The Ugly American Report Column Four: The Cockroach Admiration Principle

When DC pretended to start from scratch a little over a year ago, I think we all kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Your move, Marvel!” How would they respond? How could they respond and not look like 4th grade copycat artists? And in the 12 months since, they really haven’t “responded” in any noticeable way. But what about Marvel NOW!, you may be asking yourself?

And this is what kills me about the niche comics industry, how easily the little marionette limbs dance at the slightest tug from the puppeteers wrist. I’m getting this from all sides, too. I hear whisperings and grumblings on Wednesday at my LCS. Metro Mike asks me about the ramifications of the “Marvel Relaunch” the other day.

“There is no Marvel relaunch”, I say.

“All the guys at The Source are talking about it. It’s happening. Marvel Now!, I think they’re calling it.”

Sigh.

I want to ask you a question. It will sound silly at first, but I want you to mull it for a moment, let it settle in the ol' cerebral cortex and gestate. Then answer me this – what is the difference between Dark Reign and Marvel Now!? What you’ll figure out is that there are a couple of negligible distinctions. Dark Reign featured more mini-series than does Marvel NOW! And Marvel Now! features a few more high-profile creative team shifts. That’s it. It’s not even different creators, it’s just the same guys doing different books…oh, with new # 1s on the covers. And a LOT of different covers. Is that a particularly novel concept at this point? New # 1 covers? Because it seems like this is what they’ve been doing every 18 months with every one of their titles since 2007.

There is no relaunch, no reboot, not soft or hard, or otherwise. This is the same (destructive) marketing practices we’ve been pummeled with every month post-Civil War, except the virus is a little more virulent. You’re getting more variant covers. Double shipping is the norm, now, not an annoying exception. Even Steve Wacker is on record as saying that the Marvel Now! Initiative is nothing more than rearranging deck chairs. They’ll tell you this stuff bald-faced if you’re willing to listen.

And this is partly why I always smile when I talk about Marvel, (don’t know if it comes through in the text, but the smile is there) and why I never advocate boycotts and such. As disgusting and allergic to ethics as they are, I have to admire them, because it works. Marvel is like the cockroach in your apartment that just won’t die. You know you stepped on the heathen beast last Thursday, but there it is in the corner of the kitchen, down a couple of legs but still scuttling across the floor. It sees you and stops. You pause for a bit and wonder if you can get to the can of repellent before it limps under the fridge, and then notice that it is eating its own feces. Part of you wants to throw up, but another part feels compelled to tip a cap. This….creature…you would never let it marry your daughter, but there’s something almost sublime in its depravity.

And that’s Marvel. They’ve evolved (or is it devolved?) to the point where they can sell the base on a reboot that doesn’t exist, mostly by just letting said base run with their own assumptions. It’s genius, really. The results aren’t really in yet, but what Marvel have done is set themselves up for a bit of “relaunch response” boost without actually doing any relaunching or rebooting. These are the same characters and the same continuity. So that very powerful rabbit is still in the hat, waiting to be pulled when this jump-start fails to achieve long-term success.

And fail it most certainly will. Let’s talk about the Fearless Defenders, shall we?

That’s a classic cockroach home brew if ever there was one. So they took the “Fearless” brand from the Fear Itself satellite that was a sales failure and then connected that to the Defenders title that just failed. Some critical buzz, sure, but a fiscal debacle from issue # 2 on. It’s going to combine Valkyrie with Misty Knight, and yeah, her book (Heroes for Hire) just failed as well. Looks like it’s going to be another stab at a “girl book”, and need I say every last one of those attempts has failed? Now, in cockroach logic, if you take 5 train wrecks and put them together, then surely something magical will happen. I don’t want to ruin the surprise or anything, but Fearless Defenders will be at less than 20,000 copies by issue # 5, and ready for the chopping block by # 8.

That comic will never be profitable to anybody, and will in fact further aid in destroying the brands of anything connected with it, the ability to sell collected material, and the accessibility of the universe at large. So there’s that. Seriously, if you ever do make a movie that would prompt a civilian into a comic store for one of these characters, (it’s a stretch, I know, but play along) and wanted something to buy with that kick-ass Norse chick they just saw, which end of the quagmire do you send them to? To the original Defenders, or the Fearless, or to the Fearless Defenders, or to the Astonishing Fearless Defenders, or to – hey where are you going potential customer, wait, come back!!!

And while Marvel is the worst offender, DC is no virginal damsel on this issue. Just over a year after relaunching Justice League, now we’re getting a new Justice League of America # 1? With more than 50 covers??? Disgusting.

Talk about fixing something that 'aint broke. And didn’t we just go through this in 2006 with Ed Benes and Brad Meltzer, back before he was decoding the great mysteries of our time over at the history channel? It hurts the brand. When that mythical civilian does theoretically walk into the comic store after that Justice League movie hits, they will have to wade through an infinite quagmire of Justice Leagues , and Justice League of Americas, and JLAs, and JLIs, and they are going to throw up their hands and walk back out the door. Congratulations on your Justice League of America # 1 Rhode Island edition. When your circulation numbers dip below your relaunch numbers by issue # 3, I’m sure you’ll cherish that little gem.

Protect your brand, you sorry little cockroaches! I shouldn’t have to spell this out to people with better degrees than I hold. They should be able to just look at Robert Kirkman’s formula and parse it out for themselves. Or, you know…. they could just put out X-treme Uncanny Champions with 12 covers and cancel it after 8 issues. Good luck with that. I’ll be over here, reading Revival. But you have to hand it to the cockroaches – somehow in the midst of nibbling on their mother’s exo-skeletal carcass they are able to post the best monthly numbers in the modern diamond era.

Yay?