I remember Marvel when it was......

[EccentricSage]

I really wish that the industry would move to a season based model, like television. Twelve issues, then move on to the next big idea, creative team, etc. Commit to telling a good quality story with production value, then if the audience likes it continue with another season. If not move on. Sure there are cancelled shows, but for the most part the model works. Pilots could be your one shots or minis. Marvel relaunches titles wildly anyway.

That's actually a really good idea. It would be nice if creative teams had a framework to work within. I was re-reading some of X-Factor and there was all sorts of loose ends because all indications were they didn't know they were being cancelled. Hell, they seemed to still have plans for Wildchild after issue #142, which effectively ended up being his extremely depressing last appearance in the title. If they knew how much time they had left, they could have planned, and he might never have ended up perfect fodder for Tierri. ;_;

46,851 to 23,242 is though.

If the series got made ongoing purely on the numbers from #1.

I'm pretty sure it's NORMAL for first issues to have unusually high sales. Collectors. If Marvel was going by the first issue's sales, then they're even bigger idiots than previously stated.

[EccentricSage]

I personally am against Marvel doing a reboot.

The reason being is that you throw out a lot of good along with the bad. And even nowadays, there are good stories out there to go along with the blech.

The wonderful part about comics is that anything broken can be fixed, any plot holes or inconsistencies explained (or just ignored to fade away into oblivion). Fred and Greg have proved that with this current AF. These characters were way mucked up prior to the current run, almost recognizable in some cases. Yet here we are, with the characters feeling more like themselves than we've seen in over a decade.

Marvel used to have an official "fact checker" named Peter Sanderson (he helped write some of the Deluxe Marvel Universe Handbooks) whose job was to make sure things lined up story wise in the MU. Want to know the status of The Leader for a story you want to write? You went to him. I know Marvel is slimming its workforce so doing this again would probably never happen, but it is obvious that not having someone like this in their stable has hurt the storytelling.

Also, there are some writers who so a good job of fixing those characters. Granted, you may not like the results, but you usually end up with a character that makes more sense. Kurt Busiek is good at this, as is Geoff Johns.

For instance, for almost two decades, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch's origins constantly changed and contradicted itself, until a couple different writers finally not only gave a definite origin, but even made all those conflicting accounts fit in and be relevant to them. Marvel needs to do this on a line-wide scale.

So I feel that Marvel doesn't need to do a reboot so much as pause, take a deep breath, look at their characters and try to stitch back together their fractured universe.

Nicely said. Fact checking should be so much easier, now, too. Not only does Marvel have it's own guidebooks and database, fans have created even more detailed wikias. Just look at the one here! If a writer is unsure about something, there are eager fans willing to list in detail dropped plot lines, conflicting back stories, loose threads, or plot holes. I think another problem is some writers want mindless adoration from fans and nothing else, and those are the writers who screw the MU up, because NOTHING seems to be done at all to reign them in anymore... which just seems insane to me.

It's a shame I won't be reading the stuff by the good writers because I can't find them amidst the muck and mire. Another problem with Masrvel is it's instability of late. I don't have the patience to start reading a book with a good creative team just to have it ether cancelled suddenly do to one bad month, or turned over to the Frank Tieris and Jeff Loebs of the industry. The stress isn't worth it, not at the high price comics cost now and how far out of the way I have to go just to buy one in person.

[Loki]

If some big name writer wants to come in and retcon the entire history of pretty much all feral mutants, especially two of Marvel's most famous rivals of all time, and intrinsically change the fabric of the Marvel Universe,

Well, Romulus might have proposed that theory, but it doesn't mean he's correct. Personally I put it down to him being a psycho supremacist who'd like to believe it, but his theory has a lot of holes in it, not least that some of his suggested lupines are pretty feline. My personal feelings are that the feral mutants are no more all part of the same subspecies than the winged mutants are all angelics or the ones like Nightcrawler are all demonic - they are just mutants with similar abilities that people lumped together as a homogenous group based on their surface similarities.

However, Ghost Girl and Shadowcat are both secretly members of the Phasians, and Aurora, Northstar, Quicksilver, the Luis Barrett Thunderbolt, Super Sabre, Golden Age Whizzer and Whiz Kid are all Speedygonzalians.

For example, I looked up Wolfsbain

Wolfsbane.

What's this BS about her being traumatized by her wolf form when regaining her powers, and being overcome by a feral impulse. Only time I ever remember her having THAT problem was when she was ****ed with by the Genotians back in X-Factor! Why do editors let writers go so far out of character with such well established characters?

To be fair, she wasn't so much traumatized by her wolf form when regaining her powers, as had a little bit of trouble controlling herself immediately after being repowered. She got her control back pretty quickly. As for the Reverend Craig thing, that was following brainwashing, so while it is down to the individual reader as to whether they liked or disliked it happening, it wasn't out of character, in as much as it was meant to be something she'd never normally do.

Marvel used to have an official "fact checker" named Peter Sanderson (he helped write some of the Deluxe Marvel Universe Handbooks) whose job was to make sure things lined up story wise in the MU. Want to know the status of The Leader for a story you want to write? You went to him. I know Marvel is slimming its workforce so doing this again would probably never happen, but it is obvious that not having someone like this in their stable has hurt the storytelling.

