Marv isn’t that much better, because he’s not trying to fix the bad writing that gave Nightwing his image problem-I can’t care about any of the villains he introduces because no-one is going to see them as a credible threat.

I had a sit-down interview with Joe Q shortly after he took the reigns at Marvel, and my last, troublemaking question to him was, “Do you suppose that after 40 years of stories about these characters, with so many writers and artists all contributing to a larger tapestry, sometimes revisiting key moments from every angle possible, watching people and events progress from A to B to C, does there ever come a moment when you can, I dunno, END the story? So you can finally stand back and see the tapestry in its whole, appreciate it as this mad, huge narrative corpse as a story that has, as most do, a beginning, middle and end?”

Joe, who’d been, I thought, a pretty straight-shooter throughout the interview, suddenly clicked into corporate officer mode, making vague platitudes about the lasting power of the characters and some sort of Joseph Campbellesque power of myth fooferaw that I’m sure is what has driven George Lucas loony. Not a surprising answer, no, but I think I witnessed the schism between Joe Quesada the writer/artist and Joe Quesada the Marvel employee. And perhaps I inspired those “The End” series which, in the case of Claremont’s X-Men, never actually ends, appropriately enough.

Which is, I think, the uncomfortable truth for many adherents of most major series: they are soap operas in spandex with pyrotechnics. All changes are sweeps stunts and are just as permanent; the literary or dramatic heights we fancy they achieve are more accidents than craftsmanship, a confluence of forces that occasionally, gloriously hit high notes, made all the more striking by the seas of dross in which they drift. I take no pleasure in such abuse, as I have love for our wayward pulps, but the liquid imagery seems appropos: they flow on interminably, with little to distinguish one moment from the next beyond the superficial. There’s only so long you can “baffle ‘em with bullshit” before either numbness or realization sets in, and both result in lost sales. I suspect what little money is still in the game is inflated by desperate speculation in bulheaded denial of the basic laws of economics (you know, supply and demand?) and the long-term prospects for the market. With all due respect to Jimmy and others, the online community may be a small portion of the overall market, but the overall market is itself also exceedingly small, and shrinking every moment.

Here’s a quote from Grant Morrison that I love.

“It’s also an homage to Justice League of America #100 - #102, which was the comics story that turned me into a foaming teenage fanboy. That book was filled with dozens of unfamiliar characters from different Earths leaping willy-nilly through space and time while a giant cosmic hand closed around the Earth. I had ‘no idea’ what was going on but the thrill ride was incredible and by the end of it, I knew I wanted to dive head first into this dazzling alternate reality and find out everything I could about these characters and their world(s). Remember the first time you picked up an X-Men or Avengers book and it was stuffed to the staples with parallel universes, clones, alternate future versions of characters, and a continuity so dense you could stand a spoon in it? The chaos, confusion and excitement of being thrown without a guidebook into a new world was intoxicating to me…”

Wandering back over after he’d started it he gave me this kinda funny look and said “I think I must be missing some story?” I took a look at it and realized that it was kicking off with the Illuminati special. I then had to explain to him that the story was jumping around to key points in Marvel history — this meeting took place after Kree-Skrull war, this one after Avengers Disassembled, etc etc. Then I had to explain to him what those things were. Then came the Fantastic Four issues, where I had to explain that, oh yeah, Thor is “dead”. At least the comic itself explained why Doom was in hell.

It hadn’t actually occurred to me before that moment how completely impenetrable that sort of thing is to an irregular or new reader. I mean, I actually liked the Illuminati special and the first half or so of Civil War (crying Uatu notwithstanding), but my life has been spent reading this crap. Watching my coworker try to navigate it was just sort of painful by comparison. I know the prevailing opinion nowadays is that editor’s notes and caption boxes are superfluous because of the internet and wikipedia but it sure seems lazy.

I’ve read an an awful lot of superhero books since I was 7, good ones and very, very bad ones. I went through Crisis, Armageddon 2001, Zero Hour, God knows how many awful, stupid “Insert-X-here” Marvel Mutie crossovers… I know what the Red Robin reference is meant to do, I know the Kingdom Come characters, I know when, where and how Reed and Susan Richards married… heck, I loved the Byrne-revamp Superman even…

I loved and bought the Ultimate books when they came out (not anymore, the Ultimate X-Men have become even sillier than their 616 counterparts)… but they lack something now.

I think Bendis is better on POWERS than on anything he has ever written for Marvel (with the possible exception of ALIAS), I think Warren Ellis was great as a political ranter in TransMet (don’t anybody come along and tell me it actually had a story… it had a backbone that only served for him to rant), I think Garth Ennis had something to SAY with Preacher… and I try to remember when there was a superhero book that did that, and all I can come up with is ELEKTRA: ASSASSIN (I don’t consider Alan Moore’s WATCHMEN as supehero stuff. It is SciFi in my mind… but that is a point of debate). Yes, I enjoyed THE AUTHORITY, even though I think that Ellis is a jerk, but sometimes, damn, that jerk can write..

I’m just tired of it all. It has become cynical and wasted. It serves no purpose other than to milk money from an audience that, yes I am an arrogant here, should KNOW better by now… PEOPLE WILL LIVE! PEOPLE WILL DIE! THINGS WILL NEVER BE THE SAME AGAIN!

