

[Leisher]

Shit, I did my math wrong. $2300 per theater is only legit if it stayed in all 3015 for its whole run.

It's per theater average on opening weekend was $1660. If a movie ticket is $8, which is way on the conservative side, that's only 207.5 people per theater.

That's horrendous.

It's not Zyzzyx Road horrendous, but it's bad.

[Vince]

I'm often shocked how how much promotion on some of these films costs.

[Malcolm]

Fucking seriously? $10M?