7 Reasons for Marvel's Decline

I think a lot of people play up politics and other "secret agendas" as the real or only reason that Marvel Comics sales have declined. Here I try to lay out my seven reasons as to why I think Marvel Comics have declined in recent years. I apologize for the length and would love to here back!

1. Inhumans Over X-Men

In my opinion the start of the decline goes back to the events of AvX and after. Where Marvel clearly tried to take the X-Men from the top spot they've held since the Claremont era and but them on the back burner while trying to make a bigger push for the importance of the Inhumans as well as trying to increase there popularity. Whether this is based on the fact that X-Men (and FF for the matter) movie rights lie with another company or they just wanted to give a new team more of a chance in the spotlight is up for debate but this and the quality of the X-Men books after made a lot of X-Men fans worried for their favorite superhero team. Especially if some people only read Marvel comics for the X-Men these fans no longer had the quality and consistency they once had so sales as well as Marvel's public opinion start to drop if only slightly.

2. Drastic and Quick Changes to Characters

I'll be the first to admit that diversity and new comic book characters can be a great thing. Even shakeups to well established characters can be a breath of fresh air. Some examples of this working at Marvel to me include Miles Morales and Ms. Marvel. However when a lot of changes happen to multiple characters all at once it can come across as rushed or forced. For example nobody really got to know the character of Riri Williams before she is suddenly taking up the mantle of Iron Man or an established characters sexuality suddenly changed without any real logic or explanation.(Would have made more sense if they made Iceman bisexual to explain his futureself's relationships with women. Marvel didn't take the time to get readers interested or invested in these new characters but expected them to buy the series anyway.

3. Hydra Cap

This could've been included in reason two but I think its on a different level because of this past election. Don't worry I won't get to political here but you just have the most divisive election in American history and you turn one of your most popular characters into an allegory for certain political viewpoints. I'm not saying that politics don't have some space in comics but a lot of people buy these books for pure escapism and you don't really get that if your essentially writing blatantly about the current political climate. At best the move would have just cost the Captain America book its conservative readership which may be a large number or a small number but when comics are selling less and less "every fan" should count.

4. Event Fatigue and Cash Grab

Events can be great, if they fell like they actually have meaning and would cause lasting repercussions. However, with a new "world changing" event every few months they begin to lose they're importance and resonance. What happens in an event doesn't matter cause there's another one to undo it in a few months. In my opinion anything more than one event year by any comic publisher just feels like too much. Now for the cash grab part. I love Deadpool, but I don't like it when I have to pay $5.99 for a random issue that ends a story arc especially when DC books start at $2.99. In addition to continue to use the Deadpool example most characters and teams don't need multiple books. I read Deadpool but I don't also need to read Deadpool and the Mercs for Money, Spider-man/Deadpool, and whatever Deadpool Kills miniseries they might be publishing at the moment. Marvel literally competes with themselves with the amount of these "side" books they put out for just on character. If I only have money for five books and three of them are Deadpool related that really doesn't spread the sales around to other characters there trying to establish. It should be quality over quantity I don't need six Spider-Man books when just one "good" one would be enough.

5. Competition

This next reason relies a lot on personal opinion of the quality of books that other publishers are putting out but when you have what has been a universally liked "rebirth" happening at the other big publisher a mediocre book can't compete. People are more likely to hop on the positive hype train DC has been getting than an average or below averaged reviewed Marvel book. Add in to that the lower price point that DC has on most books and Marvel can't sustain against that for too long and its starting to wear on them. And its not only DC but there's good stuff coming out of Valiant, Boom!, and Image all competing now with Marvel.

6. Talent

Not to insult any of Marvel's current writing staff but Marvel has lost in my opinion the better talents of people like Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Johnathan Hickman, and Rick Remender. Jeff Lemire even recently returned to DC. These have been mainstays at Marvel up until a few years ago and Marvel's response to it is to hire mostly unknown writers. There's nothing wrong with new blood but you should have more than just Brian Michael Bendis, Charles Soule, and Mark Waid to draw people in especially now that it seems in my opinion more people follow creative teams than characters.

