- With rumors abound of Disney mandated budget cuts at Marvel as well as the rash of cancelled titles, now is as good of a time to muse on this question as any. I'm not going to criticize Disney on this yet as I have not seen any profit/loss figures to judge it on, but regardless it makes one wonder.

- Sales-wise the comic industry as a whole has been in a slow tailspin for a long time now, DC has had big gains on a lot of title with the New 52, but only time will tell if the boost is more than just a shot in the arm by a bunch of new #1 issues. many have suggested Marvel follow suit, but I would not support such a move until seeing how it plays out with their rival.

- Among the recent group of cancellations was X-23 (24,000 units), if that is considered to be the new floor to keep a title running then the chopping block will soon include a lot more titles. Take a look at any sales chart and you will see a lot of well known names that are below that threshold. This does not take into account critical and fan favorites that did not sell well and cancelled in the past few years.

- It's hard to be surprised that some kind of shakeup has occurred now that they have been taken over by Disney, even more so as IMO the Marvel Comics line is in a very sad state. They seem practically unable to create a new series that lasts 20 issues unless it is a spin-off created by sharing the same group of characters across 3 or more titles. The universe is defined by event after event and the new titles that spin out of them never go anywhere, most are DOA before they are even published.

- Disney did not pay $4 billion for the comics business, they paid for the IP to develop into movies, cartoons, merchandise, etc. and all the current crop are based off of characters created a long time ago, I have heard nothing outside of Runaways in discussion that was created in the past 30 years. If they lose faith that Marvel can come up with new IP's to develop, they may very well cut everything but the core titles and milk them for all they are worth.

- One would think that with Disney's deep pockets they would want Marvel to develop as many titles as possible considering one movie project would make far more than enough to cover every low performing series for a decade. Running the comic line at break even or a small loss is nothing compared to the profits from even a handful of IP's growing to become the next Blade at the worst or X-Men at the best.

- Comments welcome

Honestly, I have been amazed since I came to this forum a few weeks ago. If the comments here are indicative of comic fans everywhere, then DC may well surpass Marvel in sales within a few years. Yes, Disney's pockets might help, if they are willing to invest sufficient funds. Part of the problem as I see it, is that the Smallville series lasted for 10 years on television and it showed us a lot more DC characters besides just Superboy/Superman. During this decade, Marvel failed to provide any weekly competition on network television, none at all. Why is my question? Could the execs at Marvel not see the benefit of a weekly television series? It is no wonder that DC has gained in popularity. My first suggestion is that Marvel must create a superior weekly television series, asap, and either sell it to one of the major networks or to the SyFy Channel.

The recession and continued weak economy has hurt comic sales across the board. Still, one must find a way to promote your heroes and heroines. Films are important, but a weekly series could do wonders for Marvel, if the series is well done.

@catfightfan said:

Honestly, I have been amazed since I came to this forum a few weeks ago. If the comments here are indicative of comic fans everywhere, then DC may well surpass Marvel in sales within a few years. Yes, Disney's pockets might help, if they are willing to invest sufficient funds. Part of the problem as I see it, is that the Smallville series lasted for 10 years on television and it showed us a lot more DC characters besides just Superboy/Superman. During this decade, Marvel failed to provide any weekly competition on network television, none at all. Why is my question? Could the execs at Marvel not see the benefit of a weekly television series? It is no wonder that DC has gained in popularity. My first suggestion is that Marvel must create a superior weekly television series, asap, and either sell it to one of the major networks or to the SyFy Channel.

The recession and continued weak economy has hurt comic sales across the board. Still, one must find a way to promote your heroes and heroines. Films are important, but a weekly series could do wonders for Marvel, if the series is well done.

i agree with a new good cartoon series that marvel has to make. and they should make one for x-men since they already just made one for the avengers. Marvel has to work on what has made the m big in the first place: the x-men.

@jhazzroucher:

Gone are the days the X-men used to be the apple of Marvel's eye. These days it is all about Wolverine and Spider-man. Especially the wall-crawler. He has had more mainstream appearances than other Marvel hero. The only character that come close to him is wolverine and that is at Wolverine's cost. Marvel consistent toning down of wolverine to make him more mainstream maybe winning younger fans but hes losing younger fans as well. If Marvel want to make cartoon shows, they are already on the right track with the release of the Avengers EMH as well as the Ultimate Spider-man tv shows coming out next summer. An x-men show would help but it shouldn't be their priority.

If the avengers and amazing spider-man movies can be huge box office hits next summer then Marvel would surely be on the rise and their future would be stable once again

@jhazzroucher said:

@catfightfan said:

Honestly, I have been amazed since I came to this forum a few weeks ago. If the comments here are indicative of comic fans everywhere, then DC may well surpass Marvel in sales within a few years. Yes, Disney's pockets might help, if they are willing to invest sufficient funds. Part of the problem as I see it, is that the Smallville series lasted for 10 years on television and it showed us a lot more DC characters besides just Superboy/Superman. During this decade, Marvel failed to provide any weekly competition on network television, none at all. Why is my question? Could the execs at Marvel not see the benefit of a weekly television series? It is no wonder that DC has gained in popularity. My first suggestion is that Marvel must create a superior weekly television series, asap, and either sell it to one of the major networks or to the SyFy Channel.

The recession and continued weak economy has hurt comic sales across the board. Still, one must find a way to promote your heroes and heroines. Films are important, but a weekly series could do wonders for Marvel, if the series is well done.

i agree with a new good cartoon series that marvel has to make. and they should make one for x-men since they already just made one for the avengers. Marvel has to work on what has made the m big in the first place: the x-men.

Thank you! X-Men really made Marvel to the industry we all love and enjoy. Without X-Men this would never be this good. And I guess with Regenesis they have all options to bring it back to the old good :) I think they are on a good track with uncanny x-men and WATX really enjoyed both. Also Uncanny X-Force (if we can count it to the whole X-Men thing) might be the besst ongoing Marvel series!