The Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Avengers, etc.

[clack]

Jane-Thor was not a commercial failure. It was a middling success. 40,000 copies per month is fine. Jane-Thor was "cancelled" not because of low sales, but because it was always meant to be temporary.

And if it was gimmicky, it was a gimmick that has been routinely applied not only to Thor, but to most other long-lasting superheroes. How many people have acquired the power of Thor over the decades? 6? 7?

[swanpride]

Does the frog count?

[starri]

1 hour ago, swanpride said:

Does the frog count?

Counting Throg, Jane, and Volstagg, it is 7.

[Danny Franks]

All 'new character takes on the mantle of so-and-so' comics are cancelled. Because comic book fans fundamentally do not want change. They don't want their heroes to be replaced. Yes, Marvel and DC do it pretty frequently as a marketing gimmick:

Bucky as Captain America

Sam as Captain America

Jane as Thor

Ben Reilly as Spider-Man

Doctor Octopus as Spider-Man

Azrael as Batman

Nightwing as Batman

Donna Troy as Wonder Woman

Rhodey as Iron Man

Yelena Belova as Black Widow

Kate Bishop as Hawkeye

Namor, Spider-Man, She-Hulk and others being part of the Fantastic Four

There have been several Spider-Women, but Jessica Drew was the first, and the one generally seen as the 'real' one

They nearly always revert back to the original character within a year or two, regardless of sales success. Yes, there are a few exceptions where permanent evolution has been allowed, but they're mainly less important characters - Ant-Man, Atom - or characters with identities that have been established as a franchise of sorts - The Flash, Green Lantern Corps, Robin.

The one real exception to this rule seems to be Captain Marvel - The original died, and he's never come back (other than a brief run that turned out to be a Skrull in disguise). There were a couple of other characters who held the title for a while, until Carol Danvers dropped the 'Ms.' and took the 'Captain'.

 

Edited February 18, 2020 by Danny Franks

[swanpride]

It's not always marketing...sometimes they just like to explore new ideas. And sometimes the new character continues to exist side by side with the original one. See Spider-Gwen.

[Perfect Xero]

The actual comic branches of Marvel and DC these days exist as much (if not more) to advertise and churn out IP and story ideas that can be used in other media later as they do to actually make money off publishing comics.

Which means that as long as they're not bleeding money on a book they can continue to support something that has critical support or appeals to people in the bookstore/trade crowd.

The sales of trade paperbacks and collections outside of the FLGS can also make up for lower single issue sales numbers and make a book more financially successful for the publisher than where it lands on the Diamond list might indicate.

Edited February 18, 2020 by Perfect Xero

[clack]

When Sam or Bucky replace Steve as Captain America in the comics, the readers know that the switch is only temporary. Steve will be back.

In the MCU, however, it's uncharted territory. Steve isn't coming back. Tony isn't coming back. Personally, I don't want a new Captain America or a new Iron Man. There are still plenty of superheroes yet to be introduced

But Jane as Thor isn't that. Chris Hemsworth is still around to resume the mantel, which he will at some point.

The question is, is Natalie Portman as Thor a one-off, or is she to be a continuing character? For that matter, is Thor 4 to be the last in the series, or will Marvel continue making Thor movies?

[swanpride]

I guess this depends on how successful the movie is, how successful the new franchises are and what the plans of the actors are.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

10 minutes ago, swanpride said:

I guess this depends on how successful the movie is, how successful the new franchises are and what the plans of the actors are.

Since I only check IMDB for film information, I don't have anything extensive to add, but Love and Thunder is in pre-production right now. Portman and Hemsworth don't seem to be excessively busy right now, but since the next Thor movie isn't due in theaters until some time next year that could always change. I had presumed that they'd be folding Thor into the Guardians cast, since almost everyone from his supporting cast have been killed, but Tessa Thompson is also going to be appearing in L & T. So if Valkyrie is the king of New Asgard and Jane Foster will take up the mantle of Thor briefly, that could free OG!Thor up for adventures with Starlord and Company.

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

Since I only check IMDB for film information, I don't have anything extensive to add, but Love and Thunder is in pre-production right now. Portman and Hemsworth don't seem to be excessively busy right now, but since the next Thor movie isn't due in theaters until some time next year that could always change. I had presumed that they'd be folding Thor into the Guardians cast, since almost everyone from his supporting cast have been killed, but Tessa Thompson is also going to be appearing in L & T. So if Valkyrie is the king of New Asgard and Jane Foster will take up the mantle of Thor briefly, that could free OG!Thor up for adventures with Starlord and Company.

