Marvel came in for a lot of flack from fans after they seemingly cancelled every one of their All-Ages 'Marvel Adventures' titles earlier this year. There's been a lot of concern that, at the moment, comics are bought primarily by an aging market, with no young readers getting into comics to ensure a long-term future for the industry. But last month came the news that Marvel were going to replace Marvel Adventures with a different line of comics - ones based on their successful cartoon properties.
DC are well-known for their successful attempts to transfer their comics properties into other media, with TV shows like "Batman: The Brave and the Bold", "Teen Titans" and more capturing young viewers' attention - and even inspiring DC to introduce original TV characters like Harley Quinn into their comics. So it makes sense for Marvel to follow their lead, in the wake of their popular cartoon "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" and the soon-to-launch "Ultimate Spiderman" series. This April, two comics will launch from a revamped Marvel Universe line, featuring high-profile creative teams who are very much experienced in both comics and television.
Chris Yost, writer of Scarlet Spider for Marvel but also showrunner for "Earth's Mightiest Avengers", will write the comic-book version of the series, joined by artist Adam DeKraker. Meanwhile, Dan Slott and Ty Templeton will unite for Ultimate Spiderman, a comic which will also have stories created by the entire "Man of Action" studio. Man of Action are a collection of TV/comic-book writers who created the series Ben 10 amongst others, and count Joe Kelly (who was one of the writers for Amazing Spider-Man during the 'Brand New Day' era), Joe Casey, Steven Seagle and Duncan Roleau. We would assume that the story would be written by Kelly, but all four have previous comics experience, so it actually might be a rotating job for the team, with one person creating a new vignette every issue.
At any rate, it's a promising show of committment from Marvel, and a sign that they're willing to compete with DC's All-Ages titles in attempting to bring new fans to the world of comic-books.
1 comment:
I think that I liked the Marvel Adventures line better. This TV tie-ins only line feels like it puts too firm of a delineation between the "all ages" titles and the regular comics. I understand that some comics should NOT be read by children, but making all of the "all-ages" books TV-related (and DC does exactly the same, I'm not just blaming Marvel here) puts kids comics in their own little bin and doesn't encourage crossing over to the more mature material when they're ready.
I feel like the Marvel Adventures books were pretty close to the source material, and actually some of the better comics that Marvel made. These will probably be good too, judging by the talent working on them, but I still feel like there's too much of a separation now.
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