@FoxxFireArt said:
Hard to have much faith in publishers when we see stories such as BDN/OMD. Hard to have faith when SPIDER-MAN isn't just being renumbered but pointlessly re-titled. All for the sake of a #1. Rather than having pride in a #700. They are going backward. No one is under any delusion that in a year or less this will return to THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN title and another #1. Why change the title at all just because a character is changing?
How often have many of these 'drastic changes' really changed anything in the long run? Characters are very often put right back where they started in one way or another. They've even seemingly be pushing for the return of the Peter and Mary Jane relationship. The very relationship that Marvel created one of the most broken stories in comics just to end.
Faith is basically trust. It isn't given. It's earned. The practice of repeated changes or deaths only to reverse them in a few months has done little more than breed a cynical audience that can't take any alteration seriously. Marvel's unspoken mantra might as well be "The more things change. The more they stay the same.".
The industry knows what works and what doesn't.
Do they really? How often do reboots and retitling actually bring in new readers? That's the goal, right? One of the biggest problems is advertising. Who is going to know about this change who isn't already reading comics?
Sure, New 52 gave DC a huge boost in sales - for a few months -, but I've seen charts that shows that sales are now basically only slightly above where they were pre-New 52.
CLAP! CLAP! Great Post!
As a comic book fan and aspiring writer I tend to have the opposite problem from people. The kinds of changes I'm looking for in books are the kind of things that actually... oh I don't know.... Mean something!
But like I said before, I am open minded to changes, they just have to be good. That's the major catch here, and I will be blunt when I say that the industry hasn't delivered me much fresh, character evolution for a while.
So this begs the question, what do I view as good and bad changes?
Good:
1. Characters Aging: We may be in a comic book but marvel and DC used to at least try to show us that years have passed since their first days of fighting crime.
2. Relationships: Obviously this one isn't set in stone as much since if you break up a couple in a believable way then I'm fine with it. The problem comes when the company breaks up long time couples in their cannon cause they're "stale". These characters together aren't stale. that just means your writer sucks at writing couples. So find someone who can!
3. Mantle characters: Once again this my opinion but once a hero dies and a character takes over the mantle then they should stay in that title role. Bucky for instance was not only more than capable of being captain america but the sales justified it as well. So when you have a strong character taking over the mantle of a dead hero, there's no point in bringing him back.
4. Death: I'll keep this simple. Make it mean something again. Death is an absolute joke. People have argued that its a comic book and death has always been like that but they're dead wrong. Believe it or not but there was a time that death and resurrection of a character wasn't used as a cheap gimmick so i wished it would go back to that time.
Now for the bad... This is what Marvel and DC interpret as change...
Bad:
1. Events: Oh god, the events... for the love of god stop these stupid events that don't serve a large story purpose than milking sales! Sure there will be an event from time to time that will prove me wrong and I am talking about Marvel more than DC with this number. These events kill the individual writer's freedom and make them tie into a book that has the potential to ruin their own plans for the title. Everyone knows that's why JMS left Thor, who knows how many other casualties there've been cause of these monstrosities.
2. Retcons: I will openly admit that not all retcons are bad. I acknowledge that retroactively fixing some things is a necessity with comic books. The line I draw is when they're used to inhibit character growth. I only need one excuse for this one. OMD. But I will talk about that atrocity in a bit. Instead I will be referring to the new 52's Tim Drake. In the pre-52 Tim was able to do something that few people have managed, to deduce that Bruce Wayne was Batman. Fantastic idea, it shows how seriously we can take this character as a detective and as a robin. Problem is the 52 scrapped this for something much more generic. Apparently to the point where he was never a robin? That part still confuses me.
3. Inhibiting Character Growth: I know this was a long post so I'll try to have this be my last Point. One More Day... This story alone show how little of a f^&k the industry gives about evolving their characters. Peter and MJ had been married for roughly 20 years in real time and a comic equivalent of 5 to 7 years from what I've gathered. Everyone said the marriage was broken but JMS essentially did a whole run about these two and guess what, it worked. But not the point, so marvel wants to end the marriage but they don't want them to have a divorce which would be a great case of character development, no they want to have their cake and eat it too. They want their spidey to deage, lose his new powers and be single again so they can rehash every spider trope known to man. This stuff isn't original people, it just has a new coat of paint.
So my advice to the comic industry? Give something to care about! Make honest character building changes and you will have my money! You can't renumber and corrupt my characters to the point where the only way I believe you can save peter parker is to kill him off barry allen style. That stuff isn't going make me buy more of your books. What it will do though is have me spend 25 minutes writing about why it bothers me on the internet.
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