CBR: Cup O' Joe - Sep 17, 2010

[CBR News]

Comments and criticisms, ideas and suggestions and more poured in from CBR's readers over Marvel's events, so Tom Brevoort and Axel Alonso respond to the idea of event overload while sharing tons of exclusive artwork.


Full article here.

[InterwebHero]

Nice interview. Good to see them following up on the question asked last week.
I agree with a lot of what they say, that its the completist culture that affects people more than Marvel's output. Can't really blame them for putting out stories someone wants to tell and someone wants to read. I like Axel's "6-9 issue commitment" idea.

[Waggy182]

I think Tom and Axel miss the point. We get that we don't have to buy every book related to an event, but that doesn't make them feel any less obtrusive to the main story. A story like Curse of the Mutants may only seem mildly interesting to me, and maybe if the buzz around it was good I'd check it out, but when there's 5 or 6 Curse of the Mutants titles on the rack every week, it's a turn off to that story, and in turn the X-line of books in general. Would I be interested in reading a Namor story? Sure. Do I want to read a Namor tie-in comic to Curse of the Mutants? No, that's not really a Namor story, that's an X-men story that is being expanded to cross promote a lower tier character. I get that it's a method of boosting exposure to those characters so their next solo books may have a wider audience, but to be honest, I don't think this is an effective method. I heard good things about Paul Cornell's Captain Britain series and have been enjoying some of his other work, so I considered checking out the trade, until I found that volume 1 was a Secret Invasion tie-in. Sorry, but I didn't enjoy that story the first time around, and moved on some time ago.

[Union Jim]

While I totally appreciate where they are coming from as editors and creators I think they need to look at things from an outside point of view. It's easy for them to say "you don't need to read all the tie ins to get the main story" because they know the FULL story way in advance. For us on the "outside" we really do need to read Daredevil to understand Shadowland properly, but I think its hard for the editors to truly grasp that cos they already know the story. And Secret Invasion was impossible to understand without reading the Avengers tie in issues.

As for the event thing, they've just replaced one big event with lots of smaller ones, Necrosha then Messiah Complex then Curse of the Mutants, along with the constant Hulk events and Shadowland at the same time, not to mention multiple books for the Avengers and X-Men and so on, making it impossible to keep up with favourite characters without buying multiple books, which again we are told we "dont have to buy" but that's easy to say when you are already privy to the overall story and narrative.

I'd bet that given time and a chance, one ongoing X-Men (and Avengers) book would outsell the combined amount of the current multiple books, as you'd win back a lot of old readers as well as get new ones that were put off by all the multiple books. Those people would also have the cash to try out books like Moon knight, Black Panther, MI13 and so on. Greed is slowly killing an already shrinking market.

[sparticus]

A) Was there Alpha Flight cover art there?
B) Did one of the future portent time-line things that appears before the Ultron War collapse say "Iron Lad Returns?"

[Not_A_Zombie]

Nobody is praising Wolverine Origins having the same writer because the book was not praise worthy. Daken and Romulus' addition to the Wolverine mythos was crappy. I gladly praise, and support X-Factor and have followed it for over 50 issues now. Because I feel it is deserving of such. I've stuck with it through constant art switches, and so forth. In fact the only issues I have skipped during this run were those most recently affected by an event. So for them to say fans don't notice a long run is B.S. Leave Jason Aaron on Wolverine for 50 issues, and barring some unforseen circumstances I will be there for 50 issues. And I'm not trying to crap on Daniel Way, I've been enjoying his long Deadpool run since issue 1, though it's starting to dip lately.

[Nite-Wing]

Yeah sorry but you really do need to read Daredevil before you just up and jump into Shadowland. Even more so with the fact that Diggle is writing Daredevil and the main Shadowland series.
So yes in this case you would actually need to pick up a tie in to understand what the hell is going on besides reading the recap page.

They made some good point about books spinning out of events but most of the characters from the H4H book revealed so far have only had minor focus in the main title of Shadowland.

Chaos War seems interesting though too bad they didn't talk about Thanos Imperative or whats spinning out after that ends.

[Destro777]

That Avengers #5 panel hinting at future marvel storylines is a complete ripoff of DC's 52 blackboard. But hey it was a good idea there too (!) so its neat seeing stuff like that. That puts some weight on the Avengers series which has been so sarcastic and comedic far.

