The Marvel Cinematic Universe (A.k.A. The MCU)

[Robovski]

Fox can't make a passable Fantastic Four movie and so Marvel wants to cut the nose off its own face by discontinuing the FF and writing out decades of mutants from the comics because who reads that? Comic fans? Clearly only movie goers are the customers the Marvel comics line should cater to. They see publishing established comics for characters they sold the movie rights to as advertising for the competition and somehow not as we can make money off these popular comics characters we can still publish. Marvel seems bent on trashing it's comics business for no good reason; they'd be in crisis already if it weren't for the Disney funbucks and the movies.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, let's be honest- the comics continuity (Hah-comics "continuity") may have its gems, but it also has a lot of shit, and its simply too vast, too Byzantine, and too often contradictory, to hold much appeal to newcomers, I suspect. There's a reason I vastly prefer the film/television continuity, flawed though it is.

I don't deny that Marvel has run the comics into the ground, but at this point, the damage is done. If it were me, I'd probably either neglect/cancel the comics, or hard-reboot everything.

[cilantro]

Here are two videos that tries to explain why Marvel comics are declining. I mean there are tons of opinions out there on why there are declining sales but the DC comics (with their new 52 universes) are currently killing Marvel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRaKv5lau_I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsUGm1ATJB4

Note: There are a lot of opinions on why Marvel Comics are failing but I have been hearing a lot that their Diversity characters are just the same character but either a different race and/or gender. Which is just lazy writing, IMO, because I think more people would rather have these characters be their own character instead. Although, again, I believe it all comes down to crappy writing and also those stupid crossovers.

Edit:

Here is another video on why Marvel comics are failing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnBiBKbBpno

[GandALF]

I think it might just be the fact that things get stale after 50-70 years. I don't think that its a coincidence that the (arguably) most creatively successful films, GotG, are based on the far more recent Abnett team rather than the original 70's team.

[The Romulan Republic]

Here are two videos that tries to explain why Marvel comics are declining. I mean there are tons of opinions out there on why there are declining sales but the DC comics (with their new 52 universes) are currently killing Marvel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRaKv5lau_I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsUGm1ATJB4

Note: There are a lot of opinions on why Marvel Comics are failing but I have been hearing a lot that their Diversity characters are just the same character but either a different race and/or gender. Which is just lazy writing, IMO, because I think more people would rather have these characters be their own character instead. Although, again, I believe it all comes down to crappy writing and also those stupid crossovers.

Edit:

Here is another video on why Marvel comics are failing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnBiBKbBpno

Marvel was failing long before the current "diversity characters", as you put it, due to a mangled mess of continuity with no lasting changes, and bad editorial/writing decisions like "One More Day". But I'm not terribly surprised that people are trying to use "Oh no, they made a white male character female/non-white" as the scapegoat.

Marvel's primary problem isn't diversity or lack thereof. Its good old fashioned shitty writing.

[cilantro]

Here are two videos that tries to explain why Marvel comics are declining. I mean there are tons of opinions out there on why there are declining sales but the DC comics (with their new 52 universes) are currently killing Marvel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRaKv5lau_I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsUGm1ATJB4

Note: There are a lot of opinions on why Marvel Comics are failing but I have been hearing a lot that their Diversity characters are just the same character but either a different race and/or gender. Which is just lazy writing, IMO, because I think more people would rather have these characters be their own character instead. Although, again, I believe it all comes down to crappy writing and also those stupid crossovers.

Edit:

Here is another video on why Marvel comics are failing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AnBiBKbBpno

Marvel was failing long before the current "diversity characters", as you put it, due to a mangled mess of continuity with no lasting changes, and bad editorial/writing decisions like "One More Day". But I'm not terribly surprised that people are trying to use "Oh no, they made a white male character female/non-white" as the scapegoat.

Marvel's primary problem isn't diversity or lack thereof. Its good old fashioned shitty writing.

I agree it is the shitty writing BUT people were still coming back to at least the characters that they knew an liked the best. Even with stories being written like, One More Day. The issue was that they created new characters BUT they were just almost identical to the old ones they were supposed to replace. Again, it does all boil down to the writing. The writing is what causing the comics' sales to decline but the pointing of what exactly sucks and why is, in my opinion, debatable. Although, the problems is that they are talking the really old legacy characters and are throwing them away for what- Inhumans and some other PC characters that the fans just don't have any investment in? Also, it's not that these characters are PC and/or the passing of the mantle but the fact that the writing of these characters just sucks.

Also, Marvel tends to do these crossovers events that would last like 20 issues and would also span into like 4-5 different comic book lines. They haven't been great both Civil War 2 and Steve Rogers ended pretty shitty, IMO.

[The Romulan Republic]

Well, here's the thing-

People will gladly watch gay or non-white or female (or all of the preceding) characters if they're written well. Some won't (we call them "Trump supporters" ), but enough will to make a box office hit (see Star Wars: The Force Awakens, though it also got to coast a bit on the Star Wars brand name).

If the writing is shit, people will reject it regardless. Although I think that a lot of people are, unfairly, more critical of the writing if it deviates from the traditional racial and gender roles, and that some people tend to unfairly put the blame for any failure on the presence of minority/female characters in more prominent/traditionally male roles.

