I think Marvel needs to face the hard truth that decompression and
the overall darkness prevailing in its titles across the board ran
their course years ago. Decompression doesn’t work in a monthly format
anymore, because the stories are not interesting enough. The
decompressed format has allowed writers to become lazy (either
intentionally or through inadvertence), because it is easier to pad out
one story over 4 to 6 issues than it is to come up with new plots every
2 or three months or so.
For example, did we really need 3 or 4 issues of drunk Tony with his foul mouthed Troll (or dwarf whatever) friends tooling around in that workshop in the Fear Itself Iron Man issues. The answer is NO. IT WAS BORING. This could have been done in one, yes one, issue without any lose to the story. As a result there was NO real story and NO plot progression. Another example of BORING was Bendis’ past-through-present TV style Avenger’s interviews in “Avengers.” It was infuriating to have to pay hard earned money for this kind of useless junk. It was uninspired and completely uninteresting.
Another related problem is the $3.99 price point. This is directly tied into the decompression problem because we fans have to spend a lot more money to get a complete story. The problem existed at $2.99, but now is worse. Your casual fan is not going to want to shell out $24.00 to buy a six issue story arc on one or more titles on any consistent basis. As a result there is little to no loyalty to a particular title anymore, unless Marvel reboots, renumbers or otherwise revamps the title. While I find Invincible Iron Man, Avengers, and Mighty Thor to be dull reads for the most part I am a completist, and thus suffer along until the better writers are assigned.
In my humble opinion, Marvel needs to significantly curtail decompression, move the likes of Mr. Bendis and Mr. Fraction the core superhero titles, and hire competent writers who can write in the classic superhero style.
-Living Tribunal, 11/11/11
For example, did we really need 3 or 4 issues of drunk Tony with his foul mouthed Troll (or dwarf whatever) friends tooling around in that workshop in the Fear Itself Iron Man issues. The answer is NO. IT WAS BORING. This could have been done in one, yes one, issue without any lose to the story. As a result there was NO real story and NO plot progression. Another example of BORING was Bendis’ past-through-present TV style Avenger’s interviews in “Avengers.” It was infuriating to have to pay hard earned money for this kind of useless junk. It was uninspired and completely uninteresting.
Another related problem is the $3.99 price point. This is directly tied into the decompression problem because we fans have to spend a lot more money to get a complete story. The problem existed at $2.99, but now is worse. Your casual fan is not going to want to shell out $24.00 to buy a six issue story arc on one or more titles on any consistent basis. As a result there is little to no loyalty to a particular title anymore, unless Marvel reboots, renumbers or otherwise revamps the title. While I find Invincible Iron Man, Avengers, and Mighty Thor to be dull reads for the most part I am a completist, and thus suffer along until the better writers are assigned.
In my humble opinion, Marvel needs to significantly curtail decompression, move the likes of Mr. Bendis and Mr. Fraction the core superhero titles, and hire competent writers who can write in the classic superhero style.
-Living Tribunal, 11/11/11
