The Avengers finally got a new youth training team, Avenger's Academy. What's your take on them?
What is your personal take on them?
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M$3 Answers
I was in a comic book store last week, and I heard two guys running through dozens of simalairites between Avengers Academy and The New Mutants. I was surprised by the fact taht they came up with so many that I had not even considered after the few issues that I had looked at. I heard one ask, "Why would Marvel copy a comic that only had limited success?"
Granted, The New Mutants ran for a little over eight years (8.33 to be exact as they had 100 issues). While 8 years is a long time, that is only a mid-level accomplishment at best for a comic. At the end, the only way that they were getting readerships was with crossovers, and new characters. Though, even introducing Deadpool, Gideon, and Copycat/Domino in issue 98 was not enough to keep the momentum going.
What surprises me is that they are doing this now. I would have expected this kind of spinoff attempt to come in the late 1980s or early 1990s when Marvel was trying to flood the shelves with as many comic books as possible (one of the many reasons why the comic bok industry almost died around 1993). Marvel has learned in the past that new comic books rarely have sustainable power unless the comic was based off of a strong secondary character that already had a fan base. New comics rarely work.
I do, it a way, understand why this is being doen right now. With the fact that the Thor and Captain America movies are coming out next year, there is going to be a renewed interest in their comics. Seeing this comic on the shelf next to them might cause a slight upsurge. The next would come a year later when The Avengers comes out in theaters (if this comic is still around them).
It kind of scares me that with all of the new and great ideas that Marvel has had in the last five years (House of M, Civil War, Marvel Zombies, the death of Captain America, the Future Timeline Greese Board in Avengers #5 only weeks ago) that they would revert back to a theme that does not work. Granted, experimentation is something that is important to the industry, reversion is something that fans do not want to see.
There is nothing worse for a comic book than having a fan turn the pages in a skimming fashion and saying, "Seen this before." I believe that if Avengers Academy stays on the course that it is currently on, fans are not going to flock to it. They might have in March of 1983 when the first issue of The New Mutants came out, or in the next year or two after, but not now.
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M$The thing to remember about teens is that they eventually grow up. Robin was the BOY Wonder, who eventually became the TEEN sensation, Nightwing, and has now evolved into the newest BatMAN. Growth is essential to any character. Shoot, even Archie got married last year. The problem is people tend to follow the character rather than the title. Kids in school grow up and move out. But, it's hard to get readers invested in brand new characters every few years.
So the key to making Avengers Academy work is to drive home the concept of the school as a selling point. Focus on the instructors a little more as you let the readers know the kids will come and go. Of course there will be angst and relationship issues. Those are time honored concepts that will never get old. Oh yeah, and it's gotta be written well with kick-ass art. That's important too.
By the way, The New Mutants are still around. They're just all grown up.
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M$
Funny, this brings up another interesting point. I remember Marvel doing a survey back at a local comic convention back in 1987 about The New Mutants. The survey focused on people that did not read the comic. What was the most common reason as to why people did not like The New Mutants? The artwork.
The reason why I state that The New Mutants was not successful was due to the fact that they only went 100 issues. This would be considered (at best) at limited success. At the time, Marvel would review all properties every 25 issues to see if they were worth keeping.
The decision to cancel The New Mutants actually happened at the 50th issue. The plan was to keep it going due to the fact there were certain story lines that included the X-Men that they wanted to roll over in a different title to save space in X-Men.
At the 75th issue, the reprieve was given once again as they came up with ideas for a new X team (X-Force). The next 25 issues were simply transitions. If you look at the original sales figures for The New Mutants from issues 65-92, they really stunk. In fact, there were a lot of smaller comic book stores that dropped them at the time.
They started to pick them up again around issue 90 due to the push that, "A big change was coming that would change the industry." The chance was to X-Force.
