I never thought a day would come where I would stop buying Marvel Comics from the store, but that day has come.
Its a bit of a combination of things as to why I’m finally saying ‘No More Marvel’, but its finally hit me yesterday when browsing my local Comic shop. For starters, it looks like Marvel has adopted this new $3.99 pricing across almost all of its titles. Seriously guys?
Now, granted when I got into reading comics almost 20 years ago, you paid $3.99 for an annual, a whopping 64 pages (including ad pages) of comic goodness. The norm was $1.25 for the Big Two (DC and Marvel). It wasn’t until Image Comics with its over the top rices had to rise–cost of artists and big name writing talent, cost of paper material, shipping charges, etc–but everyone has their limit. And $4 for a comic book is mine.
At this price, Marvel is really screwing themselves over in a huge way. Fans will no longer be inclined to sample new books. Some fans who are on the fence about certain books (and who can blame them, but I’ll get to that in a bit) will drop the ones they least favor. Basically Marvel will begin to price themselves out of business. Who in their right mind will want to pay $20 for 5 comics unless they are hardcore fans? And in this economy, those types are fading fast.
The other big issue? The Marvel comics that used to be my mainstays nowadays now look like a big jumbled mess. X-Men, previously my favorite comics is now besieged by too many books, horrible artwork. disconnected stories and TOO MUCH Wolverine!
Shiite, Wolverine. 4 Wolverine books. 5 superhero teams (New Avengers, Avengers OG, Uncanny X-Men, Uncanny X-Force, Astonishing X-Men). Its too much. He’s no longer cool anymore. And how is he possible having the time to be on five teams (one team stuck in the future mind you) while having his own book where he is currently trapped in Hell?
And do not get me started on the cashgrabbing one-shots that support those cross-Marvel events. Thankfully Marvel had the common sense to kill those for the time being.
As for the main crux of the X-Men stories, can’t we see some move toward the world beginning to accept mutants? Now I get that it can’t be all sunshine and happiness, but its as if there has been absolutely no progress since when X-Men first started in the early sixties.
In my opinion, cut back a bunch of the X-Books and focus on the core–Uncanny X-Men, X-Men Legacy (and bring back the concept of having one X-Men team per book), ONE Wolverine book, a New Mutants/Generation X-like book featuring the next generation of mutants and X-Factor. That’s IT. I’ve never really cared for Deadpool, so I’m fine with him not having his own book.
Same can be said for the Avengers. All you need its TWO books–Avengers and New Avengers. All that Secret Avengers, Avengers Academy, Avengers For the Babies nonsense. No. Just, NO.
Less is more, focus on the important characters that are getting lost in the shuffle, lower the prices and get better artwork. Then, maybe I’ll start buying again. I respect that DC Comics has at least acknowledged the price issue and has lowered theirs. Hopefully it s a permament change. But for now, don’t make mine Marvel!
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