The other night I found myself having a hard time falling asleep.
I wasn't tossing and turning because of work. I wasn't buzzed from a fun night out or an ill-timed cup of coffee.
I was tossing and turning because the stack of comics by bedside made no sense at all. It was just a chaotic tower of storytelling. I literally could not pick up a single comic and just read it because I had no idea if the previous issue of that storyline remained unread farther below.
So, I got up and did a quick "by title" organization on the floor, my dresser and the bench near the window. My wife Whitney paid me no mind until I fell back into my bed almost 10 minutes later, literally covered in sweat (it was a hot night).
"What were you doing?" she asked.
"Organizing my stack," I replied. "I have a lot of comics to read this weekend."
We've all complained about the unread stack. It's a sad fact of life when you commit to reading a large number of titles. However, the past few months have felt a bit different, and I was curious to find out if you and I are experiencing the same things.
First off: I really hate the Fear Itself banner treatment on seemingly all of Marvel's books. I think they probably do it on purpose (scratch that: of course they are doing it on purpose), but there is no way to figure out of if a book is a real tie-in (like, a mini-series tied to the main book) or just the regular issue of the book whose characters may or may not utter the words "Norse" or "hammer" or "battle." It sounds like a small thing, but honestly, it's crazy making because oftentimes I want to read the tie-ins alongside of the relevant issue of the Fear Itself, just to keep the story, such as it is, in the right timeline.
The problem is, I don't much like Fear itself, and I have made the decision, admittedly a tad late, to only read the main book. But almost every Marvel book I buy looks like one of the tie-in issues and organizing them has become an incredible pain in the ass. So, yes, obviously I need to cull out all of the Fear Itself tie-ins and collect all the books that I want to read into a sub-stack, but honestly, so much time has passed since I have read any of those books (primarily the Avengers titles) that I am actually of the mind to just drop all of those books because obviously I don't really want to read any them.
The same thing is happening with Death/Fallout of Ultimate Spider-Man. It's absolutely incredible, frankly, how many comics are somehow related to the untimely demise of Spider-Man. They all have some kind of verbiage linking it into the death, and the text is all presented the same way, yet is slightly different. I look at all of those issues and I literally have no idea how I am supposed to read them, what order, etc. It's gotten so bad that I am dropping all of those titles, completely. I will wait for the podcast to let me know if there is a new Ultimate Spider-Man book to buy and maybe I will pick it up, but this experience has encouraged me to completely drop all of the Ultimate books. Now, I admit, I was only picking up a few titles, but still, the point is: by flooding the market with so many books saddled with the Death/Fallout of Spider-Man label, without any kind of indication as to which ones are the "real" story, they have made it impossible to actually enjoy the story!
The idea of flooding the market with a ton of similar-but-different items is obviously not a new one. I remember when I worked at Apple when they just released so many different Macs, each with a different name/number, many of which differed only in small ways. It was a disaster–it got to the point that people who actually worked at Apple had no idea which Mac to recommend to their friends! I think the same thing is happening, at least to me, with the Marvel books.
I mean, it would be one thing if the books in question were tied to events that spurred the imagination. Fear Itself, as far as I can tell, is Blackest Night with hammers. Yes, there are differences, but honestly, unless there are just amazing tie-ins that add more texture to the fight scenes, er, story being told in the main books, that's all I am getting out of it. Yes, the art is great, sure, but, wow—nothing is happening in the main book! Maybe the tie-ins are great, but Marvel made it very clear that a reader could just read the main books and have a great experience with this tale. The tie-ins should make a strong story even better, not be the illuminating and emotionally compelling interstitial scenes between the issues of main books.
The death of Spider-Man bothers me for a few reasons. First off, the whole thing just seems to come out of nowhere. Okay, sure—death comes out of nowhere, I get it, but in this case, this death comes at a very strange time. The book was doing great, I thought. I was having a blast with the new artists. It was my go-to book, the one I was always happy to get, the one I would usually read first. In the span of a few months, Marvel's killed the book and killed any chance of my picking up any of the titles revolving around this madness. It has been done with such callousness that, well, I will just say it here: it will be a miracle if I ever pick up an Ultimate Spider-Man book.