At one of the recent award shows Taika Waititi said that pre-production starts in April and filming starts in August. 

[starri]

4 hours ago, Cobalt Stargazer said:

So if Valkyrie is the king of New Asgard and Jane Foster will take up the mantle of Thor briefly, that could free OG!Thor up for adventures with Starlord and Company.

Gunn has already said Thor isn't in vol 3.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, starri said:

Gunn has already said Thor isn't in vol 3.

Is that new?  I’ll I’ve seen is his reassurance that it wouldn’t be called Asgardians of the Galaxy and that Love and Thunder is set before Guardians 3. 

[ICantDoThatDave]

On 2/17/2020 at 9:38 AM, clack said:

Jane-Thor was not a commercial failure. It was a middling success. 40,000 copies per month is fine. Jane-Thor was "cancelled" not because of low sales, but because it was always meant to be temporary.

And if it was gimmicky, it was a gimmick that has been routinely applied not only to Thor, but to most other long-lasting superheroes. How many people have acquired the power of Thor over the decades? 6? 7?

Ugh.  I feel like I've fallen into an "argument" with people who agree with me.  I have no idea how I got here.  I'll clarify my thinking, fwiw.  Jane-Thor was a "middling success", whatever, we agree.  It was a gimmick.  It was a "#1 Collector's Edition!!" & those always decrease after the hype.  Agree with all that. 

Also, can we all agree that *if* "Jane-Thor" maintained .the hype after the gimmick & had sustained 100k+ sales it wouldn't have been scrapped?  If Jane-Thor was a success they'd have either kept Jane-Thor or most likely both brought back "regular Thor" AND created "Special Edition Jane Thor #1 - Collector's Linticular Polybagged Chromium Edition with 20 variants"!!! Buy it now!

That didn't happen.  Gimmicks are floated.  They tend to fail.  When they succeed, they get spinoffs or lead to new titles.  But that didn't happen - Jane-Thor got killed off, like most failed gimmicks.

[JessePinkman]

How is something both a middling success and a failed gimmick? Is it a failure or a success?

[Dandesun]

Jane-Thor lasted four years. That's not a failed gimmick, that's actually a fully realized story. Failed books are canned by issue 6. It happens a lot. Jane-Thor had a complete and finite story arc, was granted passage to Valhalla but earned another chance at life because of her warrior's spirit. She then fought in War of the Realms in a continuation of her Thor storyline and is now headlining her own book again as the last Valkyrie. If you didn't like the storyline or the concept or anything like that, fine, but calling it a failure is just incorrect.

[swanpride]

In addition, the people who have actually read the story are all pretty excited about seeing a take on it. Which leads me to conclude that it is one of the good ones. The only newer Marvel comic which has more buzz surrounding it is Ms Marvel. Well, and I guess Squirrel girl is very popular? I am not sure if that's the comic book itself or the character...

[Bruinsfan]

I'm not that excited about it, but it's because I really like and enjoy Chris Hemsworth as Thor whereas in the comics I felt he's been served poorly by the last several writing teams and shaking things up with Jane Foster was a good idea (especially since she seems to be the one character Jason Aaron writes well imho). I don't want to see Chris sidelined or turned into a comedic sidekick so Natalie Portman can underact her way across the screen and fail to convince me that her toothpick arms can effectively wield Mjolnir, worthy or not.

[Dandesun]

I don't know exactly how they're going to do it. Thor becoming unworthy was a whole storyline as well. Then you have Jane as a doctor battling cancer and one of the points of her run as Thor was that using the hammer was killing her. When she transformed into Thor, the chemo was eradicated from her body as a poison and she couldn't remain in Thor form indefinitely. Plus she was battling against Cul, Odin's brother, who was acting as regent-king of Asgard because Odin had sequestered himself or whatever and Freya was the one encouraging Jane (both as Thor AND as a representative of the Nine Realms on Asgard) to fight the good fight and all that. Asgard was a fucking MESS. And, again, this all led up to the War of the Realms which was a long plotted storyline involving Malekith (remember that guy? From Dark World?) teaming up with Roxxon to take over the Nine Realms...

