What bothers me is that it seems so obvious (to me, at least) that Spidey should be on the other side; his whole career has revolved around protecting his loved ones from any repercussions brought about by his superheroic identity. Sheesh, for the longest time he wouldn’t even tell Aunt May about his powers for fear that her heart couldn’t stand the strain!

Yes, I know that Aunt May knows about his powers now, but my point is that it just doesn’t add up: Peter’s concern for Aunt May and MJ, his adulation of Captain America, years of being persecuted by the same authorities he is now supporting…he should be on Cap’s side, fighting for the right to a secret identity! This whole thing seems out of character for him.

From what I’ve seen, not at all – the pro-registration side are clearly the heavies (shooting kids, building concentration camps, attacking Captain America, etc.) But here’s my counter-question: how is “Civil War” an adequate metaphor for the kind of “War on Terror”/civil liberties issues Marvel is implicitly comparing it to? The Superhero Registration Act isn’t comparable to any of the various programs associated with the War on Terror (warrantless wiretaps, indefinite detention without due process, etc.); if anything it’s comparable to gun control laws and anti-vigiliante policies, which last I checked most liberals support. To that extent, the politics of “Civil War” are all screwed up: liberals aren’t opposed at all to making a guy with homemade superarmor register with the cops, and it has precisely squat to do with “current events” anyway.

If you ask me, that’s where the story is going and if it gets things back to the status quo after all is said and done, most commenters here at least will be happy.

BTW, I’m not a huge Marvel fan (haven’t been since they scared me out of comics the first time in the 90s) but I’ve enjoyed the first two issues of CW. It’s tons better than Infinite Crisis, at least–but maybe that’s not saying much.

Except a large number of the people going in to buy it weren’t doing such to read it, but because they thought it would be worth money. And even if they had read it, they certainly didn’t stick around in the same numbers to see what happened next. So the sales it generated for one issue don’t really mean much to the industry in the long term. And what really hurt was that there WAS a slow groundswell of building interest that went away when everything became centered around who could do the bigger stunt and “would it put my kid through collage”.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with getting news coverage or publicity. There is, however, a huge difference between having a genuine interest/groundswell behind what you’re doing and frantically jumping up and down waving your arms screaming “Look at Me! Look at me!”. The former shows that there is a large number of people that this actually matters to beforehand and the latter is a sad, desperate cry for attention that’s probably not being given otherwise.

it was blatantly obvious they were going to do this from well before #1 even came out. still, at the end of the first issue i was hoping spiderman was about to pull some stunt. throw SOMETHING back in tonys face. at the very least, i was hoping he was just going to figuratively give the media a finger and take off. especially since he showed up in his old suit, as if he was throwing off all the influence tony had on him. i was giving marvel too much credit it appears. its turning into one of those things where they try to set up some suspense and a few surprises but even without the internet spoilers you see it coming miles away. its so sad that you can read this, and see a REALLY awesome way out of it (and ive heard a lot of ideas proposed on what could have been done. EASY stuff that could have been done) that would floor people, and this is the best that you get.

You know, it is called a NEWS-paper. They’re supposed to publish it while it’s actually news. And while this may be a shock to some, newspapers do not require mandatory “spoiler warnings” before revealing the contents of a printed publication.

Yeah, and Superman #75 kicked off the speculator boom that nearly destroyed the industry. That’s a great event to emulate right there.

The point is that if you want people outside your usual customer base to buy your product, you need to make it possible for people outside your customer base to find your product. In the 90s, Marvel and DC just tried to soak the same customers more and more until they got sick and dumped them altogether. The restructuring of the comics industry has to happen first; until you do that the publicity stunts are counterproductive.

A few years back, my non-comics-reading brother asked me “Didn’t they kill off Superman years ago?” He had absorbed the first wave of publicity about Superman’s death, not the much smaller one that followed about bringing Superman back to life. He never picked up the comic himself. In his mind, one of the most memorable and iconic figures in the world of comics – and one of the biggest reasons to actually buy a comic book – had been gone for a decade. So there you go: publicity.

Will this stick? I have no clue, but I don’t really care. This looks like an interesting plot complication for Spidey, I’ll see where it goes. As plot developments go it’s a nice one.

