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Paul Issar
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Joined: 27 June 2012
Location: Canada
Posts: 51
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| Posted: 21 March 2019 at 4:09pm | IP Logged | 1
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Remember that 60's title Marvel Comics put out called Not Brand Echh. That's what Marvel Comics have become nowadays. A Parody of itself.
In my opinion it's all on the editors up at Marvel Comics.
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Brian Hague
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Joined: 14 November 2006
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| Posted: 21 March 2019 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | 2
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Lee's quote concerning not giving the readers what they think they want has been badly misrepresented over the years. Clearly intended for storytelling purposes, here Rick misappropriates it to say that a commercially saleable concept shouldn't be done because the readers might like it. And we don't want to do something readers might like.
Has anyone suggested that either title is being written in a way that talks down to thirteen-year-old's? I got the impression they're the sort of machismo-saturated, blood-n'-guts fare that thirteen years olds find kind of badass just because its exactly the sort of thing their parents don't want them to see. Hack, slash, and chop stuff is simply what the audience wants, apparently, whether they be in their teens or their forties. I doubt a violence-loving thirteen-year-old is going to turn his nose up at an aggressively bloody Wolverine vs. Conan fight simply because he thinks some adult wrote it with him in mind. If it's cool, it's cool.
We're talking about the Savage Avengers here, not Spidey Super Stories.
As for the creative bankruptcy of a Composite Superman-style mash-up between the Hulk and Wolverine, first off, the ship sailed on overexposing both characters years ago, and secondly, Marvel survived the Super-Skrull, the Super-Adaptoid, and Mimic. It will survive this.
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Andy Mokler
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Joined: 20 January 2006
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| Posted: 21 March 2019 at 6:29pm | IP Logged | 3
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This is on the cover to #1 of Hulkverines. Doesn't that pretty much mean that they know that it's terrible?
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Matt Hawes
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Joined: 16 April 2004
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| Posted: 21 March 2019 at 7:00pm | IP Logged | 4
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How could they not know it?
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Brian Hague
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| Posted: 21 March 2019 at 8:55pm | IP Logged | 5
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Sounds like the same sort of meta-humor woven through the story that is often seen in titles like Deadpool and Squirrel Girl. They seem to be acknowledging that the idea seems silly on the face of it, but hey, there's some intrinsic appeal there as well.
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Rick Whiting
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Joined: 22 April 2004
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| Posted: 21 March 2019 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | 6
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Lee's quote concerning not giving the readers what they think they want has been badly misrepresented over the years. Clearly intended for storytelling purposes, here Rick misappropriates it to say that a commercially saleable concept shouldn't be done because the readers might like it. And we don't want to do something readers might like.
Has anyone suggested that either title is being written in a way that talks down to thirteen-year-old's? I got the impression they're the sort of machismo-saturated, blood-n'-guts fare that thirteen years olds find kind of badass just because its exactly the sort of thing their parents don't want them to see. Hack, slash, and chop stuff is simply what the audience wants, apparently, whether they be in their teens or their forties. I doubt a violence-loving thirteen-year-old is going to turn his nose up at an aggressively bloody Wolverine vs. Conan fight simply because he thinks some adult wrote it with him in mind. If it's cool, it's cool.
We're talking about the Savage Avengers here, not Spidey Super Stories.
As for the creative bankruptcy of a Composite Superman-style mash-up between the Hulk and Wolverine, first off, the ship sailed on overexposing both characters years ago, and secondly, Marvel survived the Super-Skrull, the Super-Adaptoid, and Mimic. It will survive this.
_______________________________
Brian, Lee's quote might not actually apply to the situation that I'm talking about, but my point still stands. Just because an idea might seem "cool" or "commercially saleable" doesn't mean that said idea is a "good idea". The first issue of Hulkverines was #36 on Diamonds top 300 chart and sold 38,477 copies. That doesn't sound like a huge commercial success to me (even by today's lowered standards for comic sales).
13 year olds (and teenagers in general) might think that they want something until they actually get it and then realize that they either hate it or grow tired of it.
First of all, just because Wolverine and Hulk were overexposing and made less unique years ago doesn't mean that Marvel should continue to overexpose and make those characters less unique. Second of all, both the Super-Skrull and the Super-Adaptoid are villains and were not turned into heroes and given their own series. As for Mimic, he was a quasi villain turned hero who was killed off and then brought back 40+ years later (via a version from an alternate Earth) as a hero and as part of a team that travels to various alternate Earths. Also, Mimic's powers, like the Super-Adaptoid's powers, is to mimic the powers and skills of other people. So he is not the same as Hulkverine.
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Mark Haslett
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Joined: 19 April 2004
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| Posted: 21 March 2019 at 11:12pm | IP Logged | 7
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Jumping in on Rick's side at this particular junction, it is notable that Super Skrull, Super Adaptoid and Mimic were created in a completely different context.
Supposing for a moment they were all terrible mistakes, but "we survived" tells us nothing. The healthier days of the 60's could survive terrible mistakes. But what does that mean about how well the industry can handle terrible mistakes today? It's irrelevant.
Further, Stan Lee's advice was clearly meant to guide things creatively away from low-hanging, hack-bait ideas in favor of maintaining the ongoing health of ongoing titles. So, Brian's "misappropriation" remark is better applied to his own mangling of Rick's intent.
Lee's quote is clearly meant to say a commercially saleable concept shouldn't be done JUST because the readers might like it. Commercial sale-ability and reader-likability all need to come behind service to the characters.
