MovieChat Forums > Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017) Discussion > Readers Are Abandoning Marvel Comics Aft...

Readers Are Abandoning Marvel Comics After Social Justice Invasion

posted 8 years ago by Marvelouis
78 replies | jump to latest

Why the hell would the studio want to follow this asinine social "justice" path that is dooming the publishing side???

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/07/07/marvel-social-justice-insanity/

“We’re seeing the worst falloff of Marvel and DC sales in the store’s 38-year history,” complained one comic book store owner in an industry forum. “Both companies are losing established readers who no longer feel that the company’s output reflects the sort of comics they enjoy.

“For the first time in store history, yesterday’s Marvel FOCs saw us ordering single digits on more than half of the line items in the Marvel section.”

Marvel’s readership is souring particularly fast. With the exception of some big-name comics whose characters have, thus far, escaped the SJW purge of anything remotely resembling a straight white male, Marvel readers are simply going elsewhere.

Marvel have radically altered their classic characters by giving in to calls for more diversity, leading to a black Spiderman and female Thor. This has effectively turned the company into a multi-billion dollar feminist zine publisher.

Here’s a newsflash for Marvel: race-baiters and gender warriors who complain endlessly about the “lack of diversity” in comic books don’t buy comic books. They’re interested in identity politics, not fun.

When your customers — lifelong comic fans — pick up the latest issue to find a smorgasbord of irrelevant, hectoring social and pop culture commentary, they probably won’t buy the next issue. Not because they’re sexists and racists, but because the stuff you are publishing sucks.

People read comic books to escape the real world, and readers have had enough of being called privileged cis white men, or misogynist MRAs, in the real world, let alone the one place they get to escape it. If you want to put these things in your comic books, go ahead, but readers are just going to stop buying them.

Marvel is stuck between appeasing gobby SJWs, making SJWs mad by appeasing them and then attempting to fix an even messier situation than just giving the blue-haired elephants a much need middle-finger. They’re not too worried now, given the success of superhero movies at the box office.

But while the company is making bank from Hollywood, hoping that audiences remain enthusiastic about increasingly desperate franchise crossovers, there’s trouble on the horizon, not just for the studio’s core intellectual property, but the creative integrity of its work, too. Serves them right.

Charlie Nash

I stopped reading so many title because of this crap. I don't also now want to have to stop going to the movies. This kind of stuff hurts my soul.

[–] 8 years ago

[deleted]

[–] otter68 8 years ago

Brietbart? Really? Brietbart quoting an anonymous person claiming to be a comic book store owner on a forum.
Really?

Don't hate on contrarians

[–] IronBallsM 8 years ago

Can You Blame Them?

Nope because I'm one of them.

Stopped reading 95% of all Marvel books because of this "social justice" crap.

They had better flush and flush big if they are going to get me back.

[–] Burklayton 8 years ago

Truth be told, I don't give a damn about the race of Mary Jane's actor. She looks the part and has a fair-skinned tone. Die her hair the appropriate shade of red, prove that she has the talent, and I am satisfied. Similarly, prior to Vincent D'Onofrio, one couldn't have found an actor with the sufficient mixture of size and acting talent to play the Kingpin - unless one was willing to make a meager exception and put Michael Clarke Duncan in the role, who with the kind of writing displayed by Netflix's Daredevil program would have been absolutely brilliant.

I do agree that it's become a bit much in actual comic books though. I've always said the worst thing any artwork can do in fiction is do things where you "see the writer". Those things that niggle in your brain and make you think "I see what they're attempting here". It shatters immersion, and is not good storytelling. Lady Thor and other transparent things of that nature are not good writing, and they aren't good inclusion, either.

Examples of GOOD pro-social progress writing:

-Ms. O'Brien of Garth Ennis's Punisher MAX series. She was the closest any woman could ever come to having understood or been a true lover to Frank Castle. That being, not at all, but that's precisely the point. A very strong character, with a very strong backstory, and entirely plausible to boot.