Maybe that's for the best, you know? Maybe this is what growing up is supposedly all about: saying "no" to getting screwed over. Saying "enough" when publishers take advantage of your willingness to support their books. Ultimate Spider-Man represented quality. It was the book you could recommend to readers, new and old. And now…like…what's the point? It's almost as if Marvel is doing a mini-reboot in response to DC's New 52.
Finally–it's not just Marvel. DC's carpet-bombing of Green Lantern books has, with whatever war is happening–or just ending–has resulted in my dropping the entire line and subsequent "Aftermath" books. And while I have been pretty supportive of what DC is doing next month, I will admit that I have been dropping books that I know are going to fundamentally change with the new lineup. Well…I've dropped Action Comics, at least. I am buying a few books, like Batgirl, because I will be sad to see that character go. (The ending of DC's present universe is something I will touch upon next month.)
We've all be frustrated by publishers flooding the market with books that were of dubious value. However, I can't remember a time when I have been so utterly turned off on so many comics at once thanks to an event. If a publisher is going to use a banner to link stories together, it should realize that while that might sound like a cool idea, that it might look cool to see that design continuity on the shelves, in can quickly go from "Wow, there are so many books!" to "Crap, do I have to buy that many books!?" Especially now–especially now, Marvel needs to recognize that DC is making a pretty good case for many readers to dive into their new line of books and that the Marvel brand needs to represent everything that is good about the "House of Ideas," a publisher with dynamic stories that are exciting to behold with characters that speak to your heart. The bad taste in my mouth from Fear itself and the Death of Ultimate Spider-Man is not only making me look forward to what DC is doing even more, but also making me question whether or not I should stick with a good number of Marvel titles in the first place.
I am really looking forward to seeing what Marvel does over the next few months. I hope they figure out a way to win me back.
Mike Romo is an actor in LA. He's usually a pretty positive guy and would like to state that he enjoyed the first issue of X-Men: Schism. And Daredevil #1. Hurl epithets at him in email, find out what's got him all riled up on twitter, and whatever you're supposed to do on facebook.
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I’m the opposite. I’m so sick of what DC is doing and their garabage crossovers that I’ve pretty much dropped DC completely for Marvel which seems to have the better overall product and more compelling storylines. The Death of Spider-Man was a great way to end that chapter and begin anew. The whole Flashpoint angle with DC is so ridiculous that they’ve lost me… again.
I just can’t stand the juvenile way DC treats its characters.
Thank you! There are too many tie-ins and pretendy tie-ins.
And Marvel’s trade dress for events has been driving me mad ever since Civil War, what with massive logos and huge blocks of colour wasting much of the cover. A banner at the top will do just fine, cheers, Marvel.
Further reason why Flashpoint at DC is amazing. You can read the main book and enjoy it as a stand alone. You can pick up the minis and enjoy them alone or simply have them add more to the universe Flashpoint has created.
But I am with you Mike. I dropped everything with Fear Itself, minus Avengers Academy because I like that title too much and is still making a good book even with the editorial curveball it has been thrown. And, I could try and add to what you said about Ultimate Spiderman, but it would only echo every same thought.
I was so totally unimpressed with Blackest Night … Seriously, what WAS the bid deal? Fear Itself has been OK, but comparing it to BN is like comparing apples and oranges. The best Marvel book of the summer IMO has been Journey Into Mystery.
What I find slightly saddening is that so much attention is given to arguing about the big two when there is wonderful work being put out by the smaller publishers. Boom!, Dark Horse, IDW, Dynamite, Image … each have some fantastic titles. The ongoing debate about which of the big two sucks more cheats readers and indies alike.
There aren’t really that many tie-ins to Death of Spider-man at all. In fact, I thought it was just the main Spider-man book and the “Ultimate Ultimates vs New Ultimate Avengers Ultimates” or whatever it was called.
I couldn’t agree more your assesment of the Fearful Age.
Tiresome- unimaginitive and so much time wasted.