Now X-Force was successful going over 129 issues in the original, dieing, and being brought back in 2004 due to fan support. In fact, one of the movies that Marvel has been cosidering (according to the last Disney stock holder's meeting, was an X-Force movie series. It has been tabled right now, but there still is a chance.
I do support your argument about teens growing up. If a comic book company is able to sustain a comic series of teens long enough, fans grow up with the team. That makes them successful.
Yes, the X-Men was a teen team, but they were a breakthrough for their time. The angst in X-Men and Spider-Man set them apart. The teams grew into more adult themes, and continued their success. The New Mutants continued the teen angst theme until the end. X-Force and X-Factor brought the team into adulthood.
Well look at the big brains on Deacon! That's right, New Mutants DID become X-Force let by Cable, although it was written and drawn by one of the least favored mainstream artists in comic history, Rob 'why-do-they-look-like-constipated-geriatric-Jim-Lee-drawings?' Liefeld (in my opinion), by the above outlined standards, yes, they did in fact make it past a decade.
That aside... I have started to think it's more luck than skill. My proof?
This undead abortion of comics made it 21 issues! (i.e. issue 21 is the current issue)
all things aside... my biggest complaint is: where are the Legacy characters? The problem L mention before of the overcrowding Marvel has could easily have been solved by the DC time honored tradition of "passing the mantle". You know who passes the mantle in Marvel? Villains! They tried a discombobulated version of this with "Young Avengers" but were too busy trying to pump the book up with trendy issues... and the story lost it's appeal quick.
also from my opinion bag... there are artists and arteests... and ol' Bill Sienkiewicz it one of those borderliners... he's cool until someone tells him so, then his art turns to crap... heh
no toes to worry about here... me and L are pretty sound minded people... good debate is good debate... stick to your opinions as long as you believe them deacon!
and for me, yes... art is a major killswitch when its bad... and I seen to remember the interior are was usually good though...
Didn't mean to step on any toes JD, just enjoying the Marvel discussion. I was never a big Liefeld fan as an artist nor did I really hate his work as most of his detractors seem to. I did become a fan of him as a person a few years ago. He was incredibly kind and gracious to me in San Diego. I think it's funny how we were willing to give Bill Siekewicz(sp?) a pass on the same title back then, though. We thought he was the comic version of Picasso which made us connoisseurs of fine art right? lol.....On revisiting I find his art on that title somewhat irritating at times as it tends to detract from the story.
...but, in reference to your point... I do agree with the concept of legacy and truly support it. But as I stated in L's post ( @lvincentpoupard ), Marvel (especially after getting bought by Disney -sigh-) is more for money and less for quality...
I had only read a preview of AA so far (I'm behind), and I wasn't that into it. I didn't think the writing was that strong, never mind the characters.
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M$
Just because you mentioned it -
The comic book industry was on it's way down quickly in the late 1980s and early 1990s. One of the main reasons was that they pushed collecting so much that it bubbled the industry. When the Death of Superman came out, it was a last ditch effort from an industry that was almost dead. It was the most symbolic comic of all time.
Other issues that led to the near demise of the industry included the war for dominanace at Marvel, the pressing for hundreds of comic books instead of just a few dozen strong ones, the overabundance of comic book stores, the overproduction of comic books so that they could be sold everywhere, the emergence of Magic the Gather which took money from the comics, and the near bankruptcy of Marvel. The period of 1988-1993 was a perfect storm for comics. It was the thrid near death the industry had. They have been showing stronger numbers over the last few years, so we might soon see another peak.
In my opinion, it was the Death/Resurrection of Superman that killed comic in 1993. The surge of people that came back and bought every issue only to see DC buckled to the demands of the public to not leave Superman dead, completely invalidated the dramatic weight of that event, along with every person on the planet owning a copy of what would have been one of the most memorable moments in comic history. This caused a market bubble in the comic industry that burst from sudden disenchantment of feeling cheated by what seemed like a marketing hoax. DC originally intended to keep him dead, but were surprised
Market flooding is what results in "Crisis on Infinite Earths", "The Infinity Gauntlet", "52", and "House of M" or what I like to call "continuity clean-up".
