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

[Flightpath07]

new avengers to me would be capt america and maybe iron man with an entirely new team of younger heroes.

Sounds like we should have called Volume 3, the all new, all different Alpha Flight! Oh wait, we DID...Sas and a bunch of younger new heroes...hm...

new comics might have a shot to make it if there wasn't 20 xmen and 15 spiderman spin offs.

and that is what happens when your comics only get good sales if they have a movie franchise to stir interest. has Marvel never realized that without those movies stirring that interest, they would have (possibly) gone under by now?! this = incompetence and bad business sense.

DC figured it out. they rebooted EVERYTHING, now they have a chance to do it the fans' way and see if that sells. or, they might piss off the fans more, and flop. either way, they tried, because at least they knew they could not sustain on the way things were going!

[Le Messor]

But is that because the days of good vs evil were when you were younger and had read less comics, so storylines were more black & white than grey and more original?

Just playing devil's advocate for a second.

Isn't this, like, a fifth for you?
You're always defending Marvel. And, hey, somebody should. We can't all act bitter and twisted, more machine now than man, and the galaxy shall be mine!

*cough*
Sorry.
Got carried away.

Anyway, my early comics were 80s, I'd say; when storylines did start getting more sophisticated and greyer - but the characters didn't.
Oh, they had depth, the good guys had flaws, the bad guys had positives; but you could still tell the difference. And they weren't switching sides every five minutes, like it didn't matter which side they wer-- coughHalJordanCainMarkoEddieBrockJasonToddcogh* --e on.

- Le Messor
"If I had only known, I would have been a locksmith."
~ Albert Einstein

[Phil]

I'm not defending Marvel per se.

I agree with what they've done to an extent, I understand the business reasons and I personally would rather see a top quality done-in-one finished maxi-series storyline than have them pull the rug out unexpected and have plotlines dangling, or deteriorating quality as the series goes on for one reason or another.

HOWEVER, I think the way they've done it is disgusting.

But then again I think most big businesses and corporations are disgusting.

[Le Messor]

I hope I haven't put you on the defensive - we seem to have a reputation as a polite, nice forum and you seem to be struggling right now to get us to keep that rep. I admire that, I really do.

Somebody needs to keep us under control and tone it back, especially now with so many of us feeling bitter and resentful. I thank you for doing that.

- Le Messor
"If I was at full Slayer power, I'd be punning right about now."
~ Buffy

[Phil]

I just don't want my posts to seem like I'm working for Marvel or that I don't share everyone's pain and disappointment of no more AF.

[Flightpath07]

I'm working for Marvel

See! I KNEW it!

lol.

Nah, I think we all get you, Phil, and understand where you are coming from.

so many of us feeling bitter and resentful

Count me out. Mildly annoyed, and head-shakingly disgusted, but quite calm, really. The problem is, i cannot say, "I don't beleive it!" because, really, i DO. Therein lies the problem, for me. I believe in the product (Alpha Flight), just not the competency of the head company to handle it (or much of anything else!) anymore.

And that is NO slight to ANY of the artistic talents who have been assigned to the Alpha Flight franchise at any time in its history. This is all about the suits at Marvel, for me. The decision they made, at this point, is re-arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic; they got the word that they had hit the iceberg, when the ship was already halfway underwater, and they aren't even building better boats or training better captains or anything useful - just trying to save a couple of bucks, and go on "business as usual"...

[swh_comicguy]

That, I totally agree with.

I'm with Marvel on that one, I'm afraid; the book was haemorrhaging readers.

Extremely unlikely in this day and age.

Feel free to rant, seriously.

-7.4% (#2 to #3) and -6.5% (#3 to #4) is not hemorrhaging. All new titles go through this decline. Generally it is double digits until it stabilizes. Unfortunately since Marvel double shipped on #1 we don't really know the decrease from #1 to #2.

Wait until the numbers come out for DC's #2 this month. There will be several double digit decreases. They're however backing all of their new 52 titles for at least 4-6 months. Obviously the books that are not meeting expectations will be cancelled or retooled.

I guess that's what we're all disappointed and upset with. Marvel comes to Canada's largest Comic Expo expounding the success of the limited series and announcing that it has been optioned as an ongoing. Two months and issues later, they quietly without explanation cancel the ongoing.

We all would have been fine with the limited series. We were all wishing for more, but would have been happy waiting for the next series in a year or two. That hope is even gone now.

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.