7. Social Media Meltdown

In my opinion there is something to be said about professionalism. Some writers and editors (you might know who I'm talking about) constantly get into twitter arguments or insult fans for not buying certain comics. I get that its people's personal account but when you work for a media company and state your job in your profile you become a representative of said company. Your views while they might not represent the rest of the company do impact peoples feelings, attitude, and opinions of said company you work for. Also insulting a potential customer for not buying a certain book just kinda seems ass backwards since growing up all I ever heard was that the "customer is always right'.

So, that's my summary of what I think the real reason Marvel comics isn't doing as well as it once was. I don't think its just "SJWs" or "racist and bigot fans" but a combination of all these thinks adding up over the last few years. Would love to here other people's opinions on the matter, thanks!

1. Series that already "jumped the shark" - current stories lack of innovation and originality

2. Over saturated universe - too many characters sharing similar concept or out-right alternate versions.

3. Competition from other media - animes and video games for example are more flexible in terms of satisfying the taste of wider range of audiences

4. Digital Piracy - hurts everyone in the entertainment industry

5. Lack of Genuine Talents - Most recent stories feels like fanfiction to be honest, but we cant blame them almost every stories had been told already.

6. Old fans move on to some interest that are more productive than comic books

7. Too much American Politics

@mimisalome: Totally agree with a lot of what you said here. And I never thought of the politics in terms that its just American politics. Readers in other countries probably don't understand or even care about a lot of what's being thrown into the books.

For me they're just not putting out any interesting books.

All the SJW changes for sure. That is my #1 reason.

Other than that they need impactful events that keep people dead, and less of them.

I think one is complete off base. I think it's obvious that the Inhuman have an unnecessary push,cbut it's not at the beset of the X-Men, since throughout the entire push, there has never been less then 4 X-Books(6 of you count Deadpool), hell there's 9 right now, there has never been a subtract of X-Men on other team books like Avengers.

I don't care much for 3 either. Steven has been "made" a badguy or nazi like 4 times now, once under Kirby's own pen. I hate Secret Empire simply for the fact that really feels like it has no stakes and everything will be made moot in the end, and the fact that they already got a Captain America book right when this ends,kinda proves my point

Replacing the characters everyone likes with characters no one likes

To sum up my feelings on current Marvel, they just seem dead set on alienating and rejecting their loyal readers for the sake of clickbait articles and pandering to people who will never buy a comic book. And I've heard rumours that they are blacklisting creators who are conservative or apolitical.

Before someone blames what is perceived to be a SJW agenda, it should be noted that the common factor through most of the New heroes is that they aren't established and their stories suffer because of that. It's not diversity itself. It's just the fact that they seeming injected a whole bunch of heroes without properly building them up

They just need to fix it fast. I miss reading a good Wolverine an X-Men comic.

One might be fooled by looking at Comic-chron and seeing Marvel at #1 in market share and so on...until you realize they have months of putting out 90+ titles and nearly 1/2 of them are getting "cancellation" type numbers. The profit margin on their books can't be good. To me, it all starts at the top. I don't want to go strictly with youtube rumors and such, but if even 1/2 of them are true, (Like Marvel being a terrible company to work for.) they have a lot of work to do. Now, I sometimes wonder if they aren't like "screw the books..movies!" It's gotten to the point where I think of Marvel as a movie studio first and a publisher second.

@tvc-15: There's hasn't been a subtract in the quantity of X-books as much has it has been in the quality. The fact that there are so many X-books now is because they saw that the Inhumans books weren't catching on as much in my opinion. And my point in 3 isn't so much that they made Cap a bad guy it was the inconvenient timing of the story where comes off as more of gimmick to comment on recent election results as well as the fact there is "event fatigue" going on.

Omg, this.