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Film adaptations of comics are growing more popular day by day. From cheesy classics like Tim Burton’s “Batman” to top hits like “Captain America: Civil War,” comic book movies have certainly grown and improved. It all started when Marvel’s “Ironman” kicked the comic book movie franchise into a higher gear. But what is going on with its origin? The industries which produced these stories that the movies are based on. The answer, unfortunately, is that it’s dying, slowly. Statistics have shown that the sales of Marvel Comics have actually decreased since the movies gained popularity, which sounds ridiculous but sadly, it’s the truth. There are many problems that are causing the drop in sales, but the most important ones are that there are too many cross-over events, killing off fan-favorite characters with no emphasis, and too much political awareness.
One of the first problems with Marvel Comics is the excessive cross-over events with barely any break in between. This problem has been with Marvel for quite some time now and it has gotten much worse since 2016. During the last 12 months, Marvel has made 4 different crossover events with barely any rest in between. While these events are not necessarily bad in terms of quality, they definitely don’t improve the way the comics are selling.
Sure, big events give them attentions and attentions bring in new readers. However, Marvel forces “tie-in issues” on different series to make them all related to their big event, thinking that it will get readers to buy those tie-in issues along with the main issues for the event. This, sadly, breaks the flow of the stories of those series and causes many readers to leave them, which heavily reduces the sales of those books. Even after the event is finished, it is very unlikely those readers will return to those series.
Killing off fan-favorite characters for the sole purpose of selling books without giving their death importance or relevance. This is a very severe issue over the past year since the Hulk, Black Widow, Iron Man, have all been killed. Worst of all, they were all killed off by fellow superheroes. This is probably the worst problem Marvel is facing right now, killing heroes faster than making them. Perhaps the most disturbing part of all these is that they are just being killed for the shock value. Those main characters didn’t need to die for the story to advance or end, they were just killed for attention because Marvel thinks it will result in more money. Instead, what they get are disappointed fans and drops in sales because they have to cancel some storylines with the deceased characters. Even though no one in comics really dies, a death and revival are the pointless new “norm” that has been are not going to please anyone.
Too much political awareness has been injected into comic book stories about superheroes. Marvel’s comics are about superheroes, yet authors try to forcing their own political stands on situations without caring if it actually fit the story or the character. The amount of political awareness is so high that some people have started calling the current Marvel Comics “SJW (Social Justice Warrior) Marvel.” This is possibly the most important reason why Marvel’s sales are going down. The initiation of political awareness could’ve been good, it could’ve helped relate marvel to the real world, even if comics are nothing like the real world, but it’s been handled poorly by writers with their own agendas, preaching political opinions became their main focus and writing a good story became their secondary objective.
The ugly truth is that Marvel Comics is dying. The higher ups working in Marvel have been failing at their jobs and every month the sales figures are lower than that of the last. Their biggest competition, DC Comics, is winning almost every turn of the corner. If Marvel is allowed to go on with no interference, the industry of Marvel Comics will fail.
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