What's Marvel Comics' future?

[Shocker]

Obviously Marvel comics as well as other comics companies will eventually decline greatly if not crash. Everything's practically been done and readers would soon loose interest (ok maybe not the die hard fans). video games especially online ones and movies are better than ever. new cool gizmos don't help either.

Comics will decline into nothing more than a rare hobby. Marvel will probably resort to movies and video games using their characters.
Anyway that would be a long long time in the future. I'm just glad I won't live long enough to see that happen. :)

[Lusiferon]

I think it goes in peaks and valleys, and Marvel will be strong over time. For example, the mid 90s were pretty bad. There was way too many titles and poor efforts on mainstream titles ... Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, and Avnegers to name a few. Remember Maximum Carnage? :(

I think the best thing Marvel has done is kept a tighter reign over the numbers of titles and made sure that the flagship titles that got them there have been producing good quality work. Fantastic Four over the last three or four years is the best it's ever been. Plus, their "fringe" or non-mainstream titles right now have strong followings and also very good, like Runaways, compared to past series ... oh, I don't know ... Night Thrasher or Nightwatch and on and on ... Plus, I think series they have brought back have been very well done like Moon Knight, X Factor, and She-Hulk.

I've been a life-long Marvel fan but last year I was reading more DC. Now, I'm back on board with Marvel who if they avoid weak over expansion will be a force for some time.

[Cephus]

I'm sure that over the next decade or so, Marvel's comics division will continue to dwindle and they'll put most of their efforts into movies, TV and merchandizing. There just isn't any money to be made in comics anymore, especially the current comic model.

[Sorcerer Supreme]

I think the best thing Marvel has done is kept a tighter reign over the numbers of titles and made sure that the flagship titles that got them there have been producing good quality work. Fantastic Four over the last three or four years is the best it's ever been. Plus, their "fringe" or non-mainstream titles right now have strong followings and also very good, like Runaways, compared to past series ... oh, I don't know ... Night Thrasher or Nightwatch and on and on ... Plus, I think series they have brought back have been very well done like Moon Knight, X Factor, and She-Hulk.

Got a valid point there but we have to face it, technology is taking over. Marvel may go more into their digital comics, or may just capitalise on thier movies and games. We jusy have to hope this isnt goin to happen any time soon.

[Tommy]

Over the next few years we will see a big upswing in the TPB market. That is where the future of comics lie. Not in specialty stores.

[THANOS/WOLVERINE]

Obviously Marvel comics as well as other comics companies will eventually decline greatly if not crash. Everything's practically been done and readers would soon loose interest (ok maybe not the die hard fans). video games especially online ones and movies are better than ever. new cool gizmos don't help either.

Comics will decline into nothing more than a rare hobby. Marvel will probably resort to movies and video games using their characters.
Anyway that would be a long long time in the future. I'm just glad I won't live long enough to see that happen. :)


DC is the same. Marvel; and DC will never nmot be around. Comics are an important media which will never disapear completly. Plus Marvel is in the black right now with movies, cartoons and comics in an upswing in terms of sales.

Marvel, DC and comic s will be here when you die.

[overcomebyfumes]

Marvel will be taken over by an evil corperation that plans to use the Marvel characters to mind control small children into killing their parents. Fortunately, this evil scheme is foiled because small children no longer read comics, and the only people to die are the parents of thirty-five year-old losers who still live at home. Then a warlord from the thirtieth century comes back in time to wrest control of Marvel Comics from the overweight mob boss who leveraged it out from under the evil corperation to use as a money-laundering front in a "noir" plot-line.

Then Atlantis attacks. Heroes die and are re-born. X-continuity fails to make sense. Avengers disassemble, assemble, and disassemble again and crossings are un-crossed. SHIELD, AIM, and HYDRA are discovered to all be the same organization. The Kree and the Skrulls kiss and make up, then declare war on the Shi'ar.

And in the lonely void, the Silver Surfer, guardian of the far-flung spaceways, ponders the meaning of it all.

Pax.

[The Foreigner]

Obviously Marvel comics as well as other comics companies will eventually decline greatly if not crash. Everything's practically been done and readers would soon loose interest (ok maybe not the die hard fans). video games especially online ones and movies are better than ever. new cool gizmos don't help either.

Comics will decline into nothing more than a rare hobby. Marvel will probably resort to movies and video games using their characters.
Anyway that would be a long long time in the future. I'm just glad I won't live long enough to see that happen. :)

I think you are generalizing quite a bit. There already was a "comic book crash" in the 90's, and what do you even mean by "everthing's practically been done"? You could say the exact samet thing about movies but I really doubt the film industry is going anywhere.

[david r]

Fantastic Four over the last three or four years is the best it's ever been.

Best it's ever been? My friend, meet Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. They may seriously disagree with that statement. ;)

[estee]

As long as Marvel doesn't try to take over the world like it did in the 90's it should be okay.

The Kids will always buy comics. But if they become too expensive, like $6.00 for a normal issue well then they're in trouble. Cuz I won't buy em anymore and I have money.

[lordlad]

online digital comics distribution is the future although i still like to read a book and reading it on the monitor.

[Agentum]

Yes but the digital over paper variant has been said about everything and there is still a lot of papers and magazines around, people like to take a comic or whatever with them or to the bathroom etc.

Digital comcs will probably come but until they solve the problem's around reading on the screen the papercomics will stay.

And as a base for the games and movies the comics is needed just to have something to base everything on, more advertising in the form of comics etc.

And as a niche i think comics will stay for us that can't accept another form of comics that easly, like the old vinyl record came back again even that CD's would have killed it long ago.
We like to stack or comics and hold them, to have something real instead of 1's and 0's on the computer.
Like board roleplaying games is still out there, the computer versions has the imaginasion limits of the game makers, so people still take their dices and charts to play around a table.

[cable guy]

I think the actual comics, as we know them, will fade away... to a certain extent. It's anyones guess how long that could take though.

Marvel's future will depend on movies, cartoons, games, etc. I also agree with the idea of digital comics online.

[shakespear]

Comic Books are a unique for of art, I feel they will always be around is some form or fashion.

I disagree arout movies and games being the future, without comics as a basis, there will be no movies or video games, eventually enough generations will pass that nobody will know the characters enough to buy the merchandise (if they stopped making comics)

Besides, most of the Video games AND movies, have been crap.

Evenutally I do see marvel having to stop publishing 18 X-books a month and 12 spider-books. This would help streamline things

They will have to balance price too, alot of current titles are cheaper than some 90's runs. But I feel the price is creeping up.

By that rationale, they should stay away from stupid cross-overs, variant covers, ect

TPB's are becoming a trend nowadays, but if SOMEONE doesnt buy the books, there will be no TPB's.

My 2 cents..

[Cephus]

Besides, most of the Video games AND movies, have been crap.

Crap or not, they make millions of dollars and in the end, that's all that matters.

[shakespear]

Crap or not, they make millions of dollars and in the end, that's all that matters.

Thats a recent development. See the cavalcade of crap that came before Spiderman/X-men

Besides, law of averages says that eventualy they will bomb too..