By the way, can you clarify what you mean by "PC characters". If you mean simply minority/female characters, or minority female characters in traditionally white/male roles, then I would object to the implication that such characters are necessarily created simply for "political correctness", rather than for other merits. As in the Doctor Who thread, where I argued that it made thematic sense for the Doctor to be recast as a woman for reasons specific to that series.

Edit: To flip it around, their are some characters where it would be very hard, and possibly ill-advised, to try to change the character's race or gender, because that's a huge part of what defines the character. I like to use Buffy as an example, because part of the point of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is supposed to be a story about female empowerment, and you'd lose that if you made Buffy a man- she'd arguably largely become a generic action lead. So it depends on the character. But I honestly think you could race/gender-switch most of the iconic superheroes without losing much.

[GandALF]

If the writing is shit, people will reject it regardless.

The don't, that's the problem. Take the Falcon for instance, he is already his own hero. All they had to do was give him a flagship ongoing series. They could be diverse without pissing off Steve Rogers fans. Instead they make him Captain America, which generates a lot of press, which the PC crowd goes nuts over, which gives them a short term sales boost. Disney knows superhero comics are dying and it's more profitable to pull stunts like this than in improve the writing. Same with femThor, are they going to take the risk and invest the money and talent in an original female hero? Nah, stick with brand recognition.

[cilantro]

Well, here's the thing-

People will gladly watch gay or non-white or female (or all of the preceding) characters if they're written well. Some won't (we call them "Trump supporters" ), but enough will to make a box office hit (see Star Wars: The Force Awakens, though it also got to coast a bit on the Star Wars brand name).

If the writing is shit, people will reject it regardless. Although I think that a lot of people are, unfairly, more critical of the writing if it deviates from the traditional racial and gender roles, and that some people tend to unfairly put the blame for any failure on the presence of minority/female characters in more prominent/traditionally male roles.

By the way, can you clarify what you mean by "PC characters". If you mean simply minority/female characters, or minority female characters in traditionally white/male roles, then I would object to the implication that such characters are necessarily created simply for "political correctness", rather than for other merits. As in the Doctor Who thread, where I argued that it made thematic sense for the Doctor to be recast as a woman for reasons specific to that series.

Edit: To flip it around, their are some characters where it would be very hard, and possibly ill-advised, to try to change the character's race or gender, because that's a huge part of what defines the character. I like to use Buffy as an example, because part of the point of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is supposed to be a story about female empowerment, and you'd lose that if you made Buffy a man- she'd arguably largely become a generic action lead. So it depends on the character. But I honestly think you could race/gender-switch most of the iconic superheroes without losing much.

Well, for one PC or Politically Correct characters (I guess a more narrowed defination would be like characters that are considered to be diverse). Now what those videos were actually responding was this guy's comment last April:

After being praised for its promotion of diversity, a Marvel executive suggested this weekend that the publishing company’s newest superheroes may have caused a slump in comic book sales.

Last week, while at the Marvel Retailer Summit, Marvel’s senior vice president of print, sales, and marketing, David Gabriel, created an uproar after implying that the addition of racially diverse and female characters could have led to a sales decline.

“What we heard was that people didn’t want any more diversity,” Gabriel told iCv2 after being asked what contributed to changes in customer tastes that led to a drop in sales in October-November. “They didn’t want female characters out there. That’s what we heard, whether we believe that or not.”

He also cited economic reasons and Marvel’s release of “too much product” as other possible causes for the downturn in sales.

“We saw the sales of any character that was diverse, any character that was new, our female characters, anything that was not a core Marvel character, people were turning their nose up against,” Gabriel added. “That was difficult for us because we had a lot of fresh, new, exciting ideas that we were trying to get out and nothing new really worked.”

http://variety.com/2017/biz/news/marvel ... 202021440/

The VP thinks that it's solely because of the fact that they are trying to diversify their character line ups and that is why sales are slumping. Now, I would say that the real reason is that the writing sucks, and that is why sales are slumping, but they are trying to parade around these diverse characters and say that their comics are better solely for the change. Again, comic book readers are familiar and very accepting to changes/passing of the torch stories but these stories just suck because of the writing.

Another thing I would like to add is what they did to Steve Rogers. They made him into a comsic cubed warped Hydra (devoted) follower for what really? What was the point of that story?

[The Romulan Republic]

If the writing is shit, people will reject it regardless.

The don't, that's the problem. Take the Falcon for instance, he is already his own hero. All they had to do was give him a flagship ongoing series. They could be diverse without pissing off Steve Rogers fans. Instead they make him Captain America, which generates a lot of press, which the PC crowd goes nuts over, which gives them a short term sales boost. Disney knows superhero comics are dying and it's more profitable to pull stunts like this than in improve the writing. Same with femThor, are they going to take the risk and invest the money and talent in an original female hero? Nah, stick with brand recognition.

I would say the fact that comics are dying proves my point that people reject bad writing.

I also object to dismissing any race or gender changes as just a "stunt" automatically, because that implies that their can never be any artistic merit to doing so. I don't feel this is fair- it depends on the character and situation. I've argued very strongly for Doctor Who, as a non-Marvel example, as a franchise where it is not only logical but arguably necessary to change the character's gender, at least for a while (though Doctor Who is admittedly a someone peculiar case).

Edit: This is not to say that their shouldn't be more original female and minority characters. Of course there should be. But they are a risk, likely won't get as wide an audience, and then its quite possible some studio asshole will blame their failure on the fact that the character was a woman or minority, rather than on shitty writing or shitty management.