In a lot of ways, the holidays are about tradition. Everyone’s got ’em. It might be a family latke recipe, or getting together to watch Die Hard, or arranging the Christmas tree ornaments so the cats don’t knock them off the lowest branches. Here at Multiversity, we have an annual tradition of looking at shared comic book universes and politely ask them to do something differently. It’s one part new years resolution, one part gift giving — to us, every one!
Today, we are taking a look at the House of Ideas, Marvel Comics. We’ve been pretty excited about a lot of Marvel books this year, and we have a lot of suggestions of how they can continue to capitalize on their success. Let’s take a look!
Don’t Worry About the Movies
We all know that Marvel has a tendency to adjust the comic book characters at least a little bit to match their live action counterparts more. Star Lord, for instance, didn’t care about music until Guardians of the Galaxy introduced us to “Awesome Mix Vol. 1,” and suddenly it’s a core part of his comic character.
With more and more characters about to get live action adaptations that will have to be shifted from their comic book origins (Ms. Marvel, for instance, won’t be an Inhuman on her Disney+ show for a number of reasons), there’s a high likelihood that Marvel will want to change the comics to match.
So my first wish is: don’t feel like you have to do that. Subtle changes to match visually are fine, but you don’t need to retcon entire backstories to match the cinematic continuity.
Of course, I could just be worrying about nothing, but I’m going to put it on my wishlist anyways. – Robbie Pleasant
Find Your All-Ages Books
Marvel hasn’t really had a good all-ages title since “Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur” and “Unbeatable Squirrel Girl” concluded. DC has a whole line of YA & kids original graphic novels, with a couple family oriented floppies, while Marvel…has the Marvel Action line which is ending very soon through IDW? One or two OGNs aimed at middle grade readers through Scholastic? It’s a mess. If Marvel was smart, they would start putting books out there specifically for young readers and families to read together, be those as monthly floppies or OGNs, and marketing them more widely. All this said, doing the OGNs through Scholastic is brilliant for connecting to elementary and middle schoolers, so they’re at least thinking about the readers, and the company, who have made “Dog Man” the juggernaut that it is today.
The digital books through Marvel Unlimited seem to be starting to fill this gap too as a means of competing with Webtoon (and DC on Webtoon) so maybe we’ll see that take off sooner rather than later. – Elias Rosner
Please Don’t Tank the X-Books
We’re beginning to see the first trickling of details for “Destiny of X,” the first X-status quo in the post-Hickman era, and it looks promising. That said, the last year of the X-books hasn’t been the most exciting or engaging. Some of that comes down to COVID and other industry factors, but it also comes down to the line expanding far too quickly without a clear sense of direction. My wish is that the Destiny of X era starts and stays small, in the six to eight book range, and really focuses on telling big, ambitious, interconnected stories within the Krakoan era of X-Men. – Zach Wilkerson
Do Something About Creators’ Royalties
Marvel’s work-for-hire model has come under widespread scrutiny after Ed Brubaker’s comments about The Falcon and the Winter Soldier earlier this year, and it has become increasingly difficult to accept in an age where Marvel characters regularly rake in billions for their parent company: it’s great that Marvel Studios do provide compensation and credit for certain creatives, but that’s not always possible, as we saw when David Aja — whose “Hawkeye” series was integral to the Disney+ show — was not given the same prominence as Matt Fraction in the credits, presumably because (what with being a resident of Spain and all), director Rhys Thomas couldn’t just reach him through a mutual friend (not joking about that part by the way.)
Continued belowLook, part of me thinks it’s great that some really awful creators won’t make another dime off some of the excellent work they’ve done for Marvel, so I can recommend those books to friends and family without a moment’s hesitation. At the same time, aren’t we tired of worrying whether the people behind our favorite characters might become food insecure, or homeless as they grow older? I’m not saying DC’s compensation scheme is perfect either, but the old punchline that people like Len Wein or Jim Starlin made more money from the D-listers they introduced there, instead of the A-list heroes and villains they created for Marvel, is getting less amusing as time goes by. – Christopher Chiu-Tabet
More Avengers Variety
Now I’ve been enjoying Jason Aaron’s run on “Avengers,” there’s no question about that. But with the exception of Ghost Rider and Blade, the team members feel a little too… safe. Most of them have their own movies, and they’re all incredibly recognizable characters, and that’s okay… but it’s leaving a lot of potential on the table.
So let’s take a step back and look at their support team and the Agents of Wakanda, which use a much more unique variety of characters. Gorilla-Man? Ka-Zar? BROO? Oh yes please, give me more of that! In fact, let’s get a few more teams with those kinds of unique characters. I still say “West Coast Avengers” needed more love (and more issues), but I want to see team-ups of some of the most obscure or bizarre characters you can think of. Make Avengers out of them all, Marvel. I dare you.