Oh, did you know that Malekith had ripped off one of Thor's arms and was wearing it as a stole during this whole time too? And Unworthy Thor had an arm made of... fuck, I don't know... vibranium? Uru? The point is, Bucky and Thor never hung out together as far as I know (to be fair, Bucky was working on getting Steve, the original piece that hadn't been rewritten by the cosmic cube and Red Skull to become Hydra!Steve, out into the real world to fix that gigantic dumpster fire so he was kind of busy.)

BASICALLY, what I'm saying is while I'm very interested in the concept of bringing Jane as Thor to the next film I honestly have no idea HOW they're going to do it. Which I guess interests me as well.

[Guest]

4 hours ago, Bruinsfan said:

I'm not that excited about it, but it's because I really like and enjoy Chris Hemsworth as Thor whereas in the comics I felt he's been served poorly by the last several writing teams and shaking things up with Jane Foster was a good idea (especially since she seems to be the one character Jason Aaron writes well imho). I don't want to see Chris sidelined or turned into a comedic sidekick so Natalie Portman can underact her way across the screen and fail to convince me that her toothpick arms can effectively wield Mjolnir, worthy or not.

I really doubt that they are going to sideline Thor or turn him into a sidekick (unless Hemsworth would only agree to a less time consuming role). For one thing Endgame established that even depressed and hiding from the world Thor is still worthy. I’m expecting this to be a pretty loose adaptation. 

Edited February 20, 2020 by Guest

[clack]

19 hours ago, ICantDoThatDave said:

Ugh.  I feel like I've fallen into an "argument" with people who agree with me.  I have no idea how I got here.  I'll clarify my thinking, fwiw.  Jane-Thor was a "middling success", whatever, we agree.  It was a gimmick.  It was a "#1 Collector's Edition!!" & those always decrease after the hype.  Agree with all that. 

Also, can we all agree that *if* "Jane-Thor" maintained .the hype after the gimmick & had sustained 100k+ sales it wouldn't have been scrapped?  If Jane-Thor was a success they'd have either kept Jane-Thor or most likely both brought back "regular Thor" AND created "Special Edition Jane Thor #1 - Collector's Linticular Polybagged Chromium Edition with 20 variants"!!! Buy it now!

That didn't happen.  Gimmicks are floated.  They tend to fail.  When they succeed, they get spinoffs or lead to new titles.  But that didn't happen - Jane-Thor got killed off, like most failed gimmicks.

Hey, I'm just as suspicious as you are when a legacy character gets gender-switched male to female. It can seem to be pandering.

But that's not the case here. There is an organic, dramatically compelling story to tell with Jane-Thor. It makes sense. And it's not permanent.

11 hours ago, swanpride said:

In addition, the people who have actually read the story are all pretty excited about seeing a take on it. Which leads me to conclude that it is one of the good ones. The only newer Marvel comic which has more buzz surrounding it is Ms Marvel. Well, and I guess Squirrel girl is very popular? I am not sure if that's the comic book itself or the character...

The first few Ms Marvel graphic novel collections sold well to libraries. The individual floppies themselves sell very poorly.

Squirrel Girl may have been the lowest-selling title in Marvel history, at least in the comic shops. It may have done better selling to the Scholastic Book Club market, but not enough to save it from cancellation.

Edited February 20, 2020 by clack

[Kel Varnsen]

19 minutes ago, clack said:

Squirrel Girl may have been the lowest-selling title in Marvel history, at least in the comic shops. It may have done better selling to the Scholastic Book Club market, but not enough to save it from cancellation.

Keep in mind that comic sales doesn't really coorleate to movie success. Back in the late 90's/ early 00's when I was really into comics some of the lowest selling ongoing titles that Marvel put out were Black Panther and Deadpool. And for Black Panther at least a lot of the elements for that volume 3 run showed up in the movie.

Now if Mar-vell's son shows up in Captain Marvel 2 then I will really know things have gotten crazy. 

[clack]

Dr Strange, Guardians, Captain Marvel, Ant-man and Black Panther were always getting cancelled because of low sales, and then rebooted a few years later.

[swanpride]

Isn't that pretty normal for most comic books other than the big hitters like Spider-Man and Batman? A constant circle of rebooted stories which eventually fizzle out just to be rebooted again?

[Captain Carrot]

I think they usually fizzle out after the original creative team leaves. I'm not a huge Dr. Strange fan, but will buy the book if I like the writer/artist. However, these days the original team is around for 6 issues, then someone I never heard of takes over the book.

Speaking of which, I have to wonder if Marvel gave the X-Men to Hickman in order to get story ideas for new movies. The X-Men books have been stagnant for ages and they can't tell the Dark Phoenix saga a third time.

