Comic book companies shake things up on a regular basis. They do this for all sorts of reasons: To attract new readers, to swap out creative teams and see if they can find gold in new places, for business reasons. And Marvel is taking a few steps it’s never taken before, in continuity. But outside of that, there’s a problem; they’re retrenching, not experimenting.
Consider this: Of the 45 new books that were leaked, 29 are recognizably from movies or TV shows, if you’re being overly strict and assume the man on the street doesn’t know who characters like Silk and Angela are. Nine of those are Spidey-books, including a team book that’s all Spidey characters. Fourteen are either Avengers books or solo books starring Avengers. Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is apparently a big enough hit on TV that we get two S.H.I.E.L.D. books. The Guardians of the Galaxy get three books.
The books themselves have some interesting ideas. Just check out the cover to Spider-Woman, or read up on how they’re turning the Incredible Hulk into the Totally Awesome Hulk. But these are largely cosmetic changes, and not even comics fans think all of them will stick.
Marvel has made no secret of the fact that the movies are what drives the publishing end of things, and there’s reason for that: Ant-Man alone will probably make more money for Marvel than their publishing operations before it even hits DVD, which is a bizarre sentence to write, but true. Marvel and DC are comic book companies where the products based on their comics are more important to their bottom line than the comics themselves.
For now, at least. Marvel needs the risky, off-beat books because, perversely, they’re often the most accessible to new readers. It’s not that The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl or Howard the Duck will spawn the next wave of Marvel box office hits, but those books tend to make people into comics readers, and the medium needs more of those. Marvel needs to treat its movie success as a cue to get weird, not try to sell yet another Spidey book.