I just don't understand who or what the markete is for these huge cross-overs across 7 titles with 9 issues in each, and these horribly muddled universe shenanigans.
Honestly, I'm not really a comic book fan - I like reading them, rarely if ever buy any except exceptional one-offs, and even so mostly the European ones...But that said, if I was in the mood, say, in an airport, and thought "hey, it'd be cool to read a Superman story" (or find-replace Batman, Spiderman, whatever), the modern titles simply aren't interesting. You can't actually follow what the heck is going on. It seems to me they're just trying to get people who follow one or two series to buy bits of the others as well, to get "the whole story". That's fine for a one time crossover thingy, but...Not continuously. I honestly couldn't tell you the difference between the 5 different Spidermen out there, who or what they are, or why they all exist. having one "universe" Spiderman where there's also a bunch of others, one "more for kids" version, one "stand alone" Spiderman where it's just Spiderman in a "regular" world, that sort of thing I might understand - but if such is the case, honestly, they need to make it clearer. As far as I can see, it's all just one horrible gigantic mess where, if you're not already involved, it's incredibly hard to get in, to find an access point,... How is a random 12 year old supposed to start following this stuff? By torrenting the last 10 issues of the 10 titles involved? yeah, that's not what you want either.
Obviously you need some evolution, and continuity, or long term fans will stop and it'll all get stale. But there's other ways of doing that beyond making it more difficult than your average soap opera.
Honestly, I'm not really a comic book fan - I like reading them, rarely if ever buy any except exceptional one-offs, and even so mostly the European ones...But that said, if I was in the mood, say, in an airport, and thought "hey, it'd be cool to read a Superman story" (or find-replace Batman, Spiderman, whatever), the modern titles simply aren't interesting. You can't actually follow what the heck is going on. It seems to me they're just trying to get people who follow one or two series to buy bits of the others as well, to get "the whole story". That's fine for a one time crossover thingy, but...Not continuously. I honestly couldn't tell you the difference between the 5 different Spidermen out there, who or what they are, or why they all exist. having one "universe" Spiderman where there's also a bunch of others, one "more for kids" version, one "stand alone" Spiderman where it's just Spiderman in a "regular" world, that sort of thing I might understand - but if such is the case, honestly, they need to make it clearer. As far as I can see, it's all just one horrible gigantic mess where, if you're not already involved, it's incredibly hard to get in, to find an access point,... How is a random 12 year old supposed to start following this stuff? By torrenting the last 10 issues of the 10 titles involved? yeah, that's not what you want either.
Obviously you need some evolution, and continuity, or long term fans will stop and it'll all get stale. But there's other ways of doing that beyond making it more difficult than your average soap opera.