For me a lot of that is the while Fraction may be a good writer- he clearly shouldn’t be a Marvel “architect”
We all recognize the business need for events- they sell.
But what is sad is Marvel’s failure to understand over saturation and futrthermore not learning from the success of brevity with the well done Siege. And event that didn’t beat a dead horse and offered something tangible.
I have grown tired Bendis’ Avenger dialogue- but the man designed a Much smarter event.
I think a good rule of thumb (what does that even mean…thumb rules?) when it comes to tie-ins is to get tie-ins when they are in ongoing titles you already read, and to not get mini-series tie-ins. Those often add nothing significant to the story. If something significant is going to happen it will happen in the main mini-series.
@Mart – I agree. I hate that half the page is taken away on these event book covers. I want to see a full page of art.
@365 thats exactly what I do, read only the tie ins to books you’re already reading. And honestly, a year from now you’re not going to remember what happened in most the tie ins anyway
Also, I don’t think Fear Itself has more tie ins than usual, its just that the questionable quality of the event itself has gotten more people to grow tiresome of all the said tie ins. No one ever complains about having too many good books, just bad ones.
It’s amazing, Mike, how similar our experiences this week have been. I just went through a stack of 30 issues on the coffee table and had to alphabetize them just to figure out what I had, only to see three issues of the same title multiple times. Obviously, that book is not grabbing me, but I keep grabbing the book.
When you find yourself sitting down and reading all 30, by the way, you see a lot of tap-dancing in some of those tie-ins.
I also have been befuddled by Marvel cover treatments more than usual this summer. I accidentally bought an Ultimate book I wasn’t even reading and missed the one book in which Spider-Man was actually dead.
ditto to all. they marketed Fear Itself as a real life drama (as marvel always does, thank for calling them on that in the podcast guys, least Josh and Conner) where currents events that trouble us like economy, racism, ecologic disaster, etc would spread rampant the archetypes of these problems would affect the heroes. That’s what Quesada said in the “press conference” i heard it with my own ears. So, I didn’t know we had a problem with falling hammers from the sky, and giant dumb villains hitting shit all day long. Fraction: give it up, you’re not a good writer, you’re just not. Bendis, I cannot stand ANYTHING you have ever written. I know that last part was mean, even uncalled for. but i don’t care, this “event” is beyond ridiculous!
I’ve been buying Fear Itself to stay current. the only title that i am reading that can be considered a tie in book in Invincible Iron Man. I’m not really impressed by either right now, and we’ll see what’s slated for Iron Man after Fear Itself. Not impressed wither with Flashpoint; the main book seems all over the place; hoever, I am excited for the DCnU, and will be picking up some books I haven’t before to try them out.
I think the most important thing that I am taking away from my summer comic reading is that I am looking for something different, something well written, something that get’s me thinking and engaged and not something that I read as fast as I can to get to the next book.
Come post Fear Itself and Flashpoint, I think my comic buying/reading habits are going to change drastically. let’s hope my LCS can accomodate that.
@nightwalker, let’s pepper some positivity on all the negative trash-talk. What isn’t terrible? If fractions letting us down where can we go instead to get a big satisfying summer comicbook epic?
@DeadlyFoe Flashpoint.
While I can’t talk towards Fear Itself, as I’m not reading it, I will say that Flashpoint and its various tie-ins are giving me exactly what Fear Itself isn’t giving you, Mike. There’s a central narrative in the main book that focuses on just a few main characters. The spin-offs barely tie into the overall narrative, so there’s no confusion as to which you need to read first or second. Just read them in whatever order you’d like. It’s really been great and I’ve been impressed with how flushed out it’s made the story seem. I’m reading about 75% of all the Flashpoint tie-ins and I don’t feel like I’m missing any of the story by staying away from that last 25%.
It’s been really enjoyable.
@nightwalker. FYI I agree we’ve been mis-sold this whole event. I was expecting an event with some meat on it’s bones. I really think marvel could use something akin to ‘identity crisis’. I think it’s time to give Rick Remender a shot at an event. He understands the whole big picture of the MU and I’m sure he could bring a focussed and entertaining story to the table.