(And of course, I’d personally love to see more Squirrel Girl and Gwenpool, but at least they’ve been on Avengers-spinoff teams before. But yeah, more of them too.) – Robbie Pleasant
Keep Shit in Print
Over on Make Mine Multiversity, I groused and griped about Marvel’s pitiful trade paperback and hardcover publishing quantities. I get that Disney literally couldn’t care less about anything except amassing a Smaug-like hoard of IP and doing the bare minimum to maximize profit from it but come ON Marvel.
I get it if the paperbacks, with their tiny spines and cheap feel, are meant to be for trade readers while the later collections and omnibi are meant to be for future readers who’re coming to the series 2, 3, 5 years down the road, and thus you don’t want a lot of overstock of these stopgaps. I get it. But if you make fancy hardcovers, then you should plan on keeping those around for a long time. Artificial scarcity doesn’t make people want the product more, it just makes them mad when it’s gone in a year and on ebay for $400.
Dark Horse knows how to handle this model Marvel. Single issues for the traditional readers, nice trades for trade readers, Library Editions for the collectors, and, once a series is done, budget omnbi that replace the trades. Be like Dark Horse Marvel. At least a little bit. – Elias Rosner
Let Al Ewing Keep Doing Cool Things
The last year has seen Al Ewing doing some of his career best at Marvel, with incredible runs on “Incredible Hulk,” “S.W.O.R.D.,” “Guardians of the Galaxy,” and “Defenders.” All of those things will have ended by the time 2022 rolls in, and while he is working on “Venom” with Ram V, he has not been solicited on any issues past #1. I hope that this lull in titles is just Ewing taking some time to cook up his “Next Big Thing.” – Zach Wilkerson
Embrace the Power of Tony Leung
Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings villain Xu Wenwu, the MCU version of Shang-Chi’s father, and Iron Man’s nemesis the Mandarin, was a genuinely charismatic, sophisticated, and sympathetic foe, a far cry from Tony Stark’s hackneyed old Yellow Peril stereotype of an archenemy. Hopefully, it’ll only be a matter of time before his comics counterpart is resurrected with an upgrade resembling the big screen version.
Continued belowOutside of a What If…? episode, comics are the closest we’ll come to seeing Leung and Robert Downey Jr.’s characters fight, and Marvel would be wise to port over Wenwu’s name and appearance, his debonair sense of style (including the less Green Lantern take on the ten rings), and everything else that would make him a truly A-list presence on par with Loki, Doctor Doom, Magneto et al.
That said, it would be a terrible idea to make Wenwu Shang-Chi’s father in the comics as well: Gene Luen Yang and Dike Ruan have been fleshing out Zheng Zu’s history in their current run, and it’d be a disservice to make them or another creative team retcon what they’ve done to make the backstory of the comics’ Shang-Chi closer to the movie’s version. Besides, the Mandarin already has his own children in the comics, and it’s not like being unrelated would preclude him from fighting Shang-Chi at some point. – Christopher Chiu-Tabet
Jeff
Just keep it up with Jeff the Land Shark, guys, you’re doing great. The “It’s Jeff” infinity comic has been adorable, and Jeff steals the scene any time he appears in a comic. Keep it coming. – Robbie Pleasant
“Guardians” by Hickman
With the Ewing run unsumarily brought to a close for reasons I don’t understand — likely Ewing stepping back so he can focus on his other books — the Marvel publishing line is without its non-X-book space title. Hickman is no longer doing X-books for the time being. Hickman doing space stuff on “New Mutants” was one of my favorite things. Ergo, Hickman on “Guardians.” Nuff said. – Elias Rosner
“Guardians” by Eidos-Montréal
Well, this is awkward, but then it’s not like you can’t have two “Guardians of the Galaxy” books in separate continuities is it? Eidos-Montréal’s video game was its own, excellent take on Star-Lord and friends, and with the apparent lull until Vol. 3 of James Gunn’s trilogy in 2023, there’s no better time to do a comic starring the game’s version of the characters. There’s years worth of conflicts to explore for its iteration of the (ahem) Gardeners, and you can pick up after the ending during the brief period the Animal House-style captions take place, so you don’t have to worry about contradicting what Eidos might have planned next.
Oh, and justice for Lipless. – Christopher Chiu-Tabet
Get Grant Morrison to Write an Arc of “X-Men Legends”
This one is pretty self explanatory. Maybe pair them up with an old “New X-Men” collaborator like Frank Quitely, Phil Jimenez, or Chris Bachalo? – Zach Wilkerson
Jane Foster Rides Again
I just want an ongoing Valkyrie series. Is that too much to ask? Torunn Grønbekk was great. Maybe she and Seanan McGuire can team up for a Valkyrie/Spider-Gwen title? Anything short of a Gwen-pocalypse to get those two characters back to the center. – Elias Rosner