[Jason Eberly]

Wait until the numbers come out for DC's #2 this month. There will be several double digit decreases. They're however backing all of their new 52 titles for at least 4-6 months. Obviously the books that are not meeting expectations will be cancelled or retooled.

I have two potential remarks to this. Pick your favorite...

1) Meanwhile, Alpha fans were just plain tooled by Marvel.

-OR-

2) Meanwhile, Marvel is just being run by tools.

And to top it off, the tab to my can of soda just broke when I tried to open it!

[varo]

i prefer #2.

also, i am very curious to see what the dropoff between 4 and 5 are, or if it evened out. if it did, it means marvel execs are #2 of the option above. i always thought the cancel line was around 20k.

also, i wonder if the fact that marvel is cutting costs and the fact that pak and fvl are both being paid for this title was a factor.

[Flightpath07]

I have two potential remarks to this. Pick your favorite...

1) Meanwhile, Alpha fans were just plain tooled by Marvel.

-OR-

2) Meanwhile, Marvel is just being run by tools.

And to top it off, the tab to my can of soda just broke when I tried to open it!

I vote for Number Two! (Number Three made no sense ot me at all)

[Jason Eberly]

I vote for Number Two! (Number Three made no sense ot me at all)

There is no number 3!

Basically it is just one of those days where right after you put on a white shirt, you drip toothpaste onto it while brushing your teeth.

Or, for some reason, my internet speed is so slow today I could probably hand deliver these posts to everyone faster.

[cmdrkoenig67]

I agree, Marvel is #2...uh...I mean I choose #2. Heh.

Dana

[EccentricSage]

DC figured it out. they rebooted EVERYTHING, now they have a chance to do it the fans' way and see if that sells. or, they might piss off the fans more, and flop. either way, they tried, because at least they knew they could not sustain on the way things were going!

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. What made me swear off Marvel wasn't the mass cancellations, the new books, or even dissatisfaction with the fates of some characters... it was the callous treatment of the characters, the complete lack of editorial control over the story writers wanted to write, and the complete lack of back-story research on the part of the writers that really pissed me off beyond anything they'd ****ed up prior.

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, give the arrogant ass an alternate universe title to tell his silly wolf-people story in! If some jackass wants to start a book called Weapon X that isn't even about Weapon X, but rather a Nazi-style death camp for mutants, tell him no! If he wants to completely ignore the fact that one of the characters was happily married and NOT EVIL, tell him HELL NO, not without a good story to explain WHY that character is on the team! And if the excuse is mind control on a guy who has resisted mind control in a past story line, fire the writer outright for being a complete idiot who's plot is full of holes! Don't even get me started on how little sense Aurora's lobotomy made.

The editors should keep track of loose ends that occur when a book gets cancelled and try to pass those on to writers on other books who pick the characters up. I, as a fan of a character, am not going to keep following that character if that character a) becomes unrecognizable or b) has a self-contradicting history full of plot holes because some writers along the way didn't do their research. For example, I looked up Wolfsbain and Wolfsbain ATE Rev. Craig... WHAT THE #&^%*^%&^$#@#?!!! And she only hated her wolf form early on! She soon embraced her abilities once she was rescued and trained! 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?

Don't get me started on Marrow's reasons for joining Weapon X ether. OMG, the rage that one inspires.


So yeah... I WAS generally against a reboot. But the MU is getting so mucked up that I can't really see any way to undo the damage done by all the gimmicky writers who stroke their own egos by trying to rack up body count, and prefer shock value over believable character development. Every time I look up what's been going on with a character I like, I just become more convinced there's no point in caring anymore. ****, probably just as well they killed off poor Kyle. Just wish it had been a cooler death. It's almost better to see these B and C list characters die than get their integrity undermined with every new writer that picks them up.

Well, now I'm depressed. And unlike in other fandoms, with Marvel I don't even have the huge reserves of decent fanfiction to drown my sorrows in. *sigh*

Hmmm... though you know, if they re-booted and started over at the beginning, then they'd probably just do an even lamer dumbed-down version of the history of the MU based off the movie and cartoon franchises, cutting out all b and c list characters to focus on the big A listers and adding their own lame ass creation like Daken or whatever Mr evil fanservice guy's name is. "Dark Wolverine".

They should just reboot it where it left off in the early-mid 90's right before the mass cancellations. There were great stories developing in a lot of the series, just the art was increasingly **** and the books cost too much at that time. That's fixable.

[Jason Eberly]

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.

[Phil]

-7.4% (#2 to #3) and -6.5% (#3 to #4) is not hemorrhaging.

46,851 to 23,242 is though.

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