I agree about Fear Itself. We’re, what? 4 issues in and I just don’t care about anything that’s happened in that book, nor do I care how anything turns out. And I haven’t picked up a single tie-in because of it. Flashpoint, though, has been great. Twists and turns and just a whole lot of fun throughout. Other than the Batman tie-in though, I haven’t really gotten any others. I haven’t read Ultimate Spidey in quite a while, so I can’t speak to that, but my stack of unread books is composed mostly of DC, just because I know everything will have changed in another month. I think Detective Comics is the only book (that will still be around in September) that I just can’t wait to read right now.
Good article.
I don’t understand how so many of you guys get to this point, though.
I only buy comics I care about. If I don’t like a series, even an event book, then I certainly wouldn’t've kept buying it to issue #4. That just makes no sense to me. I’m never confused about what I have to read next. I only buy things I care about! If someone buys such a glut of comics that the to-read pile resembles an imposing mess, then that’s not really Marvel’s fault as much as it is the purchaser’s fault.
But, I just I don’t get the psychology behind most comics readers. Y’all talk about your “stacks” of unread comics. Sure, I have a few comics I own but have never read, but nothing like what you guys have. You guys have spent hundreds if not thousands of dollars on comics you never read? And then you complain about not having room for comics and wanting to go fully digital. You’d have more room if you wouldn’t buy so much stuff that you didn’t care to read all that much!
I dunno, guys. This is your own bed you’re lying in! lol
@froggulper
I think part of it is, at least for me, is that a lot of readers want to see how the story ends, so they will continue to buy it. I dropped a lot of books in the past year, but i finished an arc before i dropped them. I always feel that I am pot committed if i am half way through a story and if i’ve read this much i might as well finish it.
there’s also this sense of wanting to see what happens next. to be in the know. there are readers who read Death of Spider-man so that they can be apart of that circle who was there for that important moment; they are staying current with the goings on of that universe.
I know lots of collectors who keep buying to have each and every issue. Watch cons and you will see tons of readers search long boxes with papers in hand looking for those issues they’ve missed, and once they find it, they cross it off there list.
I won’t argue that buying all these comics and leaving until there are too many isn’t the fault of the reader/buyer, but there is a reason guys like Mike and Jim do this. It’s because they care about this medium. They want to be as part of it as they possible can. Sometimes you take the good with the bad.
Look at the bright side much? While tons of fans complain about character deaths the ressurections, now fans complain about ultimate spidey’s death which appears to be quite permanent and thus, something altogether unique to mainstream superheroes. And Fear Itself ha brought us Gillen’s suburlative first arc in Journey Into Mystery.
@DeadlyFoe there are a lot of good things going, but that’s not the topic of this article. I’m being specific to Fear Itself and the writers. I agree Remender would be cool to see in a big event.
I’m pretty much tired of events in general, no matter who the publisher is. It used to be the big summer event, now it’s an event all the time. Sometimes there are smaller mini events running concurrently across books, or a smalle rone going at the same time as a big one. Then there are all the tie-ins, which you may or may not need to read. I love a good story as much as the next guy, but I wish they would cut us some slack. If I have to cut books due to cost, sitting out an event is an easy way to do it.
After “Final Crisis” I was finished with event books and superhero books in general (although I just got into Rick Remender’s “Venom,” which is brilliant) because they just were no longer for me. Also in the last decade we’ve had a couple really well-done “events” which I think spoiled us a bit. Right now we just seem to be stuck in a repeat of the mid to late 90′s, where it’s just one event after another, characters getting killed and resurrected within the span of less than a year, and major “revamps” and “reboots’ of questionable necessity. However, as was the case in the 90′s, there are still some pretty great books out there, they just tend to the be ones that aren’t tie-ins, lead-ups, or epilogues.
Thanks to Fear Itself I only pick up 2 Marvel books now (Captain America & Daredevil). I used to love Avengers Academy but they ties it in with Fear Itself which I quit reading after the first issue so I’ve dropped AA because I don’t know whats going on.