That said, moving on...
I actually agree with everything else for the most part. Too gimmicky for my taste. To further invalidate the new comic, the character "Reptil" is actually from "Superhero Squad", a Marvel children's cartoon where he plays the 'viewer analog' in the series. The series was decent and even mocked the character flaws of the heroes, but surely Marvel isn't that hard up for ideas...
You raise a good point there. Instead of 'Death of Superman' being a requiem, its actually only the climax of requiem. I can see that most definitely.
Also, since noting Marvel's contribution to comic commercialism instead of quality; am I the only one that feels they should change their name from 'the House of Ideas' to 'the House of Flaws'?
Retouching on your 'angst' comment earlier, Marvel does have a nasty habit of showcasing flaws in characters over qualities. It seems a lot of qualities defining the character are actually various disorders, obsessions, and psychosis. This is especially true with mutants ala X-Men, which in itself is yet another example of consumerism wrecking quality.
What they say: "We are feared and hated because we were born different."
What we see: "We are built like Greek Gods and have natural-born power by random chance."
So we end up with only a few truly inspiring people from the Marvel U:
Spider-man (responsibility and dedication, although his new flaw is almost what Wolverine's used to be- not letting go and moving on)
Captain America (standing up for what you believe in)
Cyclops (which is drifting downward- was the Marvel boyscout)
and now Wolverine (he is my personal favorite- he represents walking the walk and not letting the part stop you from being better in the future- his flaw eventually got replaced by a healthy amount of patience with a limit to how much should be given)
You look at DC and the first 3 people that come to mind are avatars!
Superman (freedom)
Batman (justice)
Wonder Woman (truth)
But I digress... I am diverging from topic a little. (or am I?)
You know, I think my primary complaint is Marvel won't put 'character law' down on their product. In most of DC's characters, there are a series of rules that will not be broken when writing a character, where as in Marvel, these rules are less important (although somewhat present). Additionally, there is almost no legacy in Marvel. DC slowly works in a 'next generation' into the background of a lot of their characters. Many of the first versions of this method are active adults already.
Essentially, Marvel is ran like a business while DC is ran like a property. Does that make sense? Marvel does 'trend surfing' while DC does 'maintenance'.
Your comment makes me think that you are missing the main point that drove Marvel to be different from DC all those years ago.
Marvel created characters that dealt with more emotional issues than DC characters. At the time when Marvel came out, superheroes were very two dimensional. While people liked the characters, they could not relate to a millionair who acted as a masked vigilante or a caped crusader from another plant or a amazonian woman.
Along came Marvel and introduced characters that dealt with a lot of the real world issues as readers. They dealt with getting fired, death, love, lust, apathy, prejudice, hatred, and every other common occurance in the world. This made people relate more to Marvel characters, and that is why Marvel has had the lion's share of the market ever since.
Even take a look at where DC characters live, and where Marvel characters live. Superman lives in Metropolos. Batman lives in Gotham City. Both made up locations. Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the X-Men, the Hulk, and most of the others live in New Your City. A real place that people can relate to.
When a company like Marvel takes the lead, it needs to come up with new ideas to drive more market share and dollars. In the late 1980 and early 1990s, it made a lot of bad decisions. It let the collector's cat out of the bag, and drove DC to do the same. Both almost died.
Lukily, both companis are coming out with more good ideas right now, than bad ones. A fan can point to dozens of great ideas over the last five years, but only about a hndful of bad ones. For those of us who love the industry, that is a really good thing.
As for The Avengers Academy, it just seams like rehash. Granted, three months from now, we might be saying that it was the greatest, or the worst, idea in a long time. Only time will tell.
As you know, I am covering Detrit FanFare in about 10 days for multiple media outlets. When I sit down for my interview with Stan Lee, I plan on getting his impression of the team. That should be interesting.