A Little Bit On Marvel NOW

What are people's thoughts on the Marvel NOW! thing? Do you think it's a better way of, I guess "retooling" their line, than DC's approach? I know I saw a few people who said they would have liked to try more of the new titles, but with DC launching 52 books all at once, they just couldn't afford to try everything. I'm not sure if that was a widespread issue or not.

DC's approach seems better suited to garnering that media attention they and Marvel so desire. Which maybe, potentially, attracts some new readers (but probably doesn't hold them). It's a little easier to say "we're starting everything over from scratch*", than "we're canceling a few titles over the course of a few months, and launching some new titles with those characters in different situations". Maybe's that a misreading of the situation, but it's how I perceive what Marvel's doing, based on solicits and such.

I do like that Marvel isn't canceling everything and starting over, because it means I don't lose books I was enjoying in the service of some sales gimmick that otherwise doesn't affect me. That was the most frustrating aspect of DC's relaunch, that I lost Batgirl, and it's yet to be replaced with anything I enjoy quite as much. I don't know if that makes it a better approach than DC's, but it works better for me.

Thus far, Marvel hasn't solicited much that interests me. Maybe the new Captain America series. Putting Cap in another dimension is an opportunity to introduce interesting concepts, and Remender has been pretty good at that. Plus, the idea of putting Steve Rogers in a strange land, and seeing how he applies what he believes there sounds interesting. Put him in contact with people who, for example, don't value individual freedom. It's not a concept of importance to them. They like groupthink, or whatever. How does he react to that? John Romita Jr.'s artwork doesn't hurt, either, though it's been several years since I bought a title he drew regularly (Amazing Spider-Man with JMS?)

Maybe that book can take Defenders' place.

I don't expect this to help Marvel's sales in any significant way, certainly not in the longterm. But hopefully we'll get some good books out of it, and perhaps Marvel could even leave them alone long enough to find their footing. That was what really surprised me, that they would cancel Uncanny X-Men so soon after they just restarted it. Gillen really didn't have much time to do anything. Maybe that just means writers should learn to move their stories along faster. Less decompression, unless you want everything you have planned hopelessly disrupted by the next stupid summer event!

* Except not really since the Bat and Lantern books mostly kept the same plots going.