Or else you get Secret Wars.
And, sadly, Hulkverine.
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Brian Hague
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| Posted: 22 March 2019 at 1:44am | IP Logged | 8
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Mark, I got Rick's intent just fine. Secret Wars sold not only comics, but merchandise as well. Whether Hulkverine goes on to do the same or not, once the idea was in play, it would have been foolish not to try it in the open market.
"Servicing the characters" is not why Marvel is in business. Those terrible low-hanging, hack-bait concepts of commercial saleability and appealing to readers (oh, how dreadful!) have a good deal more to do with keeping the lights on than character sanctity. There may be a wacky sort of honor sitting in the cold and the dark awaiting eviction, knowing you didn't ever put the proud, proud heritages of Wolverine and the Hulk through such an embarrassment as this, but that would be cold comfort, indeed.
Servicing the characters is important as far as it goes, no mistake. I would certainly have preferred it had Marvel showed Nick Spencer the door before proceeding with his Secret Empire plotline, but they rolled the dice and took their lumps.
As for magazine sales and reports from Diamond, they are A.) no longer the only gauge as to overall financial success and B.) dropping off everywhere. Marvel may not have been shooting for 36th out of 300, but they did beat at least 264 other books with that number.
Visually, characters such as the Super-Skrull, Adaptoid, and Mimic depend upon exactly the same Composite-Superman style melding of existing characters and concepts as Hulkverine. But you only want examples who've headlined in their own books... Like Spider-Gwen and Gwenpool or Victor Von Doom's turn as Iron Man, all of which have done well enough apparently that Marvel thinks it could do more with the idea.
Taking existing character aesthetics and melding them to new ones (the much-dithered-over concept of "de-uniquing" as it is fretted over here) has existed since the beginning of comic books. Marvel took less than 20 years after FF #1 to begin doing so in earnest, (Spider-Woman #1, 1978, a mere 16 years after Amazing Fantasy #15) less time than DC did to start doing the same with Superman (Superboy #1, 1949, 21 years after Superman's debut,) and that's not counting their forays into parallel and Counter Earths with multiple Reeds, Bens, and Dooms.
Marvel has no claim to superiority in this regard, no matter what the Bullpen Bulletins agitprop was telling you at that impressionable age you were when you were first taught to hate such things. Marvel's approach only differed from DC's during the Sixties because they hadn't aged yet into following the same practices. Once they did, they jumped in with both feet. Periodicals in general are dying on the vine as younger readers do their reading on social media and blogsites these days, but Marvel has enjoyed a small amount of success by doing books that offer a knowing wink to the audience while continuing to supply them with a suitably entertaining amount of blood and thunder. Hulkverine and the Savage Avengers would seem to be books of this kind.
Banging tin cups on the table demanding a return to the mid-60's (when Marvel sold about a dozen titles a month) or the mid-70's will not bring back readers or sales. It only gives the socially backwards (JB's "walking wounded") a sense that their voice matters. And it really doesn't.
But hey, continue to bang away.
Edited by Brian Hague on 22 March 2019 at 1:47am
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Mario Ribeiro
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| Posted: 22 March 2019 at 5:31am | IP Logged | 9
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1949 was 11 years after Superman debuted, of course, and I may make fun of Hulkverine but in general I agree with Brian. Let the kids have him. Hope they have fun.
Edited by Mario Ribeiro on 22 March 2019 at 5:33am
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John Byrne
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Joined: 11 May 2005
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| Posted: 22 March 2019 at 6:15am | IP Logged | 10
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As for the creative bankruptcy of a Composite Superman-style mash-up between the Hulk and Wolverine, first off, the ship sailed on overexposing both characters years ago, and secondly, Marvel survived the Super-Skrull, the Super-Adaptoid, and Mimic. It will survive this.••• My old brain must be failing. For the life of me I cannot recall which previously successful and over-exposed characters those three were based on. Help me out here.
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Mark Haslett
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| Posted: 22 March 2019 at 10:48am | IP Logged | 11
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Brian: Banging tin cups on the table demanding a return to the mid-60's
(when Marvel sold about a dozen titles a month) or the mid-70's will not
bring back readers or sales. It only gives the socially backwards (JB's
"walking wounded") a sense that their voice matters. And it really doesn't.
But hey, continue to bang away.
**
Mangling my intent isn't really compelling stuff. I retort: Normalizing and
defending the prioritizing of gimmicks over character in a constantly
dwindling market will not bring back readers or sales. It only gives the
creatively challenged a sense that their work is good because "the fans like
it." And it really isn't.
But hey, continue to enjoy it while it lasts.
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David Miller
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| Posted: 22 March 2019 at 11:46am | IP Logged | 12
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QUOTE:
| The first issue of Hulkverines was #36 on Diamonds top 300 chart and sold 38,477 copies. |
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To emphasize, it sold 38,477 copies through Diamond. Nobody outside of Marvel knows what the actual total sales are. Creators have been complaining for years that fan-calculated sales charts paint an incomplete and misleading picture, creating ignorant "buzz" that sabotages momentum.
Extrapolating from the 2011 circulation statements, the last year Marvel still published them in their books (I think), total circulation can be from forty to more than fifty percent higher than the Diamond totals. Still low compared to the epic returnable newsstand print runs of our comparative youth, but not quite the holocaust implied by the direct sales numbers alone.
Edited by David Miller on 22 March 2019 at 11:47am
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