[Sighphi]

I love how they slam DC for FC needed Superman Beyond to be read to fully understand what is going on when Marvel DOES THE SAME EXACT THING!

There hasnt been one event recently that didn't need at least one of the tie-ins to provide all the proper info.

They both do the same thing, this whole, "You only need the main book," is more marketing than actual marketing practices.

[Stuart Moore]

I understand the concern, but as the writer of NAMOR, I can assure you that the new book is definitely all about Namor and New Atlantis. You'll see that story taking shape strongly in issue #2 (out 9/29 plug plug), and by issue #3-4, it'll be crystal clear.

[andybmcd]

Well, unfortunately I got the non-answer I was expecting.

Anyone else think "Galactus Seed" sounds like a bad porno movie title?

[devrim]

About the whole event thing. I respect their point of view. And i totally understand it. But as somebody already mentioned before. You do have to read certain tie-ins to get the full effect of certain big events especially if you are a big fan of the main characters of the event.

And sometimes you get tie-ins about books that aren't even an event. Curse of the mutants. Is that an event?? Or is it just the first storyline of a " new" x-men book?? I don't see it as an event. I don't think that any reader/fan sees this as an event, yet to the six issues storyline of this ongoing series, there are five tie-ins and the first couple of issues of Namor also tie-inn.

Making the amount of tie-ins even greater then the story itself. Now this is just plain stupid. You got a whole new ongoing series. Well if you have so much story to tell, then you should have made the first issue doublesized, and made it a seven issues story instead. then you would have got all the stuff you wanted to tell in those pages. Now we get all sorts of importants stuff to the story happening in tie-ins.
That's just strange and a reader unfriendly.


I am not saying that there never should be tie-ins. I am just saying that Marvel misses the mark a lot of times, when it comes to big events and there tie-ins. Most of the time they make to many tie-ins at moments where the readers don't want them.
And Sometimes they hit the mark, but most of the time it's with tie-ins about characters who do not appear in a monthly book. Maybe this is a " rule" marvel should stick to when making tie-ins to events.

[motteditor]

I didn't see this mentioned, though I didn't read the interview super closely (as I should be doing something else right now).

I don't think it's as much people are overwhelmed with these mini events (which I actually sort of like) ... it's that it feels like the regular comics are devalued a bit. It doesn't feel like we get stories of import in titles anymore (and I think this is in part because so many team characters now seem to have their own title or five; see the Avengers, for example).

In the old days, Siege at Avengers Mansion was just a really, really good Avengers story in the middle of Stern's run. Now it would be a separate "event," I suspect. We're left with regular stories in the books almost by necessity being of lesser import/value, and that gets frustrating when we're generally collecting those books each month.

[MurderFace]

I love these T&A articles. I can never see where either of them are coming from.
They talk about not needing all of the tie in issues, and those not being essential. And you know what? I understand that, and I actually think it's pretty acurate. I only bought the 4 'Siege' issues, and the story was completely understandable. But the problem is, I understand that main series was all I had to pick up, as a hardcore comics fan.
I have friends who hear me talk about comics, and they get excited. So, on their own free will, in their own spare time, they walk into comic stores. They come out with nothing, and tell me stories of the frightening row upon row of confusion that is the monthly comic shelf.
"I'm confused! Where does this 'Shadowland' start? Do I have to get all those books? I want to read Avengers, but I saw three books with Avengers in the title! I want to read X-men, but there were so many, and some were in the middle of a crossover! HELP!"
I mean, I hear these things, and it just seems obvious that what Marvel is doing is not bringing in new readers. They must know this. I'm not saying I'm some genius for figuring this out, but I really fault Marvel for not doing something about it. I'm sick of events, but that's to be expected. I'm a fan. I'm jaded and bitter and hard to please. But when events are just confusing and turning away potential new readers, THAT'S when there's a problem, and I think they've gotta do something about it.

[GalactaSurfer]

Some interesting things in regards to the Black Panther on timeline. First it has the "Man without fear" and then a little further down the board we see "Return of the King". Could that be a hint at Tchalla's possible return to Wakanda. There is also a Fear without Man point on the time line. I wonder what that could possibly be.