Posted in: Comics | Tagged: comic store in your future, Comics, entertainment

Comic Store In Your Future: Spoilers!

Rod Lamberti of Rodman Comics, writes weekly for Bleeding Cool. Find previous columns here.

In this day and age of instant gratification and spoilers (also known as age of the internet) a lot of discussion happens about spoilers. Be warned I will be talking about spoilers. From Free Comic Book Day spoilers to Star Trek and Star Wars movie spoilers. Like you didn't know in Star Trek Beyond the Enterprise gets destroyed? It was only shown in the previews and advertising a gazillion times. Do spoilers hurt comics? Before this year's Free Comic Book Day actually happened the shocker of FCBD Secret Empire issue of Captain America as an agent of Hydra lifting Thor's hammer was spoiled. I myself didn't think much of it. A cosmic cube rewrote history to make Captain America a Hydra agent, so a little more rewriting so he could lift the hammer not that big of a deal in my mind.

Nick Spencer, writer of Captain America Steve Rogers and Secret Empire posted on his twitter this:

https://twitter.com/nickspencer/status/856842372558102529

I read that and was little puzzled. Nick had comic fans getting sneak peeks of the issue weeks before it came out at the comic convention C2E2. Tweeting out

https://twitter.com/nickspencer/status/855931200019550208

Nick was spoiling his own comic in person at C2E2. So in his mind was he hurting retailers? Was Nick hurting me? KHAAANN!!! I mean NIIIIICK!!!

Let us be real for a moment. This year isn't the first Free Comic Book Day event. Over the years the Free Comic Book Day comics have been spoiled. In the future they will keep getting spoiled. I myself like to be surprised and personally wish they wouldn't be spoiled. I know that isn't going to happen. It has the same chance of Santa Clause coming down my chimney this year. I know he is real but I know it's been many many years since I have been good. For goodness sake I own a comic store so you know I haven't been good.

What's that you say? Santa Clause isn't real? He is more real than those mythical new customers that start buying comics thanks to Free Comic Book Day.

Rich Johnston says (on twitter so it must be true)

It does get the internet going. And the theory if people are talking about your product then it is getting more exposure then it is a good thing could be true.

But acting upset that comics are being spoiled before they actually come out is odd. Specially when the person complaining about spoilers are doing spoilers. Again, I wish it wasn't the case. But it is what it is.

Spoilers aren't just limited to comics. I think I would have enjoyed Star Trek Beyond more if I hadn't seen the Enterprise being destroyed during movie previews while seeing other movies. Then seeing it on TV advertisements along with everywhere else. By the time I went and seen the movie the destruction of the Enterprise for me was yeah been there and actually seen it too many times.

Can you image how different things would have been had the internet been around for the Empire Strikes Back? "I am your father." What a shocker. If the movie had came out now it would be yeah read about that on the internet already.

The classic movie Star Trek II the Wraith of Khan. Spock dies! If that came out now most people would be oh yeah Spock dies. Read about that already. People would be mocking the holding up their hands on the glass thing. It would have been mocked as a meme.

Spoilers are a reality in this day and age. People may not want something spoiled but often times they just can't help themselves. People want to know! It's like when I got my shirt caught and ripped some buttons off my buttoned up shirt and I foolishly said everyone don't look over here. What did everyone in the room do? They looked right over at me to see what was going on. DOH!

I would say the reason so many "shocking" things happen in comics today is just to get people talking about it. To make it spoiler worthy. Internet buzz-worthyThat in my mind would be a lot of the point to Captain America being an agent of Hydra.

Here is a non-spoiler. Free Comic Book Day is now done.

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