But then, my favorite comic book character got his brains blown out after 79 pages of reflecting on his “loser” status, so I can’t really be shocked or scandalized by anything like an unmasking.

But arguing against raising one’s public profile does seem to be slitting one’s own wrists. People do come into comic stores for stuff like this who wouldn’t have gone in otherwise…witness Superman #75, for example. Sure, a lot of those people didn’t stay, but that was because…well, 90s comics. Loathe ‘em or ignore ‘em, you can’t like them.

Except that it’s exactly what they shouldn’t be doing. Who ends up buying these stunt stories? It’s not the elusive New Reader (or the near-cryptozoological Young Reader). It’s more of the same Old Readers just switching over from 52 or One Year Later or whatever the industry Hype Of The Month is.

The comic book industry is dying because mostly because of the insularity of its structure. The direct market and everything it spawns – the scattered network of shady, out-of-the-way specialty shops, the mega-part crossovers, continuity so tight it priveleges readers who’ve been around for twenty years or more – is hostile to new readers. The people who read about Spider-Man unmasking in the LA Times or the New York Post aren’t going to think, “Oh boy! I have to run right out and find my local comic book store and buy a copy right away!” They’re going to file it away in the back of their minds as another interesting factoid and forget about it the next day. Who even knows where to find Civil War #2 who isn’t going to their local comic book shop once a week anyway?

The real proof that this stunt isn’t going to bring in new readers is that Joe Quesada doesn’t even expect it to. He insists that this is a long-term change, which means that for the first time the comic book version of the character will be significantly different than the movie version. And that’s because they’ve finally realized that the movies don’t really affect the comic sales all that much, and that’s because only comic book readers buy comic books.

What comics need to survive isn’t a series of publicity stunts like this, but a structural overhaul – a more decisive shift from comic shops to bookstores, and from singles to paperback format. Right now they’re too expensive, too insular, and too obscure – and their insularity encourages editors and publishers to pull stunts that drive the characters further and further from the tropes that made them popular in the first place.

So what as we say in business?

Superheroes can have secret identities, or not. Spider Man works weel with one but the most important thing is how well the book is done. In Top Ten, all the characters are super-cops with no secret identities and they’re still interesting and the stories work well. The old Spidey stories where he was desperately trying to hide his identity were good too. The trick is to do the book well and stay true to the spirit of the story. Making a comic about changing the story not good or fun or interesting or anything. Civil War is just product and nothing else. No core, no heart, no spirit.

Next Marvel will be publishing the minutes from their marketing meetings and charging for them:)

First, let me say that I agree with a) to a limited extent–if this is, indeed, intended to be a permanent alteration to the status quo of Spider-Man, then it’s a woefully misguided one that’ll be retconned away in a few years’ time. But I say that with the caveat that I don’t believe a) is true. I think that everyone concerned has more common sense than that, especially after seeing what happened the last time they tried to keep Spider-Man and ditch Peter’s personal life. (Hint: It starts with a “B” and ends with an “en Reilly was a bad idea.”)

Second–if it is a shameless stunt, it’s a freaking brilliant one! Everyone complains about drumming up publicity to get people to read comics like it’s some sort of mortal sin, but you know what? It’s exactly what they should be doing. I’d be ashamed of Marvel if they weren’t trying to hook new readers with shocks, plot twists, and crazy publicity stunts. The day comic books decide, “Let’s not do anything startling or unexpected, and certainly not anything that would cause people who don’t already read comics to pick up an issue,” that’s the day before the industry goes out of business. They used to do stuff like this all the time–go look at Silver Age comics covers, they all promised amazing, startling, blow-your-mind stories that would take the character in some impossible direction. Finding out how they avoid hitting the brick wall is part of the fun. They just can’t do it with the covers alone anymore, because comics aren’t sold at newsstands anymore.

The people who defend these kinds of shock storylines always repeat the perennial line, “It might make for a good story.” But when have these people done that? They break down their characters, but not to take them anywhere new or to build them up again into something more interesting. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred they break them down and then leave them like that because they don’t know what to do next. Maybe this is the hundredth time out of a hundred, but I’m not sticking around to find out.