I’m with you, Mike. Flashpoint has been ok, fairly average, but Fear Itself is a disaster that people can’t wait to get away from at my store. DC pulls have nearly doubled at my store for September, and a lot of it is because Marvel makes it so easy to walk away.
I quit buying all the alternate storyline books a while ago for both companies. What has pissed me off the most about Marvel this past year is when DC decided to do the “Drawing the Line at 2.99″ thing, a Marvel’s editor’s response (in Comic Shop News) was something like, “We’re not dropping our prices because our books are good enough to sale at the higher price point.”
Marvel’s books are not that great, and to make it worse, they release 2 or 3 issues of the same title per month at the higher price point.
It might just be me, but when I don’t have a lot of money to spend on comics, the first ones I drop are the higher-priced, more frequent ones that have stories about 6 different spider clones.
I’ve been let down recently but comics. I hope its my early thirties catching up to me but I’m tired of characters dying constantslty. Torch just died, now Ultimate Spidey. Plus I’m excited for DC but the just invited me to take off and I accepted. I have been excited about X-Men though. Spider-Island might be alright. Kinda doubt it though.
I’m glad DC’s only tie-in books are all minis because it makes it OK for me to outright ignore Flashpoint which I have been doing successfully so far. I’ve dropped most of my marvel books, the Ultimate line has been dealing with with a storyline I’ve felt lukewarm about in the first place I think its time to drop those books too. All these #1′s coming out from both publishers makes for a perfect time to re-examine what I do and do not want in my pull list.
What bothrs me most about the death of Ultimate Spidey is not that came out of nowhere (though I agree with that sentiment), or that it was precipitated by a pointless sacrifice in the midst of a dumb event (New Ultimates vs. Ultimate Avengers? Is there a third choice?). But more than anything else it bothers me that this Death of Spider-Man event follows less than 2 years after the fake-out death from Ultimatum and the resulting reboot of Ultimate Spider-Man. And I was glad that he survived (exactly how? nevermind it’s comics magic). And I would have been fine if he survived this too. Even though Marvel would surely have had a false-advertising class-action lawsuit on their hands. Wait, what’s that? They do this all the time? Ah. Actually what I was really hoping for was that he would survive but hang up his cowl and take it easy and just be a kid for a while. A la Harry Potter. Let someone else be the hero for a bit, fine, but did we have to kill off the coolest guy in the Ultimate universe?
No worries, they will probably end up rebooting ultimate spider if people stop buying it with this new lame spidey.
To quote Peter Griffin “it insists upon itself” .
Fear itself wants to be a bigger deal than it is. Can something be TOO epic? I really don’t like how these events take over every book in the universe for an issue or two. It puts those stories on hold which i suppose is real life (unexpected life crap) but still…not always fun.
Plus the Fear Itself banner is incredibly ugly so it sucks to see it on all those comics.
I don’t really let banners, tie-ins, events or reading order affect my buying habits at all anymore.
I’m not a day-and-date guy, I’m a trade waiter for some books, I read the library’s copy of a lot of stuff the year (or decade) after it comes out, and I can get the reading order from the Internet if I really care about it.
I’ll often read all the way through a particular title in library trades, like I’m doing with Ms. Marvel right now. Sure this is the 17th time I’ve read about Secret Invasion, and sure it was cool to find Captain Marvel: Secret Invasion at the library the same day I happened to be reading Ms. Marvel: Secret Invasion, and sure it was even nicer to almost kind of read the correct issues in the correct order, but I’m so over it that it doesn’t even begin to affect me anymore.
Even though Ms. Marvel was in the Captain Marvel book, Captain Marvel wasn’t in her book; as a matter of fact her book didn’t even reference what went on in his book, even though the two issues had a big wraparound variant cover that tied the two issues together (a cover that was featured in both trades, by the way – Ms. Marvel #25 & Captain Marvel #1, misidentified in his trade as #4) and they were both supposedly released the same month, maybe even the same week (three years ago). I stopped being fooled by this stuff some time around 1996. It’s marketing. It’s hype. It’s hoopla. I refuse to get worked up about it.
It’s nice when it works out. If it doesn’t, I don’t care. I’m somewhat capable of kind of keeping it all in my head, and if not, there’s always Google, Wikipedia, or Marvel’s website to look up the details.