And, maybe like other comic book readers, I have followed, in the hope that we get an ending, a proper finish to something, but it all goes in circles, and that means: it is all meaningless. There is no real danger. There is no real fun. There is no real story.

The English Pulp Fiction writer Edgar Wallace had invented something called a PLOT WHEEL in – if memory serves correctly – the 1920s. You whirled it around and it would come up with almost a CLUEDO type of plotline: X does Y in Z… and he actually used it to write his novels.

That is what “mainstream” superheroes have become. A plot wheel (one might say that they have always been that, but in my mind, never before this cynically).

So, this is me saying to them: I’m outta here.

And call me again when you give somebody else the freedom to do such amazing work with SHAZAM the way Jeff Smith is showing it.

But those “stories” are rarely any good. Most of them are piss-poor rationalizations of previoius stories and conflicts. YUCK. Would a non-comic fan want to read such clustered, cluttered stories mired in decades of continuity? No. Jeez, I’m a comic fan…and **I** can’t stand them.

But that doesn’t mean that the general public doesn’t want superheroes. Far from it. The general public **loves** superheroes. All the films, the TV shows, the cartoons, the merchandise, the games, etc. Superheroes are a fantasy sub-genre, and they’re heavily ingrained in our cultural DNA.

But it’s NOT about “realism”. Again, we love fantasy. It’s simply that people would rather watch a Spider-Man movie or play a Spider-Man game than read a Spider-Man comic. It’s more entertaining, and the dollar requirement is actually LOWER. Which means that those people going to comic shops every week to get their superhero fix are simply addicts jonesing for old-fashioned drugs.

Before anyone flames me, I’m a big-time comic fan. My bookshelf is filled with beautiful comics from all genres over the past few decades. But comics need to evolve more towards the format (and value) that Manga provides. Like a lot of other fans, I’m just beginning to see the forest through those trees.

“Ooooh! I found Stilt-Man! And there’s pre-Crisis Composite Superman!”

No, you’re right. It’s the “core market” for superhero comics, this strange insular sub-culture that dominates the DM, that’s … well maybe “wrong” isn’t the right word. But unique unto themselves.

The bigger world, that potential “new mainstream” as Batton Lash put it, wants real stories with real characters. We’re just now figuring out how to connect up creators, publishers, and that potential market. Meanwhile, the “core market” will remain oblivious to all this, and continue eating itself until it dissolves away in another generation.

How well did things like The Hiketia (Rucka) and Top Ten The 49ers (Alan Moore), or Pride of Badghdad (BKV) sell?

Were the sales of these things affected by the fact that they only came out in hardcovers first?

Could tie-in events come out as trades rather than monthlies?

Would you buy a new 88 page 52 trade very month for 10 bucks?

Didn’t Cross-Gen try it but it failed miserably?
Of course i think Cross-Gen’s attempts were not trades but lots of montlhies needlessly and confusingly bundled into one.

Is the monthly community needed to give an eventul trade the buzz it needs to break into Main Stream Bookstore Land?

Comics is a weird business and I wish i had more clear cut answers. Until then I’ll keep buying monthlies and trades, and I look forward to Count Down.

I am personally waiting for the time when only trade books come out. with the amount of titles out now…there would be at least3 to 4 a week coming out.

Easy to look at, focus on and number.

The Europeans have a lot of things right…but in the end, people, the masses that spend money, want giant crossover event books and will always want them. I find it interesting that people online say after 52 they wont buy countdown. want to bet for the most part they do? again, the sales will speak . personally, I hope they do. we are writing a kickass series .

yeah, I believe in the work I am doing and always ready to push it…and I agree with Douglas. why would i ever bother to do work that i dont believe in.

The on-line community is a very small % of the people who buy the books…i have learned this a little at a time…same with the people who attend cons. again, a small % of the buying public.

just some interesting things being said here.

~

Coat

But they are, despite Marvel doing everything (delays, poor structure, constant cross-overs, conflicting continuity, plain bad writing) wrong from a business stance, Civil War still sold more than 250,00 copies of each issue and at least doubled the sales of all of the cross-over titles. So they’re still being bought and bought in excess. The only way for them to stop doing this is for sales to tank and it doesn’t look like this is going to happen anytime soon.

What I’d love to see in mainstream comics is a general resolution: if you cannot convince yourself that the comic you’re working on is the BEST THING EVER, please don’t bother, because if it’s not going to be your favorite comic it’s not going to be anybody else’s, and if it’s not going to be anybody else’s you’re just wasting everybody’s time.

I agree with you except on one thing. It’s really not hard to stop buying books you don’t enjoy. Everyone should try it; they will quickly find out how easy it is to not read books they don’t like.

What has undone all this is nothing less than greed. Despite the resuscitation of their long-term solvency, the big two missed the immediate gratification of the speculation boom, and so set out to create events in the old tradition of Crisis and Secret Wars that the reliably compulsive would shell out for. Unfortunately, the reliably compulsive are not as legion as once they were, and even the loyal are sufficiently matured to see that these stories are not only without end, but also without any sort of resolution or even narrative structure, just crass, cynical emotional manipulation (much like country western music, imnsho). What made crossovers work in the past was their novelty; their lack thereof now is the death knell for the mainstream’s appeal to anyone other than their withering niche. Mark my words: CIVIL WAR may have been the last best hope for regaining popular appeal, wasted.