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

Comic Store In Your Future: Marvel Legacy Won?

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

Marvel would like people to think otherwise, but sales wise and creativity wise Marvel hasn't been growing for a while to put it mildly.

Marvel's Now wasn't a hit. Not to be confused with Marvel Now from years ago. Marvel's Secret Empire was not the event juggernaut that retailers and readers had hoped for. Marvel Generations is confusing. It happened between panels apparently. Is it time travel? Sam Wilson lived a whole lifetime in the Captain America Generations one shot? Something that was just put into their minds? Another lazy storyline just to put product out?

Marvel sales have not been up to previous Marvel standards for quite a while. The Marvel name alone used to bring in many more customers. The Legacy one shot is Marvel's answer to Rebirth. Minus the $2.99 price tag that Rebirth had. Marvel's hope of improving sales. It is Wednesday night as I type this up. I usually don't review comics though this time I thought I would report how well it did sales-wise along of what I thought of the book as a retailer and comic fan.

How can Marvel get its mojo back? Sell. Comic stores love publishers that make them money. It is like a sport team that wins. The more a team wins the less wrong the team can do it seems. People love winners. Right now Marvel needs some winning titles. Titles that sell. Once Marvel does that, stores will cut Marvel more slack and we will love them again. DC You was not a hit for DC. People were down on DC and then Rebirth came out and DC was smelling like roses. That and the fact that Marvel stumbled a lot and did some foolish things that were less than well thought out, such as the infamous meeting with top retailers who signed no disclosure agreements while letting a reporter publish what was said. And what was said wasn't what Marvel was proud of. DC didn't need to do much to look good, Marvel would do that for DC just by being Marvel-light.

Are fans and retailers tougher on Marvel than other publishers? At times yes. As I have said in previous columns Valiant as a publisher has a much more uphill battle in the comic market than Marvel. They have less money, their characters are not as well know ( that may change once their characters make it on the big screen), and publish a lot fewer books. Though here in store their characters such as Bloodshot, Ninjak, and X-O Manowar are selling as well or close or better than Marvel titles. Avengers is known to millions thanks to the various movies, but yet somehow X-O Manowar is giving the Avengers title a run for its money here. Those same Valiant titles also sold or sells more than Marvel titles such as All New Guardians, Drax, Gamora, Hyperion, Fury, Mockingbird, Mighty Captain Marvel, Moongirl and Devil Dinosaur, Ms Marvel, Nighthawk, Slapstick, Solo, Starlord, and more. All New Guardians, Drax, Gamora, and Star-Lord were in some movie that millions of people seen this year called Guardians of the Galaxy 2 yet Drax, Gamora, and Star-Lord were already cancelled and All-New Guardians is being outsold by characters that have not been exposed to millions of people. That's pretty messed up.

As a comic store owner, I, of course, want the one shot to be so popular that it sells out. When I ordered it I did indeed hope it would sell well. I was much happier when Marvel changed its mind and didn't have the lenticular variant for this issue tied into how many copies of a previous Secret Empire issue was sold. It was too high for me and I was simply not going to order the lenticular cover. Why Marvel didn't simply let us do the same with orders for next month's lenticular covers I do not understand.

If a comic does not sell out, that is money lost.

Spoilers after this line about Legacy.

The B.C. Avengers all seemed like jerks. Not just all-knowing all-jerk Odin but all of them seemed unlikable. For being showcased by Marvel so much they didn't have a lot of pages to be showcased in this one shot. While Ghost Rider and Starbrand seemed to have a meaningless fight. To me, it seemed to be an odd fight. Ghost Rider just waking up not knowing where he is and then hey, it's Starbrand and we are going to fight.

Logan is back. And it was odd. Apparently, he just up left and walked away from his adamantium casing somehow then jumped in a beer truck and just somehow was at the right place at the right time to get an Infinity Stone. Logan was in character it's just very odd about him being back to life.

What could have helped make his return in Legacy an even bigger event for comic fans? Not having an Old Man Logan monthly and Wolverine's clone in her own series in All-New Wolverine along with a young Wolverine in X-Men Blue. It is harder to miss a character when their older version is featured in Astonishing X Men and their own series along with other comics with a younger version. Marvel has so many mutants do they really need younger and older versions of the X Men?

In my opinion, Logan, while being a popular character was overexposed before his death. He was on Uncanny X-Force, an Avengers team, Astonishing X Men, and so on. He was also in solo titles such as Wolverine the Best there is that was not a hit with the readership. It was so unpopular with readership it actually hurt Wolverine's popularity.

After so many characters returning over the years from being dead by Marvel, it doesn't feel like anything really exciting just to have another one return. After the big deal made about the deaths of Human Torch, Captain America, and Hulk only to see them return, what is different when one more returns?

As a comic fan, I am a bit annoyed about reading Marvel's Alonso call the Infinity Gems, Infinity "Stones". To me, that shows Marvel's flawed logic that the movie must trump the comics. Even if the Infinity gems were first in the comics. Stones just doesn't have the same ring to it. Minor deal at least.

The cover. Boy, do those characters look old.

The lenticular cover. Really, fades to white? Looks like a non-colored cover. Most boring lenticular cover ever. Wish Marvel had not started their onslaught of lenticular covers with this dud. Not a good lead-in for next week's lenticular covers.

The interior art was solid. I liked it.

This issue was no Rebirth even though it tried hard to be Marvel's Rebirth. Though it might be able to help right Marvel's direction. Would like to see them return to being the "House of Ideas". Original ideas of course. There was a bit of everything character-wise in this issue. It does touch on characters from Osborn to Steve Rogers teasing their future story arcs. Not sure why Ironheart needed to be in the same room as Falcon and Thor making out at the end. If she doesn't want to be there she can simply fly away. It makes the three characters seem odd. Hey, let's make out while a kid is in the room. Maybe she didn't get the hint to get out?

Where in Rebirth #1 Wally West is the focus and helps tie the issue together this issue is just a lot of characters doing different things that at times seem unrelated and has an unknown narrator until the end.

Does my opinion really matter? Actually, it's all up to the customers. I tried to push the book. I was surprised at how a lot of people here have given up on Marvel and do not want to give them another chance. That said, I did manage to get some customers talked into buying the one shot. It isn't doing nearly as well as DC's Rebirth one shot, hopefully, it will have legs. Rebirth was very much in demand and currently outsold Legacy. I say currently since it is only the first day of sales for Legacy. As of Wednesday night, Dark Knights Batman The Murder Machine Metal one shot is giving Marvel's Legacy one shot a run for its money for copies sold.

Time and readership will tell how well this does. Has Marvel gone too long without its mojo? Is Marvel Legacy too little too late? Is the one-shot the spark to return Marvel to higher sales? I do hope people enjoy the heck out of the issue and it flies out the door this week. If nothing else we have a 20 percent off everything for our anniversary this Saturday that might help it.

Next week Marvel's first wave of lenticular covers hits. Could be interesting. We will start to see if Marvel starts turning things around.

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