I’m still getting the titles I want to buy. The cover graphics and recap pages are cool for kind of tying it all together, but they don’t compel me to buy anything I don’t want. I rarely buy “event” books in and of themselves anymore. I don’t review comics for a website, so I don’t have any reason to feel I have to remain current.
I tend to like finding “obscure” events, like Escape From the Negative Zone, months later, limited to three annuals, and scouring the back-issue bins of three different stores for the relative issues. The only reason I even knew about that “event” was that I happened to be collecting Super-Soldier, and just blindly grabbed the annual without even realizing it was part of an advertising campaign for Uncanny X-Men, X-Men, or whatevr mutant book Namor is in now.
I picked up the recent run of Uncanny X-Men the Dodsons did last week, and just the issues related to that arc (#534.1 to #538, iirc).
I grabbed the recent Yost/Medina X-Men ”event” or arc, I can’t even remember the name of it now, just because I dig those two creators and the color looked really cool (X-Men Must Have #1 - reprints #7 – 9, and issues #10 through #15, iirc, even though one of those issues, #11 maybe was tied into some Curse of the Mutants storyline I couldn’t be bothered to chase down).
That kind of stuff is fun for me. It let’s me decide what “event” I want to care about. Did it all come out months ago? Sure. Has it already been reviewed and discussed online? I guess. Do I care? Not really. Someday soon (or ten years from now) I’ll sit down with those issues and a bottle of Yoo-hoo and enjoy an afternoon of comic book reading. Or not.
I skipped Fear Itself, Flashpoint and the Death of Spider-Man. I could care less about Shadowland, World War Hulk, Blackest Day, Brightest Night, etc., etc. I was somewhat excited about the Heroic Age, because it seemed to be a good place to draw a line in the sand and start reading my issues forward from there, but I never felt compelled to buy, read, collect or place in their proper order every single comic book thusly labeled.
I bought a dozen or so issues of USM when they did the last renumbering, but I haven’t even read them yet. Hell, I haven’t read any of the Ultimate comics I bought yet. I just kept buying a them and piling them up until I finally said, “Screw it, why am I paying for these? I’ll read them in ten years in trades anyway, and the library owns all of this stuff.”
I still bought Ultimate Avengers vs. New Ultimates, but that was because at the time I had been trying to get some idea of what was going on in the Ultimate Avengers universe. After three different minis in about a year or so, I have to admit I don’t really care, and can’t afford it anyway.
Whatever issue of Ultimate X is the last issue will be the last Ultimate comic book I ever buy. Because I just can’t afford to buy everything that comes out, I can’t really follow more than one corner of one universe anyway, and I just don’t feel compelled to follow every event that comes down the pike in the exact order the very week that it comes out.
My advice? Unclench. Let somebody else read and review every issue that comes out. Let somebody else follow every event that comes along. Buy the books you like. Don’t let a marketing ploy spin you into a tizzy.
Speaking of which, I still have thirty-plus issues of Backlash around here I need to read some day. I wonder what events they were tied into, and what banners they had on them?
Its amazing how FEAR: ITSELF killed Marvel dead for me. I hated the main story..so I decided not to buy the tie-ins. But that was practically every title !!
I continued to buy some like Avengers Academy and it was like my favorite stories just went on hiatus while the flying hammer crap was all around me.
Finally Iron Man 2.0 came back without Fear Itself this week so I can go back to the stroy I was enjoying. I am intrigued in trying out as many new DC titles as I can, I don’t know how many Marvel titles I can afford to go back to. Other then X-Men Schism there is very little there that has be interested.
I think Fear itself is an ok book but what mike has said, you can just read the main book itself and enjoy it. Which what made me drop Marvel a few years back, I was a college student then and does not have much money to buy comic books so, I thought it was a rip off to buy the different books under a title banner to really appreciate the story. I dont get that with DC, like the previous comments here, you can still enjoy flashpoint and blackest night without buying the other books of the title banner. And with marvel’s price of $3.99, I dont think that its such a good idea.
I’m just sayin