Marvel seems to be hell bent on killing it's most popular characters. I already talked about the disbanding of the Fantastic Four, but that's not really what I mean. While Marvel is killing the team, it's not apparently killing off Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch of the Thing. Plus, the Fantastic Four hasn't really been popular in decades.
What I am referring to started a couple of years ago with Marvel "killing" Peter Parker to set up the Superior Spider-man storyline where, through confusing comic book logic, the mind of Dr. Octopus took over Spider-man's body and he decided to use his new situation to become a better hero than his nemesis. Somehow, this story didn't turn out to be as bad as it probably should have been. In fact, I've heard it was good and an interesting change of pace for the character. Unfortunately, I think this has emboldened Marvel to start doing other drastic changes. Steve Rogers loses the super soldier serum in his blood and rapidly ages his body into a frail, elderly one and forcing him to pass the torch to Falcon... creating an excuse for Marvel to have a black Captain America. Thor becomes unworthy for some reason and now there's a female Thor.
And then there's the Death of Wolverine event, where Marvel's (arguably) most popular character was killed off after losing his healing factor. I'm not really sure why they would do this. You need to realize that Wolverine has made Marvel a lot of money. He has had numerous solo books, he's been on line-ups of the Avengers, X-men, X-force and even the Fantastic Four. Wolverine has also been a long favorite to make a guest appearance to boost sales of other titles. All of that has ended... and for what?
I guess there is a cuurent storyline where Sabretooth will be trying to atone for his past sins by trying to be a hero in Wolverine's place as he will be part of the new Uncanny Avengers line-up. Apparently his evil nature was permanently altered with the events of Axis. This is oddly not the first time Sabretooth was sued to fill the void left by Wolvie. After Wolverine had gotten his adamantium ripped out, the villain Genesis tried to re-bond the metal to Logan's bones, only for his body to reject the adamantium, for some reason turning Wolverine into a feral nose-less pirate. (Seriously) During that time, Sabretooth was held captive by Xavier in an attempt to rehabilitate him and Sabretooth helped the X-men in a few battles. That didn't last and I'm guessing at some point Sabretooth will be evil again. I mean, come on... how many villains does Wolverine really have?
I'm sure the Death of Wolverine arc made some money, despite the obvious fact that at some point Logan will likely return from the dead, just as Spider-man, Batman and Superman had before him. There is that old saying that "nobody stays dead in comics." That's not a positive thing when you think about it. It means that deaths in comics are far too often used as a gimmick to increase sales. Occasionally, a death will be permanent or at least a character will remain deceased for a long time. Jean Grey became a running joke for her many deaths and resurrections, but her regular continuity character has remained dead for about a decade now (though the young version of her is running around after being brought to the present... again, confusing comic book logic). Jason Todd, the second Robin, remained dead for almost 20 years! And by the looks of things, the original Nova, Richard Ryder, will remain dead indefinitely while the current Nova, Sam Alexander, is running around. However, none of these characters were A-listers. Everyone knew Superman, Spider-man and Batman would be back from the dead before too long. It's the same for Wolverine too.
What really inspired me to start this rant was actually the news that Marvel is now planning to kill Deadpool! That's right, the insanely popular cult favorite "Merc with a Mouth" is going to die for some reason... again. (Seriously, he died about ten years ago... it didn't take.) This pisses me off. Marvel Now's Deadpool comic is one of the best today, with comedian Brian Posehn as a co-writer. The comic is really funny, amazingly creative and has real heart to it without at all compromising the humor or the character himself. So of course Marvel is going to end the comic.
I won't get into the history of Marvel cancelling the books I really like (post-Annihilation Nova and Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers Initiative, post Civil War New Warriors, the Runaways... okay, after the Vaughn and Whedon runs the Runaways sucked, so no big loss there... wait, what was I talking about again?). However, I only subscribe to four books from Marvel and Deadpool is one of them. Does Marvel just not want my money? I'm sure my money can go somewhere else.
Maybe this is going to be a curve-ball. Maybe Deadpool won't really die but instead maybe fake his death and become a lumberjack like Dexter. My big question is... what's the point? We already had a replacement Deadpool after his previous death in the "Funeral for a Freak" storyline. His name was Agent X and he sucked.
Is there going to be some revolutionary change that will make this cheap marketing ploy seem worthwhile? It seems like Marvel keeps hoping that lightning will strike twice, then a third time and a fourth and so on. I think they got lucky with Superior Spider-man and I've heard the current "Falcon America" isn't bad. But remember that the 90's saw lots of characters and titles revamped to be more 'modern' such as Azrael becoming Batman to make the character a violent and dark, Reign of the Supermen, Artemis taking the Wonder Woman mantle to make the character violent and... dark, Hal Jordan becoming a mass murderer, Superman turning into blue energy, Dr. Strange dropping the Dr and becoming... dark, Thing becoming disfigured and wearing a bucket on his head, Dr. Fate dropping the Dr and using a knife so he can be... dark... and so on. Yeah, most of those ideas sucked.
It would be nice if comic book companies would just focus on good storytelling rather than publicity stunts to sell comics. However, all my bitching could be rendered moot if the rumors are true that the end result of this summer's Marvel event could be a reboot of the entire universe. At which point, I will no longer be able to defend Marvel's occasional bad decisions with 'Well, it's still better than the New 52.'
To borrow a quote from Jonny Prophet... "I'm kind of over reboots."
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