[Bruinsfan]

47 minutes ago, Captain Carrot said:

I'm not a huge Dr. Strange fan, but will buy the book if I like the writer/artist. However, these days the original team is around for 6 issues, then someone I never heard of takes over the book.

Take heart, I am a huge Dr. Strange fan, think Mark Waid is a horrible mismatch for the title, and loathed the issues I've seen, all of which means he'll probably be on the book for the next decade.

[swanpride]

It's not like there aren't a lot older X-men stories NOT the Phoenix saga worth telling.

[benteen]

It's fascinating when you think of comic books.  The popular characters have all been around for decades.  It feels like it's impossible to create a brand new comic character that can be as popular as some of the decades-old legacy characters.  Deadpool is probably the newest of the big characters and he's been around for almost 30 years.

[Anduin]

18 minutes ago, benteen said:

It's fascinating when you think of comic books.  The popular characters have all been around for decades.  It feels like it's impossible to create a brand new comic character that can be as popular as some of the decades-old legacy characters.  Deadpool is probably the newest of the big characters and he's been around for almost 30 years.

X-23, Miss Marvel, and Squirrel Girl are the newest I hear buzz about. I'd say 4 and 5 are America Chavez and Kate Bishop. Laura was in Logan and Kamala will be in the upcoming Avengers game. While not yet members of the MCU Avengers, it looks like a kind of show of faith or testing the waters of popularity. In five years, who knows?

Funny, I can't think of any new male characters with the same popularity. The only newish male I can think of at all is Goldballs, and he's currently locked down on Krakoa.

[Raja]

20 minutes ago, benteen said:

It's fascinating when you think of comic books.  The popular characters have all been around for decades.  It feels like it's impossible to create a brand new comic character that can be as popular as some of the decades-old legacy characters.  Deadpool is probably the newest of the big characters and he's been around for almost 30 years.

I remember at the end of my buying days I got the first run of A Man Called Nova. It was promptly cancelled while I was still buying but now seems he is always in the running for the next wave of Marvel characters to be brought up to the big show (MCU)

[clack]

54 minutes ago, Anduin said:

X-23, Miss Marvel, and Squirrel Girl are the newest I hear buzz about. I'd say 4 and 5 are America Chavez and Kate Bishop. Laura was in Logan and Kamala will be in the upcoming Avengers game. While not yet members of the MCU Avengers, it looks like a kind of show of faith or testing the waters of popularity. In five years, who knows?

Funny, I can't think of any new male characters with the same popularity. The only newish male I can think of at all is Goldballs, and he's currently locked down on Krakoa.

There's buzz -- generated by social media and web sites -- and then there is actual popularity with readers. 

Non-comic book readers may have written or tweeted about America Chavez, for instance, because they approved of what she represented, but they didn't buy her comics (which were unspeakably awful, btw -- at least the ones I looked at), and so she was cancelled.

[Dandesun]

Hell, the whole reason the MCU exists is because no one was particularly interested in what was left after Sony and Fox and whomever else raided the coffers in the 90s. Iron Man and Cap were not top sellers. The Avengers weren't either. The big deals in Marvel were Spider-Man, X-Men and, I guess, the Fantastic Four. And that's not to say that various other titles didn't get a bump here and there through storylines or whatever but those were the staples and that's why they were valuable when Marvel went bankrupt back in the day.

Obviously, being left with the second and third tier heroes didn't do a damn thing to curb the powerhouse that the MCU has become. So big mega-selling titles aren't the obvious place to make a boatload of money at the theater.

I still hope to see the X-Men done right, though. There are so many awesome characters that got kicked to the side for the on-going saga of Charles/Erik and Logan. And, no, I don't want to see another attempt at Phoenix/Dark Phoenix for a LONG time.

[Morrigan2575]

8 hours ago, swanpride said:

It's not like there aren't a lot older X-men stories NOT the Phoenix saga worth telling.

You wouldn't know it going by FOX but, yeah there are a ton of good stories not named Dark Phoenix

[benteen]

2 hours ago, Dandesun said:

Hell, the whole reason the MCU exists is because no one was particularly interested in what was left after Sony and Fox and whomever else raided the coffers in the 90s. Iron Man and Cap were not top sellers. The Avengers weren't either. The big deals in Marvel were Spider-Man, X-Men and, I guess, the Fantastic Four. And that's not to say that various other titles didn't get a bump here and there through storylines or whatever but those were the staples and that's why they were valuable when Marvel went bankrupt back in the day.

