Gemini
Well-Known Member
I imagine this would apply more to your Marvel and DC comic lines than anything else.
Recently I've been growing more and more tired with the shared universe concept in the Marvel universe. The more and more these storylines intersect the more frustrating they become to read. Back when Civil War was happening I would be the first person to be out there praising the benefit's of a shared universe. But now, I want Moon Knight in Moon Knight, Iron Fist in The Immortal Iron Fist, and Thor in Thor. I don't want to see them chumming it up with each other anymore, it's grown quite tiresom, and it seems to serve no purpose than to sell a few more comics and water down a writers vision for a series.
So I was wondering how the rest of the board felt about this, does anyone else feel that the shared universe concept has run it's course? or maybe think that the idea itself is not faulty but it's not being supported properly by editors?
I do personally think the bulk of my issue is stemming from the completley inept (for the most part) editorial team from Marvel. Or maybe it's stemming from event fatigue. Or possibly that I want the hero of the story to fight a villain, and not the star of another book, because then you obviously know the story will end in what can be summed up in a draw. It's probably the summation of all three.
I suppose without Shared Universe you can't really have a team like the Avengers or the JLA kicking around, because these are teams that are comprised of characters who for the most part have their own series, their own supporting casts, villains, etc. characters that can support themselves on their own quite easily. They aren't like the X-Men where you could more or less take the entire Mutant population and slap them into there own universe and noone would notice the difference. Isolating characters limit's their exposure and greatly reduce's the chance of new readers jumping onto a series.
Is there a happy medium that can be obtained? DC seems to have the right idea with having 1 major hero protecting a city (Superman for Metropolis, Batman for Gotham) with a group of under-heroes to flesh out the area, leading to a group of mostly isolated universe's comprising a larger shared one. Compared to Marvel New York having an epidemic of capes so bad that they're crawling all over each other eating each others young and so forth. Marvel seems to be trying to spread out their franchise's a little better sending the X-Men to 'frisco, and the 50 state initiative. But then again the 50 state initiative really only seems to be a depository for C and D list characters, and being in Frisco doesn't seem to stop Wolverine being in 7 places at once.
It's like having your cake and eating it too, does having Rulk beat the snot out of Thor benefit the over arching story of either series? no. But does having Iron Fist undertake a quest to the Capitol City of Hell, really accomplish anything other than getting him taken off of the Avengers a team which in the right hands he would be a fantastic fit? Not really.
I think Marvel and DC need to get some new editors with some fire and brimstone sensibilities. Only approve a cross-over if it really benefits all the parties involved and contributes to both stories, and not provide whipping horse's just so a writer can show off how bad *** their new character is. And ease of the events or else the bottom is going to fall out of the industry again.
Recently I've been growing more and more tired with the shared universe concept in the Marvel universe. The more and more these storylines intersect the more frustrating they become to read. Back when Civil War was happening I would be the first person to be out there praising the benefit's of a shared universe. But now, I want Moon Knight in Moon Knight, Iron Fist in The Immortal Iron Fist, and Thor in Thor. I don't want to see them chumming it up with each other anymore, it's grown quite tiresom, and it seems to serve no purpose than to sell a few more comics and water down a writers vision for a series.
So I was wondering how the rest of the board felt about this, does anyone else feel that the shared universe concept has run it's course? or maybe think that the idea itself is not faulty but it's not being supported properly by editors?
I do personally think the bulk of my issue is stemming from the completley inept (for the most part) editorial team from Marvel. Or maybe it's stemming from event fatigue. Or possibly that I want the hero of the story to fight a villain, and not the star of another book, because then you obviously know the story will end in what can be summed up in a draw. It's probably the summation of all three.
I suppose without Shared Universe you can't really have a team like the Avengers or the JLA kicking around, because these are teams that are comprised of characters who for the most part have their own series, their own supporting casts, villains, etc. characters that can support themselves on their own quite easily. They aren't like the X-Men where you could more or less take the entire Mutant population and slap them into there own universe and noone would notice the difference. Isolating characters limit's their exposure and greatly reduce's the chance of new readers jumping onto a series.
Is there a happy medium that can be obtained? DC seems to have the right idea with having 1 major hero protecting a city (Superman for Metropolis, Batman for Gotham) with a group of under-heroes to flesh out the area, leading to a group of mostly isolated universe's comprising a larger shared one. Compared to Marvel New York having an epidemic of capes so bad that they're crawling all over each other eating each others young and so forth. Marvel seems to be trying to spread out their franchise's a little better sending the X-Men to 'frisco, and the 50 state initiative. But then again the 50 state initiative really only seems to be a depository for C and D list characters, and being in Frisco doesn't seem to stop Wolverine being in 7 places at once.
It's like having your cake and eating it too, does having Rulk beat the snot out of Thor benefit the over arching story of either series? no. But does having Iron Fist undertake a quest to the Capitol City of Hell, really accomplish anything other than getting him taken off of the Avengers a team which in the right hands he would be a fantastic fit? Not really.
I think Marvel and DC need to get some new editors with some fire and brimstone sensibilities. Only approve a cross-over if it really benefits all the parties involved and contributes to both stories, and not provide whipping horse's just so a writer can show off how bad *** their new character is. And ease of the events or else the bottom is going to fall out of the industry again.
