January 23rd, 2015
Because the New DC was such a profitable, artistically rich masterstroke, Marvel has decided to blow up its two comic-book universes, too. Sigh.
On the one hand, I’m surprised that Disney is allowing this. Why monkey with a formula that has created the raw materials for billions of dollars worth of intellectual property?
On the other hand, excepting the Matt Fraction Hawkeye, I don’t think I’ve read a Marvel book in two years that wasn’t better than meh. Most of them have been terrible. The company has clearly been in a creative rut since Ultimatum. (I blame Civil War, myself, which kicked the annual maxi-series obsession into high gear.)
I wonder what the ripple effect will be on the cinematic universe. You can already see the seams starting to show in the project’s being announced for Phase 3 of the Marvel movie universe: Why do they need to kill Captain America? Why do they need to put Civil War on screen? Why do they need to start breaking up the Avengers?
The answer, I think, is that Disney has absorbed the notion that instead of using the existing characters to tell interesting stories, they need to be constantly morphing and changing the universe itself so as not to lose the attention of moviegoers.
Which is obviously how the Marvel group thinks about their comic book universe, too.
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