Obviously, being left with the second and third tier heroes didn't do a damn thing to curb the powerhouse that the MCU has become. So big mega-selling titles aren't the obvious place to make a boatload of money at the theater.

I still hope to see the X-Men done right, though. There are so many awesome characters that got kicked to the side for the on-going saga of Charles/Erik and Logan. And, no, I don't want to see another attempt at Phoenix/Dark Phoenix for a LONG time.

Yeah, I've said for a long time the best thing that ever happened to Marvel was NOT having the rights to Spider-Man and X-Men initially.  It forced them to push characters like Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, etc.  Now those characters are bigger than ever.  

I have no doubt that if they had had access to all of those characters, Spider-Man and Wolverine would have been the main focus of an Avengers movie and despite joining the team in recent years in the comics, those two are NOT Avengers.

Agreed that there are a lot of great X-Men storylines other than Dark Phoenix.  I wish they would do some X-Men in space stories as I've always enjoyed those a great deal.  Especially the Brood saga.  The Brood might be too close to the creatures from Aliens but now Disney owns Aliens too.  To me, X-Men and Batman are the comic series with the best storylines.  I remember IGN doing a Top 25 storyline for Batman and it was amazing.

[swanpride]

Regarding the notion that the oldest characters are automatically the most popular...no, not really. Let's remember that Spider-Man was invented long, loooong after the Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, and he is apparently making more money on its own than DC makes with the whole Trinity.  The X-men are also a fairly new property...well, not THAT new, but nobody really cared about them before they got re-designed into being more diverse. It is more difficult now, I guess, to push a character to the same level, because people who still read comics are very attached to the "originals", but I don't think that it is impossible.

And for the movies it doesn't matter anyway. I really don't want to know how much money Disney made with Baby Groot merch alone *looks guilty at my own dancing baby groot*

[Raja]

For the stories I think Disney has a drop dead date in mind. At some point the they don't care if most of the audience don't know about the story line as kids. Since I am outside of the target demographic by a long shot besides the origin stories in the MCU the last stories that I had any remembrance of was Ultron and Iron Man II. And with the X-Men they have been doing the same basic. That the X-Men got started before they had a different drop dead date over at FOX for their greatest hits story ideals.

[clack]

If one wants diverse characters who aren't merely ripoffs of legacy heroes ("our new Iron Man is a 15 year old African American girl! our new Hulk is a Korean teenager!") then the X-men is the motherload -- a motherload that Fox barely dipped into.

Original diverse characters with cool powers and compelling conflicts and personalities. They don't need to be confined to X-men movies -- bring Storm into Wakanda, or involve her the Asgardians or Captain Marvel, whatever.

Edited February 21, 2020 by clack

[ICantDoThatDave]

Ok, I'm gonna attempt to tie a bow on my thoughts since I inadvertently kicked off a big discussion by accident.  My initial post was reflecting that Thor 4 might suffer from Critical Acclaim <> Commercial Success, re: Jane-Thor. 

It was just a thought, a post, an idea, not meant as any sort of Deep Thought (tm Jack Handy) or social commentary.  Not even a prediction.  But here goes...

On 2/19/2020 at 10:07 PM, JessePinkman said:

How is something both a middling success and a failed gimmick? Is it a failure or a success?

Low hanging fruit.  Gimmicks are done to produce buzz.  If they produce initial buzz without long term success they are a failure.  I mean Agents of SHIELD as much as I hate to admit it falls into this category.  Big buzz, terrible ratings after a few months (I still watch it!).  Remember Terra Nova?  Remember The Event?  Remember Flashforward?  Big "event" (i.e. gimmick) TV shows that were middling successes.  Manifest, currently.  Gimmicks can easily peter out into middling successes or even failures.  They aren't mutually exclusive.

On 2/20/2020 at 4:34 AM, swanpride said:

In addition, the people who have actually read the story are all pretty excited about seeing a take on it. Which leads me to conclude that it is one of the good ones. The only newer Marvel comic which has more buzz surrounding it is Ms Marvel. Well, and I guess Squirrel girl is very popular? I am not sure if that's the comic book itself or the character...

Ok, granted, but the people that have read the story number in the tens of thousands.  Ms Marvel & Squirrel Girl are even fewer.  Have buzz <> have readership.  That's my whole point.  Concepts that generate buzz <> success.  Why?  Because the people who support the concept *are not comic buyers*.

