Yeah, that's a fair point. I wonder if that's the case for all the characters/teams with multiple books, though.
Well, logic would dictate that the reason there are so many X-Men (for instance) books is that X-Men books sell. The sticky point is, the books that seem to hover right at the cut-off point for profitability (which seems to be roughly a circulation of about 20,000) like X-Factor and Generation Hope are also the books that are least tied in to the continuity mess. I would love to see a publishing model where each book in a franchise has its own unique voice that's not tied too strongly into crossover with other books. But there's two problems with that. One is, the books that really seem to sell are the ones tied into the whole incestuous mess. So the question there is, are people buying these books
because they cross over, or are the companies taking the big titles with big creators and intentionally having them cross over, and the sales figures are more tied to the titles and teams? Second is my feeling that Marvel and DC are generally trying to give each book its own flavor, but it doesn't always work out the way they wanted. There's only so much talent to go around and it's always hard to tell which books will succeed and which will flounder. Most new books released are given a strong pitch towards how they individualize themselves when they're announced, but intent and execution aren't always balanced. I agree with you that, as a fan, less books with more quality would be ideal, but I understand the financial reasons to keep things the way they are, even though it only feeds into the short-term cannibalistic profit model that's been in existence at least since the institution of the direct market.
I do think the double shipping schedule Marvel has taken up is potentially a step in the practical direction. Spidey has managed to be essentially a one-book franchise that manages to keep sales up by putting out at least a couple issues each month. Same with Fantastic Four, which has been split into two books, both under the direction of the same writer. To a lesser extent, Bendis' control over the Avengers franchise is the same thing. You manage to keep the integrity of a creator driven franchise storyline while minimizing tie-ins and profit loss from having to cut books out of the equation. Given how many of their books are now shipping twice a month, it would be nice to see them cut some of the fat, but it seems like a step in the right direction, still.
If Hickman is writing New Avengers and Avengers as two interwoven books shipping altogether say, three or four weeks out of the year, that seems like a reasonable compromise. But the pricing of books is still ludicrous.
