Originally Posted by
Garlador
I would very much argue that Marvel themselves has no one to blame for Nova's sales other than themselves. Even then, the sales were pretty stable and decent for a book not starring one of their "big" names.
But, let's be honest here... Marvel dropped the ball on marketing the title. They did it for the whole "Annihilation" and "Guardians of the Galaxy" stories and tie-ins too. As a casual comic book reader, they threw all their marketing muscle behind Civil War, big Spider-man changes (and retcons), big stunts like killing off Captain America and making a new one, and they were riding the wave of popularity brought on by Iron Man's breakthrough movie which supercharged the Marvel cinematic universe and the lingering success of the X-men and Spider-man franchises. I barely heard a peep during those days of what was going on with Marvel's cosmic universe in "Annihilation". In fact, I missed out on it entirely at first simply because I didn't even know it was going on (or that my favorite character was involved). It was only months after it resolved that I heard a group of small, passion fans talking about how the cosmic universe was thriving again due to stellar writing and great characters and I saw a glimpse of Nova on one of the covers and gave the trade collections a look... and never turned back.
"Annihilation" was the best thing Marvel did in the past 10 years. It was, well, "classic" Marvel; stories of heroes stepping up to fight great evil and save the universe. They were inspiring, thrilling, daring, original, imaginative... they were the types of stories the Marvel of old told that sucked people into reading in the first place, divorced from the debacles of petty party politics, gritty "realism", a post-Watchmen look at superhero morality and cynicism... Cosmic Marvel had its dark and violent moments too, but it packed with it a sense of wonder, heroism, passion, and imagination sorely lacking in the core books. Here were true heroes fighting true evil, and, my God, it felt good to see heroes acting like HEROES. It's been far too long since I could just read a story about that, without any moral gray areas or stomach-churning brutality and nihilistic views and behavior from my once-respected heroes. I'm both sad almost the entire Marvel universe, for years, was so UN-heroic, yet Cosmic Marvel, and especially Nova, were there to make me keep believing in the good of heroes.
But, and this is the reality of things, Marvel knew that pulling stunts, regardless of quality, regardless of good characterization, would drive sells up. Thus Marvel put all their efforts behind mega-events like Civil War, One More Day, AvX, Secret Invasion, and what feels like a dozen other stunts of diminishing quality. I barely heard a peep from Marvel about Annihilation, Nova, Guardians of the Galaxy, Thanos Imperative, and plenty of other books fell by the wayside simply because the books didn't factor into some earth-based conflict or involve popular names like "Spider-Man", "Wolverine", or "Iron Man".
I'd bet my savings that if Marvel cast as much of a limelight on a quality book like "Nova" during its run, you'd be seeing an overwhelming demand for more of him and higher sales. I'm sure there are exceptions, but almost everyone I've ever spoken to that read Nova during his run in "Annihilation", his self-titled book, and his involvement with the Guardians and "Thanos Imperative" has walked away utterly impressed by the sheer fun and quality of the title. The readers saw it, Nova fans DEFINITELY saw it, the writers of Nova saw it... everyone except for Marvel themselves, who were too busy figuring out how to make their heroes beat the crap out of each other (again) to give it the push it deserved.
Avengers Arena is one of the best books in the shops right now, it's seriously amazing.
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks