Marvel has been busy of late. About 16 months ago, they re-launched most of their core titles as part of their Marvel Now re-branding: Avengers, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and so on. Currently, Marvel in the midst of another wave of re-launches. However, this time, the focus isn’t on their perennial favorites like Captain America, Thor and X-Men. Instead, they’re digging a little deeper and reviving older concepts that haven’t been active in a few years- like the Black Widow and New Warriors- while also restarting a few of their lower profile titles- like X-Factor and X-Force.
In general, I’m interested in what Marvel is doing. A new wave of titles is always a little exciting. Yet I can’t help but concur with the more cynical commenters who proclaim, “But that trick never works!” Marvel has re-launched New Warriors a number of times over the years but has never re-captured its initial success. Meanwhile, X-Force has been on a re-launch roller coaster with a new version popping up every 2-3 years. Why would anyone expect these re-launches to be more successful than their predecessors?
Well, first of all, we may have to modify our definition of success. Once upon a time, it may have been reasonable to expect new concepts to become evergreens that would be published in perpetuity. But the industry is different now and that’s no longer a reasonable expectation (if it ever was). We should probably consider some of those former re-launches as successes. For example, Rick Remender’s Uncanny X-Force was well reviewed by critics and well regarded by fans and it survived for 35 issues before Remender was ready to move on to something else. That’s pretty good actually. Fans were entertained for a few years and a creative team concluded their run on their own terms. That’s not a bad definition of success.
Instead of saying that X-Force re-launches have failed five times in the past decade, perhaps we should credit X-Force for being occasionally- though not consistently- successful. And instead of expecting the new Black Widow or New Warriors series to be published in perpetuity, perhaps we should look to be entertained by good creative teams for a few years. There’s nothing wrong with that. The future is promised to no one, so enjoy the present for what it is.
Even so, there are reasons why most re-launches fail to re-capture the interest and acclaim of their original incarnations. As I think about it, one of the biggest reasons is the status of the creative team at the time of the launch. Marvel knows what their big titles are and they’re going to put their most popular creators on their most popular concepts. It’s simply good business. Yet Marvel editors also want to maintain good working relationships with their top creators. They therefore occasionally indulge the interests of their top creators by allowing them to create new concepts.
John Byrne was at the peak of his popularity in 1983, with acclaimed runs on Uncanny X-Men, Avengers and Fantastic Four on his resume, when he started Alpha Flight (a concept he had previously introduced in Uncanny X-Men). Rob Liefeld was one of comics’ most popular artists when he revamped the New Mutants into X-Force in 1991. Kurt Busiek was one of the industry’s top writers in 1997, with Marvels and Astro City under his belt, when he created the Thunderbolts. The ingredients were there for a successful launch of a new concept.
However, top creators aren’t usually put on revivals of second-tier titles. Lesser-known creators are usually assigned to lower profile re-launches. Maybe they’ve had success at independent companies or in other media, but they aren’t yet big names in comics. The re-launch becomes their testing ground. It’s a way for Marvel’s editors to get to know them and their work. And it’s a way for them to build their own fanbase before being handed the reins to one of the top titles. The aforementioned Rick Remender is a good example once again. Remender was a moderately successful writer for other companies with critically acclaimed hits like Fear Agent to his name. Marvel let him re-launch X-Force for them and that was moderately successful as well (see above). Having seen what he can do, Marvel then let Remender write an X-Men/Avengers hybrid title, Uncanny Avengers. That title has been a big success for both Marvel and Remender.
It’s a good business model. But it also contributes to the re-launch run-around. X-Force wasn’t going to become a number one comic again with a relatively unknown Rick Remender attached as writer. The same goes for the new New Warriors. New writer Christopher Yost has been around for a while. He’s a competent- and occasionally excellent- writer. But he doesn’t have the profile of an Ed Brubaker or a Matt Fraction. His New Warriors isn’t going to be a top ten seller. But that shouldn’t matter. It could be a reasonably entertaining comic that hangs around for a few years- and there’s nothing wrong with that.
Replies
I've never read the original New Warriors. My assumption is it was modelled to some extent after New Teen Titans. On the above cover the characters look younger than the Wolfman/Perez Titans were; early or mid teens rather than late teens. Before altering this post I compared them to the Titans in the Teen Titans cartoon but on reflection several of them look a bit older than that; a good comparison might be the early New Mutants. The art style suggests a title with an upbeat, cartoon-style approach. This may be a repositioning of the franchise as well as a relaunch.
Are the authors becoming more important then the stories and characters? Do you think it is a case of fans buying what a writer creates even if it's not as good as before because his name is on the title?
Uh, that's not what I said at all. Byrne's Alpha Flight is a great comic. What I tried to say is that fans are more likely to buy an Alpha Flight comic by Byrne fresh off of his success on Fantastic Four than they are an Alpha Flight comic by Steven Seagle before he'd written anything of note.
That is what I meant, that the re-launches are driven more by the authors name than the desire to read the characters.
Some people follow writers, others follow artists, and some follow characters. I often find that a lot of the books I enjoy are edited by the same people - Stephen Wacker recently (Hawkeye, Daredevil, Superior Spider-Man), Tom Brevoort a few years back (Kurt Busiek era Avengers, Thunderbolts) for example.
I don't think relaunches are driven by authors, as much as the company or the editors. There's always pressure to increase sales, and an "All New #1" is a surefire bet to at least get a short-term boost.