I wrote about HERE
of how I had gotten back into comics and was seeking them out like crazy. I was
an avid collector for a little less than two years and collected nearly 500
ongoing issues during that time. That's not even counting the trades I would
get off of amazon. I was obsessed to the point that it probably hurt my bank account more than I should have allowed. But now most of the reasons for that
obsession are gone.
See, when I got into
comics, Marvel was doing Marvel Now! and DC was well into the New 52. These
were both changed and ongoing continuities that were a little tough to get a
grasp of at first. But I did and I eventually fell in love with them. While the
only DC Comics I followed were Scott Snyder's Batman and Jeff Lemire's Green
Arrow (mainly due to a lack of interest in Superman, Wonder Woman, Aqua Man,
etc.), I have trouble figuring out all the Marvel stuff. Between four different
Spider-man titles, Avengers (there's a lot of them), Daredevil, Moon Knight,
Ms. Marvel, The Punisher and various others, I was obsessed with the world and
its unique continuity. Then Secret Wars happened.
Something had been
hinted at throughout Hickman's run of Avengers: the end of the world. I know, I
know, what's a big comic book event without the end of the world taking place.
Only this time was different: they had a countdown letting us know that "Hey
guys, the Marvel Universe is fucking OVER." As it just got closer and
closer to the end, I found myself questioning why I was even reading these
books if their continuity was just going to be dropped. All of the stories I
had been investing my time in were suddenly being dropped.
One of the prime
examples of this is Ultimate Spider-man. To this day, Ultimate Spider-man is
the only comic series with over 100 issues published, that I've read every
single one. I binged them over a few month period, reading upwards of ten to
fifteen a day. Spider-man had always been my favorite character and the series
is considered one of the best around, so it was a no-brainer. When Miles
Morales took over after Peter's death (go read this series if you haven't, it's
such a journey, I need a separate post on it to do it justice) I was
trepidatious but it did the impossible: it kept me interested in Spider-man
even without Peter Parker. Recently we were treated to Peter returning from the
grave, and Miles finding out the truth about his father. Now all that's gone.
As are all of Miles' friends and family. Why is that? Because the Ultimate
Universe is no more. Sure, Miles will now be in the 616 (whatever that means
now) but what of the world that he lived in and greatly affected? Why would
Bendis bring back Ultimate Peter just to have everything killed off shortly
after. Hell, anyone else that's read Miles Morales Spider-man knows how much the
story seemed to be leading to greater things. But now what are we left with?
Miles stuck in a world where the villains aren't his and the people aren't his
either. I get that Miles is a great character but will he survive the move? I
probably wouldn't have been as upset about this if they didn't seem like they
were setting up for something more. Oh well.
Hell, Marvel is even
being petty when it comes to the film properties that they don't own. If you
don't keep up with comics or movies then you may not have heard of this so let
me indulge you: the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises are owned by Fox and therefore
Marvel is not making money off of these films. Their solution to this has been
to excise these characters. The ongoing Fantastic Four series has been halted,
and the X-Men are being replaced by the Inhumans. What are the Inhumans you
ask? They're the X-Men, only without the trademark issue. Yet another problem
of business negatively affecting creative.
Then there's the
switch to a "season" model. This means that books will be going in
annual cycles, resetting the numbering every year. As someone who just had a
helluva time making it through different series due to the insane re-numbering
that has been going on, the thought of even more number changes is frustrating.
Seriously, go try and read a series and you'll understand the frustration of
there being a huge gap in issues because "Oh yeah, that's when they
switched to THIS title for twenty issues then it goes back to the original
numbering." I hate hearing the excuse that the high numbers are
intimidating to new readers. As a new reader, I want to say: they're not. All
they have to do is signify when a new story arc is beginning. That's it. But
no, they've decided to just re-number every year. Ugh.
As far as DC is
concerned, the quality of their books have dropped to the point that I have no
interest in continuing with any of them. Batman is no longer Batman. He's Jim
Gordon in a robo-bat suit. And Bruce Wayne is allegedly dead. Again. Pass. Jeff
Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino left Green Arrow and so did the sensible writing
and fantastic art style. Pass. Unfortunately the rest of DC is full of
characters I'm not into so as for the rest of the lineup? Pass.
That really just
leaves me with Image as far as books that I pick up. While I absolutely love
Saga, Outcast, Black Science, COWL, and Trees, it's hard to justify going to my
LCB for them. And even with most of their titles being a sensible $2.99, I
still can't justify it when they release cheap trades quickly and I can just
get them off of Amazon. Plus, with how dense most Image titles are, it's much
easier to read as collected trades anyhow. Hell, I've only read Saga and Black
Science through trades, forgoing any single issues because of this.
While I'll really
miss the conversations I had with my Local Comic Book Guy (I still don't know
his name even after so long… I'm a terrible person) I have no interest in
continuing for the time being. It's expensive and the model to which the
business is now being based, is not something that appeals to me. I'm by no
means stopping my love for comic books, it simply means I'll be taking a dive
into the back catalog and finally reading some gems that I may have missed.
Will comics ever go back to what they once were and bring back continuity? I
doubt it but if they ever do, I'll be back, wallet in hand.
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