On 2/20/2020 at 3:54 PM, clack said:

Hey, I'm just as suspicious as you are when a legacy character gets gender-switched male to female. It can seem to be pandering.

But that's not the case here. There is an organic, dramatically compelling story to tell with Jane-Thor. It makes sense. And it's not permanent.

That is totally fair.  But it didn't translate into sales.  10 issues in Jane-Thor was already a middling seller & stayed there.  I accept that everything you said is true.  i wasn't in any way disparaging the quality of the story, only readers' interest in paying for it, which was relatively low.

On 2/20/2020 at 5:53 PM, swanpride said:

Isn't that pretty normal for most comic books other than the big hitters like Spider-Man and Batman? A constant circle of rebooted stories which eventually fizzle out just to be rebooted again?

It is.  And this was just another one of them.

11 hours ago, Anduin said:

X-23, Miss Marvel, and Squirrel Girl are the newest I hear buzz about. I'd say 4 and 5 are America Chavez and Kate Bishop. Laura was in Logan and Kamala will be in the upcoming Avengers game.

Yep.  Those characters have buzz.  What they don't have are sales or mainstream recognition.  People who don't buy comics often laud them in news stories.  They are very popular among non-paying customers.  I have already said "In Feige I trust" & I hope the MCU braintrust can GotG or Ant-Man them & make characters like those popular.  But to be fair they aren't even pre-2009 Iron Man or even Ant-Man level in the public consciousness,  99% of people who know X-23 only know Laura from Logan (they don't even know her as X-23 - you'd have to elaborate & be like "the little girl in Logan") & even those people have never heard of those others.  Comic Book Buzz <> commercial success.

10 hours ago, clack said:

There's buzz -- generated by social media and web sites -- and then there is actual popularity with readers. 

Non-comic book readers may have written or tweeted about America Chavez, for instance, because they approved of what she represented, but they didn't buy her comics (which were unspeakably awful, btw -- at least the ones I looked at), and so she was cancelled.

Agreed.  This was kinda my only point.  I raised it as an issue in regards to Jane-Thor.  Buzz <> sales.  Look at Birds of Prey.  Harley = total buzz <> sales.  I could be wrong here.  I hope I am.  In Feige I Trust.

Edited February 22, 2020 by ICantDoThatDave

[Guest]

1 hour ago, ICantDoThatDave said:

Ok, I'm gonna attempt to tie a bow on my thoughts since I inadvertently kicked off a big discussion by accident.  My initial post was reflecting that Thor 4 might suffer from Critical Acclaim <> Commercial Success, re: Jane-Thor. 

 

I really don’t think that’s going to be much of an issue just because Marvel has built up the reputation to bring people in opening weekend. If the movies good and a lot of people see it opening weekend it will have decent legs. 
Maybe if they completely blow the marketing campaign or if the movies before it bomb. Now I do think going that if they had gone with Jane as Thor as the last movie in Thor’s trilogy it would be a completely different story. Post-Ragnorok Thor will have to have major issues to fail. 

1 hour ago, ICantDoThatDave said:

Low hanging fruit.  Gimmicks are done to produce buzz.  If they produce initial buzz without long term success they are a failure.  I mean Agents of SHIELD as much as I hate to admit it falls into this category.  Big buzz, terrible ratings after a few months (I still watch it!).  Remember Terra Nova?  Remember The Event?  Remember Flashforward?  Big "event" (i.e. gimmick) TV shows that were middling successes.  Manifest, currently.  Gimmicks can easily peter out into middling successes or even failures.  They aren't mutually exclusive.

I just think you and I have very different ideas of success and failure. Agents of Shield wasn’t massive success but I wouldn’t call it a failure either. To me something lasting for years and completing it’s arc on it’s own terms isn’t a failure. Longevity is a form of success in entertainment. 

1 hour ago, ICantDoThatDave said:

On 2/20/2020 at 2:53 PM, swanpride said:

Isn't that pretty normal for most comic books other than the big hitters like Spider-Man and Batman? A constant circle of rebooted stories which eventually fizzle out just to be rebooted again?

It is.  And this was just another one of them.

Then would you say that most comic books are ultimately failures? 

[clack]

In today's politicized cultural climate, people sometimes like or dislike the concept of a comic or movie without concerning themselves with whether it's actually good. Frequently with comics, they only know the concept, and have no intention of reading the book. Comics have become pretty niche.