-Jessica Jones of ALIAS, a Bendis character. Damn do I love that woman. Bendis didn't get wrapped up in the novelty of what he was doing; it may not have occurred to him at all. He simply focused his efforts on writing a damned solid noir-inspired detective character with a superhero twist, and he absolutely nailed it. I love Jessica Jones. She's terrific.

-Carol Danvers is a great Captain Marvel and part of that is the writing for her character being sharp and the other part of it is that she simply does her own thing and doesn't try to emulate the prior Captain Marvel whatsoever. Mantles change with superheroes, sometimes. The question is whether it feels natural. These latest things most certainly do not (how can there be more than one Thor? Idiotic)

Any "for the sake of itself" change is going to be nothing more than preening for a pat on the back. In the process the odds of a truly diverse (as in three-dimensional) character being written are ironically quite lost.

[–] IronBallsM 8 years ago

It's just part of the larger overall problem. Marvel just doesn't get it. No one wants race baiting and ridiculous change just for social reasons.

[–] AfterBuzz 8 years ago

I have to believe that the book sale numbers have got to be suffering greatly from all this negative crap.

I accept your surrender.

[–] Phantom_Poster 7 years ago

You'd be a fool to believe so. There are a number of factors that play into the diminishing sales. While this might be one of them, and those who really hate the idea of gender/race swapping would like to pin it all on that alone, it's not. I would say in the long run, it's not even the biggest issue just the latest, and in today's climate, there's an attempt to make it the loudest. I absolutely hate it, but I'm not foolish enough to believe that's what's greatly hurting sales. What the race/gender problem is a part of is the constant reactionary handling of business/writing from either comic company. They used to write and satisfy the audience with their own creativity. Now they're writing out of desperation, pandering. But this started far before the race/gender swapping.

(There was more to the post, but I erased it cuz it got long defining all of the real problems Marvel/DC are suffering from.

- I reply, and then I'm gone.

[–] tempmail1974 8 years ago

Carol Danvers is just a slight name change from the character she has been for ~50 years (Ms. Marvel since 1968). Personality is pretty much the same since the late 90's/early 00's.

[–] HelloMyNameIsMrBurns 8 years ago

lol breitbart.

[–] watchman19 8 years ago

As long as the classic characters aren't being outright replaced, killed off, or totally supplanted, I don't mind these other characters sharing the mantle. Miles Morales Spider-Man, Sam Wilson Captain America, Lady Thor, etc. are fine with me as long as the classics are still available. If the classics aren't then I don't support these others with my money.

I would read Miles Morales Spider-Man because Peter Parker is still Spider-Man in his own book as well.

Now that Steve Rogers is Captain America in his own title again then Sam Wilson as a Captain America has my support.

Lady Thor doesn't ever get a dime from me until Thor Odinson's new book kicks off with Ultimate Thor's hammer in his hand.

As long as Bruce Banner is dead then Amadeus Cho gets nothing from me. She-Hulk's new book actually looks pretty cool, and I will likely start getting it once Banner is back.

As long as Tony Stark is Iron Man then I can find a place for Iron Heart.

In short, as long as Marvel honors the classics then I'm willing to find a place for and support all these other characters getting a bump from the classics' names and costume motifs.

[–] jaykaulitzke 8 years ago

Okay seriously. Just because someone else picks up Thor's hammer it does not make them Thor. They might have Thor's powers but Thor is Thor's *beep* name. Half of his powers come from being an Asguardian not from the hammer and he doesn't become the hero formerly known as Thor just because someone else picks up his weapon.

I'm cool with X-23 replacing Wolverine though. She was already an established character long before Wolverine died and I *beep* hated Wolverine. And she is smoking hot.

[–] jaykaulitzke 8 years ago

Overall though I think they need to stop *beep* with established characters and make new ones if they want diversity. Let them succeed or fail on their own merits instead of trying to bank on the names of established characters.

[–] Uberiffic 8 years ago

http://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2016/2016-07.html

The numbers are bad for July as well. DC is kicking Marvel's ass. They more than shot themselves in the foot with all this PC nonsense. They shot their legs off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gCBiJ3QJnk&feature=player_embedded