For those of you that don’t know Marvel is doing another relaunch in May called “Fresh Start.” Now I know what you’re thinking : “But Vance, you’re wrote an article on ‘Marvel Legacy’ just a few months back.” I know I did, well read fan, but now I have to write another one.
(As of this writing)Currently Marvel has announced 12 different books with 3 of them premiering in May and the others forthcoming. They have said that this will be a line wide event and that the books will change over as the current writers finish up their stories. That right there makes me happy cause nothing is worse than when a good writer has to cut a story short to accommodate a crossover.(Looking at you Superman Doomed.) However, I still have to say that this seems way too soon for another relaunch when we just had Marvel Legacy back in August. This relaunch tells me one of two things : Either 1. C.B. Cebulski as the new Editor-In-Chief needed a restart to make sure everything was running correctly following Axel Alonso’s questionable decisions over the last few years(Civil War II, Secret Empire, Hydra Cap) or 2. It is intended to send out the very clear message “We were wrong.”
Now I have problems with both of these answers strictly because the first shouldn’t necessitate a relaunch considering they’re not restarting the universe like The New 52 did in 2011 and because the second one should never happen. Saying “We were wrong” about the aforementioned stories can be fixed by either ignoring them entirely or just using them as a footnote to what is happening now(Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s current Captain America run is basically doing both of these things.) A relaunch to reinvigorate the stories and add some excitement for your readers can be a great thing but doing it so soon shows nothing but a lack of belief in your product.
Now, some people are talking about how a return to #1’s makes it more accessible to new readers and I fully agree with getting as many new readers as we can because comics can be very daunting if you have 500+ previous issues to think about but let’s look at something just real quick :
Now, that’s the first Amazing Spider-Man issue following the Marvel Legacy relaunch. Now, it does have the scary #789 up there but then look at the header : “Fall Of Parker Part 1” see, that part 1 gives people the clear indication of this being a new story that you can jump on. Now you might be thinking “But what about the stories that came before? How will they know about that?” Well honestly Marvel has a solid advantage on this because DC doesn’t do title pages anymore, they just jump right into it while Marvel’s comics first page typically have a “Previously on…” Style page with the list of people who worked on the comic. It’s a good way to start for new and older readers alike. Maybe you read last month’s issue but between work, other reading and every other aspect of life youmight actually like a quick refresher before we get right into the latest issue.
But what about the new creative teams? Well I’ll tell you, Jason Aaron on Avengers is just a natural progression for him as many have hailed him as the next Bendis. Him plus Ed McGuiness on the art will most likely be a perfect standard for the rest of the line. Aaron will still be writing Thor as well with Mike Del Mundo handling the artwork, their run will see the Odinson returning to the title role. Dan Slott on Iron Man will most likely be a dream come true for us, Donny Cates on Venom and Ghost Rider will be interesting to see, Margaret Stohl on Captain Marvel will be great, Mark Waid will be writing Dr. Strange and Ant-Man, a lot of great things. Then you have the weird ones like The Immortal Hulk but I’m willing to see what happens. Of course the most exciting news to me is Te-Nehisi Coates will still be writing Black Panther as he takes the story into a cosmic area that is previously unexplored and as good as that sounds it gets better, he’ll start writing Captain America following the July 4th issue. Coates will undoubtedly deliver a new take on cap that will take him to new directions while maintaining the true aspects of the character. I obviously can’t wait he’s become one of my favorite writers and I know that he truly cares about his work which means something in comparison to what I’m about to tell you.
For all of the previous solicitations there is one that stands apart as a serious issue for the relaunch :
That’s right. Nick Spencer is taking on the duties of writing our favorite Webslinger. This is incredibly distressing for so many reasons. First and foremost is the fact that everytime you talk about him you can say “Hydra Cap Writer” and it will be perfectly applicable. Also, we have to take into account the fact that his writing just isn’t that good. Superior Foes of Spider-Man was pretty fun, I will admit that and his Sam Wilson stuff wasn’t terrible but it still wasn’t that great and I’m of the opinion that Marvel and DC should be held to a higher standard than what people like Spencer can offer. There are hundreds of writers out there that have great plans for comics and instead of getting someone who actually has passion for the characters they wanna get someone who just wants to be different. Nick Spencer should’ve been fired immediately following Secret Empire but instead he goes quiet for a few months and then gets another one of our favorite characters. Initially I want to say wait and see about this comic but we’ve been burned before and we don’t deserve to go through this again.
Another big issue is the current lack of diversity. As of right now there’s one leading female(Captain Marvel) and one leading hero of color.(Black Panther) While we will have more solicitations in the coming months, there could be a better representation on the horizon. But considering that we are at a point where everyone of different Ethnicity, Genders and Sexual Orientations can have a hero then they have the responsibility of implementing them well.
Overall, we will have to wait and see what happens. If Marvel can pull this off then it could be very successful but I’m still hesitant to get too excited because just as soon as I do, I know they’ll announce “Fresher Start” in 2019.
