New Theory: The island is in the Mojoverse!
I can’t be the only one that noticed the Oceanic Airlines advertisements in this week’s Marvel comics. There was one ad on top of a cab in Daredevil, and there was another one behind Apocalypse in Ultimate X-Men. Those things looked so out of place that they were pretty much all I could focus on in those pages.
I don’t really undertsand why they’re there, though. Viewers of Lost certainly know the name Oceanic Airlines, but does anyone else? What’s the point in having this sort of viral marketing when the only people you’re marketing to are the people that are already part of your market?
So I got to thinking, maybe this isn’t something planned with the guys at Lost at all. Maybe this is Marvel’s new attempt to be hip and cool by associating themselves with the hip and cool TV show of the moment. They have “Colbert ’08” signs in the background sometimes, too.
Regardless of whether or not this is a cross-promotion or a cheap pop culture reference, it’s annoying. The Oceanic Airlines images stick out like a sore thumb, because they’re computer-generated images layed over hand-drawn artwork. That crisp, clean logo just doesn’t look right on top of a expertly-rendered taxi. Now that I’m looking at the final page of Ultimate X-Men again, it turns out there’s not one, not two, but three Lost references in that one splash page.
If an artist decided to drawn in a reference to one of their favorite TV shows (or whatever) every so often, I’d have no problem with it. Sometimes those sort of Easter eggs can be kind of fun. But when it’s obviously forced in there by editorial, and it happens more than once a week (and especially if it’s more than once a page), that’s just stupid.
Man, I didn’t even notice it in Daredevil. What were the three references in UltXM?
I didn’t notice it in DD either, but I’m no Lost devotee.
Of course, that means that if it is viral marketing, it failed pretty horribly to work on me.
It was in Captain America, too. One of the newscasts showed in the ticker that Dr Jack Shephard was rescued, and it said something about Lost being Found. I dunno. I’d say it’s just Marvel trying to be hip.
I don’t know, the fact that it coincided with the Lost premiere makes me think it was just another of their non-traditional marketing techniques. I’m just glad I didn’t notice them.
In UXM, there was the oceanic sign, then someone had a jacket with Drive Shaft on the back of it, and there was a poster of someone who appeared to be Evangeline Lily with the letters “ST” visible (the first half of the word is blocked by Apocalypse).
If Salvador Larocca drew it, it was probably supposed to be Bernard and just looked like Kate. 😈
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