Captain America Media Frenzy!!!
Marvel what's going on!! When DC killed Superman they gave fans months of advance notice to prepare to mourn for the death of such a mantle superhero. Remember those cool black arm-bands with the bloody Superman logo. Apparently not. What did Mighty Marvel give us, the fans and retailers, nothing, no advance notice whatsoever. So, on the day of release for Captain America #25, everyone and their mother learns from CNN that Cap is dead, and the demand for a nationwide understocked issue skyrockets. Plus, you just had to go and make Cap really cool again with the Civil War series, so there was already increased demand for the comic. For shame Marvel, and I'm your biggest supporter here at Star Clipper.
What has been the strangest turn of events however is the media fallout. Everyone from CNN, yahoo-news, NPR, and even Comedy Central's The Cobert Report, posted above, has reported on the death of the World War 2 hero.
We in the comic industry find this infintely entertaining. Not to burst anyones bubble but dude is not going to be dead forever. He's a freakin' comic book character. They always come back in some form or another, well except for uncle Ben. But they have to bring Cap back because they're planning on adapting his character into a movie, and you gotta have comics
to sell!
So here is a question for you. How are they going to bring Captain America back?
Dan thinks that Winter Solider will take on Captain's identity. Too obvious. Elizabeth is betting that Tony Stark will clone him like they did with Thor in Civil War. Too demeaning. I argue it is going to be one of two ways. Marvel is going to either bring in four lameass Captain America wannabe's who will bicker over who gets to be Cap. Then the real Captain will ascend from heaven to reclaim his thrown as king patriot. But since that is exactly what happened with Superman we can hope we don't halve to suffer through that atrocity again. So the other option would be that the real Captain America is still frozen in a glacier since WW2, all they half to do to is find him and thaw him out. So who was shot and killed?!? U.S. Agent.
Let's see you come up with something better!
-Jon
posted by Star Clipper at Tuesday, March 13, 2007
3 Comments:
Well, they DID give retailers advanced notice, announcing on CBIA that "something big was going to happen" that meant they should order Cap #25 at or above Civil War numbers, which some retailers paid attention to and some didn't. That's not Marvel's fault. I'm glad they didn't let the cat out of the bag, as it would have ruined the ending of Civil War to know what happened after it (not that the end of Civil War was all that good but, y'know).
Also, not to burst your bubble, but they DID bring Uncle Ben back from the dead "in some form or another": an alternate universe version was wandering around the pages of Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man for over a year.
My guess on how Cap comes back: he becomes the new Iron Man.
Jason:
As a retailer, and member of the CBIA, I can assure you that the 'advance warning' you describe was far less direct than you think. At best it was oblique. And even stores that ordered 2x their civil war numbers sold out the same day - Star Clipper is a case in point. You have to understand that publishers routinely hype individual issues and that retailers have become less likely to listen to the mysterious and generally unhelpful last minute sales pushes like those given on the CBIA from publishers. Marvel should have contacted retailers on the FOC with a more direct warning.
To Marvel's credit, they overprinted the run and we're expecting another large shipment of first printings. And a second printing is on the way. But in general, this could have been handled more professionally by Marvel. I won't even talk about the Wizard Universe nonsense.
-Ben
Yes Uncle Ben has come back in various forms in alternate universe versions, but he remains to be the only one of the "big three" to remain dead. I refer you to this for confirmation: http://www.answers.com/uncle%20ben
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