Recently, I picked up most of my hold at Black Cat Comics in Salt Lake City. Apart from a blind bag and a couple of “key” back issues that I’m waiting for payday to purchase, I left with 14 comics. It was a slightly bigger week than normal, but not by much.
As I sat thumbing through my comics that Thursday night, I noticed something that bothered me.
Ever since 1997’s X-Men Vol. 2 #72, I’ve been a diehard Marvel fan. While I’m just as much a Superman fan as I am a Spider-Man guy, most of the rest of my DC reading comes in ebbs and flows. Sometimes I pick up Nightwing, sometimes The Flash, but outside of Superman, no DC title is consistently on my pull list.
For other publishers, it depends. Right now, I’m picking up G.I. Joe from Image/Skybound, Seven Wives from IDW and most of the Sonic the Hedgehog titles for my kid.
Marvel, on the other hand, historically takes up about 75% of my pulls. That usually means anything Spidey, the core X-Men books, at least one or two ancillary X-titles, Captain America, Thor and whatever else is striking me.
This particular week though, of 14 books, 11 of them were DC and three were Marvel (X-Men, Generation X-23 and Captain America). Meanwhile, I was picking up DC books like Zatanna, Flash, Superman, Justice League Unlimited, Supergirl and more. Hell, I even grabbed some DC back issues just because I was in the mood. It was a swing that made me stop and think.
I like Zatanna, I’ve always thought she was an interesting character (and a cool dark-horse Batman love interest), but I’ve never picked up a Zatanna series before. Why am I picking up Zatanna now? Because it’s a little different, the art by Jamal Campbell is gorgeous and I wanted to give something new a try.
Meanwhile, at Marvel, my pulls are all the same ol’, same ol’. I’m reading Amazing Spider-Man, Daredevil, X-Men, Captain America, The Mortal Thor, Avengers: Armageddon and Generation X-23. The closest to something outside the norm is Gen X-23, and honestly, it’s a combination Wolverine/Young X-Men book. Not that innovative.
While I’m reading titles at the Distinguished Competition that I’d never thought to read before — Fury of Firestorm was great, Zatanna is gorgeous, I adored The Deadman — I’m just going through the motions at Marvel. Hell, for the first time ever, I actively dropped a flagship X-title in Gail Simone’s Uncanny X-Men, and am more or less ignoring X-Men United.
It’s not an uncommon fan sentiment right now.
Where DC feels innovative and fresh, Marvel feels stuck in the past. Both the X-Men and Spider-Man lines have at least one nostalgia-themed miniseries running at all times, while other characters have their own occasionally. In fact, right now the X-line has two — X-Men of Apocalypse and X-Men: Outback — with more to come, like the upcoming Gambit: Wanted mini. There was even a recent nostalgia release featuring Marvel characters by a creator with a deep, well-documented history of discriminatory rhetoric.
Event fatigue has set in as well. The year started with the conclusion of Age of Revelation, and since then we’ve seen Spider-Man/Venom: Death Spiral, Ultimate Endgame, the launch of Avengers: Armageddon, as well as Queen in Black and DNX both still to come. That’s two events from each major editorial office, and the year’s not over.
The constant cycle of rebooting and relaunching is burning fans out as well. Just since the beginning of the year, we’ve seen Punisher, Deadpool, X-Men United, Iron Man, Daredevil and Moon Knight all get new #1’s. Meanwhile, titles aren’t getting space to breathe and build an audience, with the most egregious example being all four Imperial-inspired cosmic titles ending with six issues or less, and the fifth never materializing.
And on top of all of this, instead of taking a step back and acknowledging that something isn’t working, the publisher is still blazing ahead as if everything is fine. The upcoming Midnight line has almost no buzz, despite the superstar creative teams at the helm. Retailers are frustrated that titles are disappearing without communication. The former giant of the industry is losing its luster, and quickly.
This isn’t to say that other publishers are perfect. DC has rightfully been called out for not having an ongoing solo series led by a Black character. Skybound is leaning heavily on gimmicks and nostalgia for 1980s toys. Dynamite is doing the same for whatever Disney- and Warner Bros.-licensed cartoons it can get its hands on. Image occasionally catches heat for pushing creators who have not been held publicly accountable for allegations of abuse and harassment. Hell, even small publishers like Valiant and Archie are just trying to hang on long enough to survive.
But Marvel, traditionally the industry leader, is falling behind, and quickly.
(ICv2’s ranking of May’s 25 best-selling comics, based on its sample of 225 stores that use the ComicHub and Comic Shop Assistant point-of-sale systems. DC dominates the top four spots, for 11 of the top 25 — seven of which are Absolute books. Marvel also has 11 comics in the top 25. Two more are from Image, and the last is from Dynamite.)
So what is it going to take Marvel to snap back?
It definitely feels like a leadership problem. Where Axel Alonso’s tenure at the House of Ideas was marked by innovation, the introduction of new, exciting characters and foregrounding diversity, current Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski’s tenure has been marked by looking backward. He even openly stated the return of certain creators to Marvel was one of his priorities.
I’m not calling for Cebulski’s head, or any other member of Marvel editorial. But I am calling for them to look at the issues and not dig in and say, “I’m going to do what I’m already doing HARDER.” The company needs to look at what’s working, what’s not and actually make changes, instead of blundering ahead doing the same thing it’s been doing. They need to learn the right lessons, not just a lesson.
Marvel is a subsidiary of one of the biggest entertainment companies in the world. There are resources there for it to get help learning these lessons if they can’t do it themselves.
But right now, it’s not working, Marvel. It’s time to take a step back and figure out why.
Tony Thornley is a geek dad, blogger, Spider-Man and Superman aficionado, X-Men guru, autism daddy, amateur novelist and all around awesome guy. He’s also very humble. Follow him @brawl2099.bsky.social.
