Posted in: Comics, Comics Publishers, Image, Marvel Comics | Tagged: comic shop, todd mcfarlane

Comic Store In Your Future – Can Todd McFarlane Do What Marvel Can't?

Marvel Comics' Dan Buckley said, "the days of having a 500-issue run is probably a reach, but we are looking at having less limited series"

Published Sun, 30 Jun 2024 14:32:07 -0500

by Rod Lamberti

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Article Summary

Examining Todd McFarlane's successful run of Spawn titles versus Marvel's short series approach.
Marvel faces criticism for high turnover in titles and reliance on relaunches and one-shots.
Fans struggle with Marvel's over-extension of multiple spin-offs and numerous mutant titles.
Reflecting on Marvel's pricing and product strategy with comparisons to McFarlane's methods.

Marvel Comics President Dan Buckley said, "I think the days of having a 500-issue run is probably a reach, but we are looking at having less limited series and more ongoing, with all our characters. I'm not going to say there won't be a limited series, but I am, at the moment, approving some series for ten issues at a time, not 4 or 5. Hopefully, I can get to 15 or 20. That is the intent. Because, to be honest, it's a lot of work on our editorial staff, too, to restart books all the time; there's a lot of work on our marketing staff to re-market a book coming out. It's to the benefit of everyone to figure this out."

Comic Store In Your Future-Todd McFarlane Able To Do What Marvel Can't? — Spawn and Marvel Comics. Photo by Rod Lamberti

Why not just ask Spawn creator Todd McFarlane? His long-running Spawn title has passed 350 issues—no renumbering, no relaunches. Gunslinger Spawn has over 30 issues, Spawn Scorched has over 30 issues, and King Spawn again has over 30 issues. That is more than the "hopefully" 15 or 20 issues that Dan hopes for with Marvel titles.

Is Spawn more popular than a majority of Marvel's characters? With the various Marvel movies, that would be doubtful.

Joe Quesada, former EIC and CCO of Marvel, once said of DC, "I mean, they have Batman and Superman, and they don't know what to do with them. That's like being a porn star with the biggest dick, and you can't get it up." Marvel now has more well-known characters than ever, thanks to their movies reaching so many people. Iron Man, Captain America, Avengers, Doctor Strange, Captain Marvel, and more over the years have been unable to go long stretches of being published without relaunching.

Spawn and the various Spawn spin-offs average a $2.99 cover price. Good luck finding a current Marvel title for $2.99. What does Marvel do with the extra money they make by charging a higher cover price? Invest in new talent? Many would argue that is not the case.

Buckley was answering the question put to him from ICV2, who asked, "We've heard from retailers that the shortening up of series, with more and more one-shots, more and more miniseries, and fewer and fewer longer ongoing series, makes it harder to maintain the habit of collecting. Marvel is definitely in that role." As a comic store owner, I would say that is very true. Over the years, Captain Marvel's various relaunches make me not want to order her title. It is just an attempt to get me to overorder on the first issue.

Marvel gets a hot title that sells well, and they will kill it by having too many spin-offs. How many short-lived Spider-Man spin-offs have there been over the years? I still remember the House and Powers of X limited series by Jonathan Hickman and how excited people were by the return of the X-Men. So what does Marvel do? They publish so many mutant titles that people feel they are not able to keep up financially or have enough time to read them all, so people stop buying them all.

If Marvel had the G.I. Joe license currently and were publishing the characters, they would kill the demand and popularity that G.I. Joe is seeing over at Image. Duke and Cobra Commander were only limited series that were then replaced with Scarlet and Destro titles. Marvel would have had Duke and Cobra Commander as an ongoing series while Scarlet and Destro was being published. It's not only that Marvel would stretch the G.I. Joe fans' wallets until they broke, trying to read everything they would put out. Snake Eyes, for sure, would be a Marvel G.I. Joe title; every G.I. Joe character would get their own title, from Snake Eyes to Sergent Slaughter. Restraint is not something Marvel is willing to do.