COMICS: Expect The Marvel Universe To Look A Lot More Like Its Old Self By The Fall
To longtime readers, the Marvel Universe is pretty much unrecognisable these days. Well, following the success of DC Rebirth, it appears as if they'll be taking a back to basics approach later in 2017.
With the political climate so, well, controversial right now, it appears as if Marvel will be taking a step back from that sort of storytelling. While Secret Empire - a very political title thanks to the involvement of writer Nick Spencer and a character like Captain America - is too far along to be changed, Bleeding Cool reports that the company will be taking a different direction with stories moving forward.
Why should you care? Well, if you're fed up of seeing a teenage girl and villain as Iron Man or an "Unworthy" Thor, you'll be glad to know that a recent Marvel creative summit reportedly led to the decision to follow DC Rebirth by returning to the Marvel Universe to a place fans actually recognise.
According to the site, "as Marvel brings back the X-Men line with a bang, to expect a return to more of a status quo for titles such as Thor, Iron Man, Hulk and more. A more familiar looking Marvel Universe by the autumn – although, just as with Captain America, as classic-look-characters return, expect new characters to keep a number of their books." That's definitely some welcome news.
However, it barely scratches the surface of Marvel's problems. Sales are plummeting, retailers are furious with them, and they're still launching new titles which confuse the hell out of new and old readers alike (after five issues of Rocket Raccoon, Rocket launches in May with a #1 issue). Will this back to basics approach make a difference? Time will tell, but it may be a good start for them.
About The Author:
A lifelong comic book fan who grew up on Spider-Man: The Animated Series in the '90s, Josh Wilding has been contributing to ComicBookMovie.com since 2009.
While he's also written for websites like Batman-News, HeyUGuys, and WhatCulture, Josh is CBM's Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and the site's #1 contributor with nearly two decades of experience covering film and TV news (including interviews with Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Gary Oldman, Halle Berry, Jon Bernthal, Tom Welling, and hundreds more).
Based in the UK with his wife, Josh is also an avid WWE and Formula 1 fan and writes about those passions on CBM's sister sites, TheRingReport.com and FullThrottleHQ.com. Favourite superhero? Spider-Man. Favourite pro wrestler? CM Punk. Favourite F1 driver? Max Verstappen.