But with a movie it's different. They will see the movie. If there is any controversy, it's only after the movie has left the theaters that partisans will take a less heated, more dispassionate view.

People on the right suspicious of a possible left wing political agenda with the Black Panther can then, after it has finished its run, admit that the movie was good. On the other side of the political divide, defenders of Captain Marvel, after that movie had run its course, can admit that it could have been better.

The Iceman solo comic which explores Iceman as a newly out gay man gets cancelled because of low sales, and the New York Times rights an article about it. So it gets un-cancelled, but people still don't buy it, and it quietly gets cancelled once again, and this time no one really cares. 

The whole situation sucks. Everything is seen through the lens of the culture war. Fiege will have his work cut out for him in the years ahead in maintaining a undivided fan base for the MCU -- something the Star Wars franchise has failed at.

[Cobalt Stargazer]

1 hour ago, ICantDoThatDave said:

Yep.  Those characters have buzz.  What they don't have are sales or mainstream recognition.  People who don't buy comics often laud them in news stories.  They are very popular among non-paying customers.  I have already said "In Feige I trust" & I hope the MCU braintrust can GotG or Ant-Man them & make characters like those popular.  But to be fair they aren't even pre-2009 Iron Man or even Ant-Man level in the public consciousness,  99% of people who know X-23 only know Laura from Logan (they don't even know her as X-23 - you'd have to elaborate & be like "the little girl in Logan") & even those people have never heard of those others.  Comic Book Buzz <> commercial success.

As far as the movies go, casting is literally everything, particularly for the previously unknown characters. Dafne Keen was twelve or thirteen when she appeared in Logan, and they needed someone who could play a character who was nonverbal and bordering on feral for three-quarters of the film. When it's finally revealed that Laura can speak, it's well into the third act and after a lot of the action has happened. For young actors, I can't imagine how many candidates they'd have had who could pull it off.

[swanpride]

AoS isn't a failure AT ALL!!! Did it lose a lot of viewers in the beginning because the show was not what a lot of them expected? Yes. But it is ALSO Marvels longest running TV show by a mile, one study has shown that it is one of the most watched shows Worldwide period, and when Disney Plus made a test launch in the Netherlands, AoS was the second most watched property directly after Avengers Endgame. Not Star Wars, not any of the other Marvel Movies, AoS. It also brought new fans to the MCU because some people actually START with AoS and then decide to check out the movies, too.

AoS has more viewers than some shows where there internet has decided that they were a success...and that includes all of the CW shows and all of the Marvel Netflix shows.

[Raja]

7 hours ago, swanpride said:

AoS isn't a failure AT ALL!!! Did it lose a lot of viewers in the beginning because the show was not what a lot of them expected? Yes. But it is ALSO Marvels longest running TV show by a mile, one study has shown that it is one of the most watched shows Worldwide period, and when Disney Plus made a test launch in the Netherlands, AoS was the second most watched property directly after Avengers Endgame. Not Star Wars, not any of the other Marvel Movies, AoS. It also brought new fans to the MCU because some people actually START with AoS and then decide to check out the movies, too.

AoS has more viewers than some shows where there internet has decided that they were a success...and that includes all of the CW shows and all of the Marvel Netflix shows.

I think that the nerd class determined it a failure because Disney did not add an original AoS story line or character to the Infinity Saga.  With the explanation that the god, "with a small g" Feige didn't want them so we don't.  As far as canon concerns it held until security for Infinity War/Endgame got the TV production to guess and they guessed wrong

Now if my friend from the Star Trek writer's world is correct it never would have happened because a TV writer owns the usage of Daisy, May, all of them except for Coulson  and movie producers would never set the precedent of paying for such a small cameo that a provision that the  TV writer's contract had since the last TV writer's strike.  

[Perfect Xero]

20 hours ago, ICantDoThatDave said:

Ok, I'm gonna attempt to tie a bow on my thoughts since I inadvertently kicked off a big discussion by accident.  My initial post was reflecting that Thor 4 might suffer from Critical Acclaim <> Commercial Success, re: Jane-Thor. 

It was just a thought, a post, an idea, not meant as any sort of Deep Thought (tm Jack Handy) or social commentary.  Not even a prediction.  But here goes...

