Multiversity 101: Character Loyalty

In this week’s edition of Multiversity 101, I’m going to take a look at one of the greatest crimes we all as comic book fans are guilty of – character loyalty. While as fans of genre fiction, it’s to be expected that we as fans would develop a modicum of devotion to our favorites.

However, as Matt recently lamented in a piece about everyone’s favorite Merc with a Mouth, sometimes comic book companies capitalize on our ardor. Take a look after the jump for my look at the concept of character loyalty and what we can do as readers to make this less abundant of an issue.

Weapon X. Wolverine: Origins. New Avengers. Uncanny X-Men. Astonishing X-Men. X-Force. X-Men Legacy. New Mutants. Wolverine: First Class. Incredible Hercules.

Just off the top of my head, that is ten comics that Wolverine made an appearance in December of 2009. That’s without including the wide range of comics that I do not read that he assuredly reared his oddly haired head in. Wolverine is about as abundant in Marvel Comics as Norman “Tommy Lee” Osborn or the retconning of terrible decisions by Jeph Loeb.

This concept is so prevalent that Jason Aaron was able to hilariously send it up in Wolverine #73 and #74, in a story called “A Mile in My Moccasins.” The basic concept of the story was Spider-Man coming to find Wolverine in a bar who is simply sitting and drinking by himself. Spidey wants a team-up and Wolverine just wants to drink, all the while we’re being shown snippets from Wolverine’s hellish average week – fighting with The Punisher, adventuring with The Avengers and The X-Men, and generally getting his ass kicked left and right. Aaron recognized how insane his schedule was and seeing it set up like it was ended up being hilarious and revelatory at the same time.

The reason why these type of insane situations and that many appearances can take place is quite simple: fandom’s loyalty to certain characters. Wolverine can have his name on three titles simultaneously and instantly sell them, Marvel knows this. That exactly one of them is regularly of a high quality (Jason Aaron’s Weapon X) is indicative of the effort that they put in. Yet in November of 2009 these titles ranked 28, 48, and 50 in the top sellers list, with the best one finishing last somewhat predictably.

Deadpool, whom I mentioned earlier, is another great example of a character whose appearances are spread across the Marvel Universe. Whether he’s showing up in his now three monthly titles, creating his own self-contained event comic (Deadpool Corps War), showing up randomly in Amazing Spider-Man, or being added to the regular roster for X-Force, the guy is just showing up in too many places. His appearances are almost uniformly gimmicky and more often than not completely dreadful, and his solo titles sweep our “worst (insert category here) of the month” as frequently as Jenny McCarthy movies earn Razzie nominations. His titles ranked 37, 46, and 49 on the November best sellers list.

That means between Wolverine and Deadpool, they have six titles with their name on the cover that sold in the top 50 comics of the previous month and only one of their number is really anything of merit. This isn’t even including the (at least) five other titles they appeared in that ranked in the top 50. That means 22% of the top 50 selling comics featured Wolverine or Deadpool.

Ugh.

Meanwhile, fiercely original comics like Scalped, Chew, The Unwritten, and Invincible did not even rank in the top 100.

By purchasing these bad to mediocre comics ad nauseam simply because they feature characters that can have good stories told featuring them, we’re telling comic book companies that it is okay to create unoriginal and effortless dreck like Deadpool: Merc With A Mouth. By spending our money on creatively bankrupt works like Wolverine: Origins instead of something of merit like Kieron Gillen’s SWORD (95th best seller in November 2009), we’re telling these companies “please, more Wolverine, or at the very least feature Deadpool killing an alien in the next issue.”

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Character loyalty does nothing for you as a reader. Don’t get me wrong – when my favorite character is featured it is a big draw for me as well. As I recently mentioned in a rant about The Flash, while I love the character at a certain point the lack of quality work by the creators involved mitigates all love of the character. What’s the point of us readers supporting a character that the comic company won’t support themselves? Loyalty is something that must be earned, and it is earned by reciprocation.

Next time you’re at your comic store picking up Jeph Loeb’s Hulk or Daniel Way’s Wolverine: Origins or whoever the hell writes Deadpool: Merc With A Mouth, really think about your purchase. Is this something you enjoy? Is this something you will finish reading and think “that was worth what I spent.” If not, save the money and spend it on a title you’ve been looking to get into instead. May I recommend J. Michael Straczynski and Jesus Saiz’s The Brave and The Bold – it is uniformly excellent and all stories are one-shots, so you can jump in at any point. Not only that but it ranked 99 on Diamond’s top seller list for November.