The real reasons for Marvel Comics' woes

MSN / The Atlantic ^ | May 24, 2017

[AnotherUnixGeek]

On March 30, a battered Marvel decided to try and get to the bottom of the problem with a retailer summit — and promptly stuck its foot in its mouth.

By simply stating a fact - the boys who read comics don't want to have their heroes replaced by the usual assortment of professional victim classes.

[JBW1949]

In the 50’s, I had a stack of comics as tall as I was...

Kids don’t have those kind of experiences any longer...I think it’s a shame...

[Smedley]

“What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity."

No, just we didn't want all the characters we grew up with to alluvasudden sprout a vagina, cross-dress, and talk about the need for diversity and the evils of climate deniers. Peter Parker was perfect in his original form, and didn't need to be replaced by a gay kid of color.

[x]

Did Nickelodeon and Disney Channel take all that away from the little kids???

Video games and tablets and I-phones did.

Saturday morning cartoons also disappeared; the kids aren't playing outside, and adults watch the cartoon channel, so it must be computers and social media.

[RoseofTexas]

Well Stan Lee came out strongly against trump...that was enough for me to kick him and his evil HELLywood marvel actors to the street!!! I will never watch another marvel comic movie again!! Those FERS ruined it for me...and I was a big fan!!😢

[JBW1949]

Kinda sad, in my opinion......

[JayGalt]

Nailed it!

[JBW1949]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOl_XkwhDYM

[arrogantsob]

Wow, that was enlightening.

[scrabblehack]

There was a documentary not long ago - comic books used to be sold at news stands. But there wasn’t enough profit for the news stands. They switched to hobby and comic book shops. They went into graphic novels and raised the prices to go after the adult geeks.

[cld51860]

I grew up in the 60s and I did the same. It was a tough thing when my Mom’s garage caught fire and a huge box of childhood comics went up in flames. I bought my kid a subscription to Superman. He doesn’t show much interest in them. He likes to read (good) but he would rather be outside (good) or play video games.

[Hugin]

Those were comic strips, not comic books. Marvel’s core characters have been around over 50 years. What people don’t want is having characters they grew up reading changed to be more PC and “diverse”, and stories that push a leftist agenda.

[wastoute]

You mean the Disney cartoon characters? They are all homos now. We never noticed they are ALL pairs of same sex ....

[higgmeister]

When the Green Hornet, “came out” I tuned out.

I hadn't heard about that one. What do they do? Sit around thinking "who can we jack with today?"

[Hugin]

Stan Lee sold Marvel a long time ago. He’s now CEO Emeritus, in other words a figurehead. About all he does now is make a cameo in all the Marvel movies.

[RoseofTexas]

He still opened his yap against trump! It was bad...They can all go to hell!!

[Dr. Bogus Pachysandra]

Bring back Heckle & Jeckle and The Katzenjammer Kids.
But Nancy and Sluggo? That comic and comic strip were never funny.
Looked on wiki, the Kids are still in distribution by King.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeQ59_cj6JE

[x]

With all of that, it would be hard to build reader loyalty anyway, especially if the reader demographic is young males looking for a hero who always gets the girl. That doesn't sound like what the producers are producing....

I think it's more of a science fiction thing -- with some gritty urban noir/crime thrown in.

Sure, Spiderman has his girlfriend and Iron Man has his assistant and there's a lot of banter between male and female superheroes, but I think the readers are more interested in the technology and explosions and angst and SF weirdness than in romance.

Plus, the way they keep these things going so long is by having Superman and Lois Lane never quite get together -- or not for very long.

[so_real]

If by "diversity" he means taking original successful characters and perverting them by rewriting their gender, sexuality, and ethnicity ... then he is correct and "diversity" sucks. But for those of us who understand the difference between "diversity" and "perversity", well we like our female and ethnic characters just fine, thank you very much, and Marvel has a host of good ones already.

[Durus]

I guess it wasn’t bad, except for the other Marvel franchises on Netflix which were much better.