Low hanging fruit.  Gimmicks are done to produce buzz.  If they produce initial buzz without long term success they are a failure.  I mean Agents of SHIELD as much as I hate to admit it falls into this category.  Big buzz, terrible ratings after a few months (I still watch it!).  Remember Terra Nova?  Remember The Event?  Remember Flashforward?  Big "event" (i.e. gimmick) TV shows that were middling successes.  Manifest, currently.  Gimmicks can easily peter out into middling successes or even failures.  They aren't mutually exclusive.

Ok, granted, but the people that have read the story number in the tens of thousands.  Ms Marvel & Squirrel Girl are even fewer.  Have buzz <> have readership.  That's my whole point.  Concepts that generate buzz <> success.  Why?  Because the people who support the concept *are not comic buyers*.

That is totally fair.  But it didn't translate into sales.  10 issues in Jane-Thor was already a middling seller & stayed there.  I accept that everything you said is true.  i wasn't in any way disparaging the quality of the story, only readers' interest in paying for it, which was relatively low.

You're calling a show that has well over 100 episodes and counting a failure because its ratings dropped after an initial high first handful of episodes and are mentioning it alongside shows that were cancelled in their first season.

You seem to be setting the standard for a 'failure' as anything that isn't a top 5-10 comic/show at the time, which is a ridiculously high standard to use in discussion.

[swanpride]

Quote

Now if my friend from the Star Trek writer's world is correct it never would have happened because a TV writer owns the usage of Daisy, May, all of them except for Coulson  and movie producers would never set the precedent of paying for such a small cameo that a provision that the  TV writer's contract had since the last TV writer's strike.  

 

If that were the reason, they wouldn't have added Jarvis to Endgame either. After all, HE came from Agent Carter. I think the lack of AoS characters in Endgame is simply because it would have been impossible to add them without letting the writers of AoS in what was planned. But AoS is ending now, for the better or the worse. I think for the worse, but if nothing else, it "frees" the character in a sense. Provided that Feige wants to use them in the first place. They aren't as easily discarded as Runaways or Cloak and Dagger are.  

[Raja]

1 hour ago, swanpride said:

 

If that were the reason, they wouldn't have added Jarvis to Endgame either. After all, HE came from Agent Carter. I think the lack of AoS characters in Endgame is simply because it would have been impossible to add them without letting the writers of AoS in what was planned. But AoS is ending now, for the better or the worse. I think for the worse, but if nothing else, it "frees" the character in a sense. Provided that Feige wants to use them in the first place. They aren't as easily discarded as Runaways or Cloak and Dagger are.  

However one of the Agent Carter production first episode folks, thus a rights holder,, Stephen McFeely  was also an  Avengers Endgame writer 

Edited February 23, 2020 by Raja

[swanpride]

But aren't the rights of those characters with Marvel anyway? I mean, maybe not for Fitzsimmons and May, but certainly when it comes to Daisy. Quake is after all a comic book character.

[Raja]

44 minutes ago, swanpride said:

But aren't the rights of those characters with Marvel anyway? I mean, maybe not for Fitzsimmons and May, but certainly when it comes to Daisy. Quake is after all a comic book character.

The way the Star Trek novelization writer explained it to me was it didn't matter if a TV writer adapted a character from another source. If it say Daisy Johnson was first aired on a TV show and someone wanted to use that Daisy Johnson for a movie that TV writer was getting paid. Now the Marvel Comics writer might also get paid according to his contract but that had nothing to do with the TV writers. Movie producers who were not part of that TV writers deal just refused to do it unless absolutely necessary. Setting the precedent to pay for Chloe Bennett to show up on screen for a second to be another force blast like Howard the Duck showed up was a money move, now and future.

For Star Trek, the nostalgia was being sold from folks who waited over a decade for their show to return, so many a reoccurring character went from the original series to the movies. But not as many of those" lower decks" characters made the jump from the Next Generation to their movies. A name from Voyager like the Doctor did but not other folks from 7 years of TNG.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Raja

[swanpride]

But wouldn't James Gunn and Perlman get money for the use of Howard the Duck, too?

[Raja]

25 minutes ago, swanpride said:

But wouldn't James Gunn and Perlman get money for the use of Howard the Duck, too?

I don't know was that iteration a TV character first? James Gunn for the Guardians, like McFeely was already on the Endgame money tree

[swanpride]

No, but either they don't want to share with no writer at all, or they just don't want to share with TV writers. In the former case, they have already shown that yes, they are ready to share with other writers, and the latter case is irrelevant for AoS, since the Pilot episode was written and directed by Joss Whedon.