Disassembled Avengers perhaps reassembled
So Marvel is cancelling all the Avengers books, with the obvious assumption that they’ll bring back the adjectiveless Avengers and resume the original numbering.
New Avengers and Mighty Avengers used to be two of my favorite monthly books. Then New Avengers jumped to $3.99 a month and Dark Avengers showed up. I wasn’t going to give in to the inflated price tag, so assuming that the events of Mighty Avengers would be tied in with what was happening in the $4 Avenger books, I just decided to drop Avengers books completely.
When Siege #1 was about to come out a few weeks ago, I remember feeling almost bummed. I hadn’t read anything positive about the buildup to this latest huge event, but I was still kind of sad at the awareness that I was growing away from the comics I used to enjoy so much. A few years ago, I would’ve been such a loyal Avengers comics reader that I would’ve picked up Siege regardless of whether or not it looked good — it would’ve just been the next chapter in wherever these stories were going.
Things I’m still curious about:
– Would a new “The Avengers” book retain the $3.99 price of New Avengers or the $2.99 price of Mighty?
– Which — if any, if not all — of the current Avengers titles will be used to calculate the new numbering. Will they pick up at #505? Or will they add up every New, Mighty and Dark issue and combine that with the original run?
I don’t know about not hearing anything positive about the buildup. If you were a New Avengers fan before the price-hike, it’s been just as awesome as it has been, as far as I’m concerned.
Have you considered switching to trades? Usually the collected price makes up for the cover price of the singles. The Avengers franchise (Dark and Mighty included) has been immense fun and I can’t wait for the “Age of Heroes” to spin out of Siege.
As far as not hearing anything positive, I meant specifically regarding Siege. All I was hearing were variations on “Dear God another mega-event?” and “They’ve literally ripped off the catalyst for Civil War.”
I have actually considered the trade route for the Avengers books and Secret Warriors, but now Marvel insists on releasing everything in hardcover and then waiting several months for anything resembling cost effectiveness. Even then, a six-issue paperback trade commonly runs $20, so it’s not even that much cheaper anymore.
Maybe in 20 years these books will come out in the super-cheap phonebook editions. If books still exist, that is.
I don’t think Jim Doom is alone in the way he feels. I’ve seen it all over the web, which make it tough for me to find interesting things to blog about here. People are just not as excited about comics right now as they were even just a year or two ago. Even on the DC side where Blackest Night is doing well it’s not exactly lighting the world on fire with excitement for comics in general. It’s just good enough not to anger people.
The new way of waiting for the trade might just be waiting for the digital version, since the digital version the standard digital prices now are 99 cents and $1.99. That is about the price point the Avengers books are worth now in my opinion. Ironically I have found the quality of the Avengers books have decreased as the prices have increased. The most offensive to me were the $5.99 Dark and New Avengers annuals. Dark had quality art but a dumb story. New had horrible art and a generic story. Neither had a page count to justify the price.