Whatchoo think a Marvel "New 52" would look like?

[bumblemusprime]

I've been wondering this. Marvel never monkeys with their continuity the way DC does, but it means that they generally don't give two shits about continuity.

It would be great to be able to undo One More Day and the Clone Saga, and start out Thor again without having to deal with the fact that Odin has died three or four times. One of the most off-putting things for me about Marvel has become the sheer weight of knowing their history and continuity.

Plus, it would be nice to see them incorporate some of the weirder properties they acquired over the years the way DC did with WildStorm. Prime was a great comic, and Marvel bought the Ultraverse, although for all I know they sold it off during the bankruptcy.

I think they might avoid the whole Spidey-as-a-high-schooler thing and not retell his origin, but possibly stick him back into his life as a freshman in college. Hm. The more I think about this, the more I like it. Wouldn't mind if IDW did it with the two new ongoings, either. I wonder if Chaos will rewrite continuity?

[DJ_Convoy]

Well, not to be a wag, but this is sorta, kinda what the Ultimate Universe is for, no?

Marvel pretty well pushed me away with their "Bendis writes almost everything, and everything he doesn't write is written by his pals" thing, so if they wanted to do it, I wouldn't be as outraged as I might've been a few years ago. I'm down to only a handful of titles at this point.

Ultraverse stuff won't/doesn't get incorporated (unfortunately) because Prime, et al were built (altho' by another company) under certain incentives where their use means royalties for their creators.

[Yaya]

All these kinds of big moves are just these comic companies seeing the writing on the wall and trying to make as much money with radical change as they can before the ship sinks on printed comics.

It's the reason why Marvel doesn't lower their $3.99 price tag. They know the money is in the movies now and really, they want to price gouge the comic book fans for what they're worth, knowing full well the movie to digitial comics is on the way.

Same thing with DC. They see the writing too, and aren't afraid now of radical, possibly self-destructive, change in an effort to see what they can milk out of us.

Just look at comic sales. Some months, no title breaks 100,000 anymore. They see it. We should too.

I stopped buying Marvel comics on principle now. They want to rape my wallet while they still can. At least DC lowered their price and are trying desperate moves to see if they can keep the comic industry alive.

[Best First]

i'd ****ing hate it. I love Marvel and i love the continuity behomoth even if i don't love some of the missteps along the way.

i just hope the monthly 28 pages don't die when stuff goes all digital which it inevitably will.

[bumblemusprime]

Funny. The more I think about it, the more I become convinced that I would love it. Bad continuity is such an albatross. One More Day made it all clear for me. At least Superman and Lois Lane's marriage is part of the end of the world. We have to live with nagging questions about OMD forever.

I just feel like I've seen every story I can see under the current parameters.

[Best First]

rubbish i say. Uncanny X-Force, for example, is a belter, and it's steeped in continuity, as was the not so long ago New X-Men (the Kyle and Yost stuff). Thunderbolts also.

Plus if anything these reboots seem to lead to more retelling of what has gone before rather than less.

One More Day is bad both of because of the way they did it, but also because they basically 'did a DC' on one of their characters. You are asking for them to do more of the same.

You have basically turned into Joe Q. Punch yourself in the face immediatley.

[bumblemusprime]

I am posting this because you are never allowed to get the last word.

Doesn't it bother you that these guys never age? We could have lots of good stories steeped in continuity; it means that you only have to have the good continuity.

You have basically turned into a cranky old man stuck in the 80s. Oh wait. I guess that's the whole site.

[Shanti418]

Yes, facepunch for the man who wrote "OMD made it all clear for me."

The thing about OMD like BF said, it's not about "Oh, I want my bad continuity marriage!" It's that making Faustian pacts with mythological figures to erase people's memories was NOT Marvel, it was more DC.

And let's not forget Heroes Reborn, clearly the biggest attempted punch at Marvel's continuity nutsack. Marvel tried it, and for whatever reason (do my internet research for me!) they reverted back to their old stuff.

I do understand your point about about feeling sometimes hampered by continuity, and continuity forcing storylines out of richer narrative pastures, though. At the beginning, it was all DC's fault. DC wants to make a new Flash in the mid 20th century? Uh, that first Flash was from....a different Earth, it was! That's the ticket. Meanwhile, Marvel's like, "Cap was frozen in Ice and we JUST now thawed him out." Marvel chooses fantastical science (and here the question would become what's better OMD or Ben Reilly), DC chooses alternate worlds, and the course of history is set.

In an ideal world and using Spider Man as an example, Marvel wouldn't need to "reset" Spider Man, because they would have introduced younger protagonists with similar problem sets that would create their own popularity, which ironically is what DC does more with the "generation heroes," a la the Flashes. But because there isn't an Earth-2 Spider Man, because making a popular new comic book hero is virtually impossible and unpredictable, and because fans form weird emotional connections with characters, it is as it is.

And they age, don't they? They're supposed to be aging a couple years every decade or something like that. Again, this works out PERFECTLY until you have a continuity that's 75 years old.

[Best First]

I am posting this because you are never allowed to get the last word.

Doesn't it bother you that these guys never age? We could have lots of good stories steeped in continuity; it means that you only have to have the good continuity.

You have basically turned into a cranky old man stuck in the 80s. Oh wait. I guess that's the whole site.

Ah (aah!), but by suggesting we keep the 'good continuity' are you not also stuck? Except you are trying to cut out the mistakes along the way which is exactly (in JQ's eyes) what OMD did. I'd rather someone write the dross back out than erase it - it's a better solution that suits different opinions of which bit's of the past were good.

The aging - no not really, they age enough, they have kids and there are plenty of future versions where they have grey beards and Wolverine is still grumpy and stuff. It's fine by me. It's no more stupid than, say, a war that goes on for 4 million years.

In terms of Heroes Reborn i think it died a death beacuse, basically, it sucked a big bag of dicks. Like every idea Spencer has ever had, except the one about not punching himself in the face.

[Brendocon]

I've not read all the thread, but I think stuff would work better if some of the titles, y'know, ended.

And I don't mean like how Uncanny is ending but it doesn't matter because there's like 27 other X-books about. I mean things finishing. Being finite. Stopping. Like all other media does. Well, used to before franchise became king.

Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. Babylon 5 finished. Blake's 7 finished. Okay, Doctor Who continues but that's because its got a format that's a massive wildcard cheat. Comics aren't hampered by an author getting bored so killing off all the characters out of spite, nor by the lead actor saying "y'know what, I'm too old for this ****, I want another job". I mean even Smallville ended eventually. Eastenders and Corrie go on for ever, but that's through writing out characters and introducing new ones to replace them (hello Ultimate Spider-Man, a perfect example if not for the main universe title still going anyway)

Comics just become an endless conveyor belt of changing writers resetting the characters back to how they were then they were reading. Whereas a brave label would say "Y'know what, this is it. Finished, done. Last issue. Ever." Like with Preacher and a dozen others. Finite stories make for better actual stories. Each time a new creative team comes in and resets, a serial loses credibility. Or a character who was dead gets brought back simply because a writer liked them and couldn't be arsed to come up with an original idea.

I mean I get why they don't. Name value. Brand. All that ****. But the companies existed before Spider-Man, Batman, the X-Men and the Green Lantern. Come up with a new title and finally let the old ones rest.

But it'll never happen.

End blah.