Writers still have a similar resource available to them. Not everyone feels the need to use it though.

[Loki]

Nicely said. Fact checking should be so much easier, now, too. Not only does Marvel have it's own guidebooks and database, fans have created even more detailed wikias.

Please do not suggest writers use wikias to do their fact checking. Do you really want the second Deadly Ernest to become canon?

[Garry/Al-Fan]

I remember Marvel when it was the House of Ideas...Not because of 101 tie-ins or that it promised to change the face of the universe year-after-year-after-year.
I remember when Marvel had integrity, spirit, identity and took risks...More and more it was about the buck, the fans were only consumers and no longer had a face. 20k fans reading a comic is apparently not enough...that's too bad.
No longer the House of Ideas it's more of the House of Cloned Franchises. Where is my Alpha Flight?...

I remember when Marvel gave me a diverse line-up of comics to choose from.

But I'm starting to forget.

I'm there with you, but I don't want to forget. I remember John Buscema's Silver Surfer # 1. I remember the introduction of the Squadron Sinister (still have it and still one of my favorites). I remember reading the death of Capt. Stacey (that got to me), then the drug-addicted Harry Osborne, the death of Gwen Stacey (and I didn't pick up on the way Spider-Man tried to save her!), and the death of the Green Goblin! I remember Jim Starlin starting his Warlock with issue # 9! (what a run) I remember Uncanny X-Men #100, my first new X-Men at the time...at that time, Cockrum inking Cockrum was some of the best artwork ever produced! I remember the 15-issue run of Iron Fist (after an unforgettable GIL KANE/Roy Thomas origin). I remember Gene Colan's Daredevil...

And I think, grown-ups or not, storytelling like that can happen again. Maybe (probably) not as often, now, but it can still happen...even with a few contemporary "tweaks".

[DaVeO]

Today I cancelled most of my Marvels except AF, X-Factor and the remaining issue of Cloak & Dagger and Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu. It was actually quite a freeing feeling. If I start to see a change in how they run their business and treat the fans I'll *consider* returning. I honestly don't feel they give a crap about us other then our worth as consumers. Not the talent mind you, just the higher ups. Time to look for other pastures. Here is my shortlist of TO GET trades.

The Walking Dead (I've read the first five hardcover collections and I think it may be the greatest comic ever)
Invincible (I bought the Ultimate Ed HC and it was the most enjoyable super hero story I've read in the past ten years. Beats Spider-Man hands down)
B.P.R.D. (I'm up to date with Hellboy so I'm going to finally start with the Plague of Frogs HC)
The Sixth Gun (cowboys and occult? YES PLEASE!)
Street Fighter collections (I love those artists from UDON)
DC will get my super hero bucks, especially that Dark line which I'm loving as well as Batwoman and Aquaman.
And of course Fables is my continuing series from Vertigo.

I refuse to let Marvel stab me in the heart again, so I'll just leave them with a little less revenue.

[Flightpath07]

Today I cancelled most of my Marvels except AF, X-Factor and the remaining issue of Cloak & Dagger and Deadly Hands of Kung-Fu. It was actually quite a freeing feeling. If I start to see a change in how they run their business and treat the fans I'll *consider* returning. I honestly don't feel they give a crap about us other then our worth as consumers. Not the talent mind you, just the higher ups. Time to look for other pastures.

As much as i have said i am quitting Marvel, they will still (for now) get my bucks for their Avengers Academy issues. But that is it, unless i see some new (or re-printed, perhaps) Flight appearances that i want. I can't quit Avengers Academy, because it is some of the best storytelling that has happened to Marvel in about twenty years. I can even get past the fact that the young heroes of the story really aren't very heroic...as long as they keep faithfully building the characters and letting me see what goes on inside their heads and in their lives like they do, I'll buy it.

[Le Messor]

If you ask me, where Marvel went wrong was in not staying true to the integrity of the characters' back stories and the main MU's history...

Yeah, I agree there. I hate it when writers come in, stomp over the characters they're supposed to be writing, and then declare themselves great writers.
Grant Morrison's X-Men; would've been a great original, but he had to destroy the integrity of the characters to write otherwise good ideas.

I may be kind of technically quitting Marvel.

This isn't some stand or a fit of pique, they're just not making anything new right now that interests me.
(Still going with the Marvel Premiere Classics, though.)

- Le Messor
"If it jams, force it. If it breaks, it needed replacement anyway."

[DaVeO]

Oh and for the books. I do think Marvel should do a New 52-reboot style thang. I really think I would like them more if creative teams got shuffled around, they brought back some old fan faves(bloody yes Alpha Flight included!), they ditched events for 2 years so an event could actually mean something again, they cut down on repeated titles that aren't very different from each other i.e. The 3 Justice League titles at DC each have very different concepts. The two Avenger titles do not, so axe one of them. This forces consumers to try titles they may not have normally would. There is that diversity thing I'm always crying about.

[Le Messor]

I do think Marvel should do a New 52-reboot style thang.

Well, for that, Marvel have the Ultimate universe.
There were a lot of comparisons when the New 52 came out, too.

- Le Messor
"If I was being executed by lethal injection, I'd clean up my cell real neat. Then, when they came to get me, I'd say, "Injection? I thought you said 'inspection.'" they'd probably feel real bad and maybe I could get out of it."