Wolverine NEVER existed

[Navarre]

Ah, I so agree. But that is my "marketing makes the star" argument, isn't it?

How dare you agree with me, sir! Why, you'll kill the thread! 

[SpiderLover]

I think it depends on the product. Marketing does not always make the star, see Zune.

[Gaumer]

I think it depends on the product. Marketing does not always make the star, see Zune.

Good point, but the product sucked.

That is MY point in this debate: You need to have both. A good product AND good marketing behind it.

Its easier for Disney, they are marketing to little girls who haven't been jaded by years of content. Marvel saw the Wolvie love early and kept that ball rolling with good stories; that lead to Wolvie being everywhere, which has happened with other characters, but Wolvie just stays because the stories he is in don't suck as hard as other stories do...


On topic: if Wolvie DIDN'T exist and I'm coming at it from a nowist perspective, I'd think Marvel would just have plain Jane stand-ins for the Wolvie titles and...I'm not sure about the Avengers...if Wolvie didn't get on in the first New Avengers run than I don't see anyone specific taking his specific role on that team. I don't believe you even have an X-Force in its current context (black ops/wetworks team) without a Wolverine in the universe.

Half of the current X-Men would be dead. I'm not sure how many times Wolvie has saved their asses. I don't think Cyc leads the team, but I also think the Phoenix doesn't stay with Jean...maybe.

But, yes, someone could take his place, I guess. No other character does as much in the style he is made to do his stuff. He's a retcon wrapped in a shape-changing stereotype, which is, and this is the attraction of the character for me, what every character in comic books pretty much is once they are boiled down. It would prolly have been a multitude of character taking the roles and doing the things Wolvie has done and continues to do, every week, in at least one book, and prolly three, in comic books.

[SpiderLover]

I think for comics you probably need both. However for other things not so much, look at Minecraft and it's millions of users. The purchase power behind a game that hasn't even released yet. People have bought beta access. That's crazy, but a great product can do well without marketing.

Comics...in this day and age are a little different. I think people make a comic book character, not so much exposure. It is all about what is a fad and what isn't. Gambit was huge when I was a kid, in terms of the character, Cable, and Deadpool. Now Deadpool is everywhere these days, and his couter part Wolverine is as well. I don't recall seeing Gambit with his own issues, but  Cable had a book. Why did that fail?

[Navarre]

Some guy in my therapy group told me last week he was a comic fan. He told me, with great conviction, he read about all the best characters:

Wolverine, Lobo, Spawn, Pitt, and The Punisher.

What does that mean?

[Gaumer]

Cable was okay, but Cable and Deadpool was awesome and lasted a good while.

I'll give you Minecraft, but it for everything I think it needs to have a sliding scale: if its a really good product you don't need as much marketing because word-of-mouth becomes the marketing. Video games also build an online community so I have more fun if I tell friends about the game and get them to play. I just end up arguing with people about comics I suggest


Those just happen to be the characters he likes I guess. There's nothing wrong with liking them. I wouldn't agree that they are the best. The best changes week to week for me though. And it doesn't sound like he's reading currently; Pitt, Lobo and Spawn don't have anything out that I know of and Punisher just relaunched a #1; unless its the MAX stuff Pun ends up in, which is pretty good stuff.

[Navarre]

Nah, he's not currently reading. But the fact that his esteemed collection of favorites were all the badasses force-fed to us during the 90's makes me think the marketing game holds weight even over time.

[Gaumer]

Nah, he's not currently reading. But the fact that his esteemed collection of favorites were all the badasses force-fed to us during the 90's makes me think the marketing game holds weight even over time.

And this is just one guy. As its been said, the badboy love timing coincided with the inundation and last hayday of comics from the late 80's to 90's. Yes, comic publishers pushed the character type, but only after its success, and that just happened to happen at the same time comics were a bigger deal than they had been and have been since. A prefect storm, if you will, that just had staying power because so many jumped on that particular wagon at that particular time.

None of the other characters mentioned have had staying power like Wolverine. Punisher may be arguable but he has been a small part of some awesome stuff and his books have been jokes in the past decade, culminating with Franken-Castle (which I kind of liked if only from the standpoint of Frank Castle actually taking the role of the monster in a time [Dark Reign] where every one of Osbourne's 'heroes' was pretty much exactly like the Punisher) with no where near the staying power of Wolverine as far as sales go.

[The Mighty King Cobra]

I'd love it if the Legion got writers good enough to write decent stories.

Here we go with this again...  As I've been trying to tell Stephen repeatedly, "decent" is subjective.  "Quality" is subjective.  There is no hard and fast rule of what makes a story good, but simply rewriting a story that worked or reusing a writer who did well on another character is NOT going to guarantee good stories nor that you'll like what they do with them.  The quintessential example is Grant Morrison's X-Men:  Great comics, not necessarily like by X-Men fans because it's not really what they expect of an X-Men story.

Characters become popular not just because of marketing, but because of unexpected factors.  Wolverine hit at the beginning of a trend towards realistic hard-nosed characters, and helped to make EVERY character into one.  If marketing made the character, then Kitty Pryde and Wolverine should have been a massive hit and made Shadowcat into the next heavy hitter for Marvel.  Instead, it damaged the character enough that she was mostly sidetracked for about three years until they revamped her in Excalibur...

Marketing is only part of it, and many characters became popular even without the benefit of marketing, Wolverine included.

[Navarre]

I have no answers for how things work as they do. I accept then that you are likely correct.

Wolverine does exist. Both Marvel and the readers are happy about it. I suppose that is all that matters.

[starfallzone]

Thank for the info, i didn't know that wolverine doesn't exist, I dont know if this is true but i was born 80's but Ive seen wolverine already on tv shows. anyway, I still love his personallity and a great fighter as well.

[Gaumer]

I'd love it if the Legion got writers good enough to write decent stories.

Here we go with this again...  As I've been trying to tell Stephen repeatedly, "decent" is subjective.  "Quality" is subjective.  There is no hard and fast rule of what makes a story good, but simply rewriting a story that worked or reusing a writer who did well on another character is NOT going to guarantee good stories nor that you'll like what they do with them.  The quintessential example is Grant Morrison's X-Men:  Great comics, not necessarily like by X-Men fans because it's not really what they expect of an X-Men story.

Characters become popular not just because of marketing, but because of unexpected factors.  Wolverine hit at the beginning of a trend towards realistic hard-nosed characters, and helped to make EVERY character into one.  If marketing made the character, then Kitty Pryde and Wolverine should have been a massive hit and made Shadowcat into the next heavy hitter for Marvel.  Instead, it damaged the character enough that she was mostly sidetracked for about three years until they revamped her in Excalibur...

Marketing is only part of it, and many characters became popular even without the benefit of marketing, Wolverine included.

When it come the The Legion, I'm not sure I agree.

I've never read Legion before grabbing the new 52 book the other week. How can anyone who hasn't read Legion for years read these books? I had no idea where we were, who the players were, and there was a huge place and SOOO many characters. That is not subjective. I was lost.

Anyone I know, even those who have never read a comic book, can pick up Uncanny and have somewhat of a grasp, far more than the Legion, of what is going on.

This comes down to a marketing issue. We've had X-Men cartoons and movies inundating the market for years to the point that people know who these characters are. Even Madrox is a known character, if not known by name to the masses.

They want Legion to be popular with new people, and why wouldn't they want that, they need a square one either in comics or, even better, somewhere else to grab a market.

So, I do agree that marketing has to include quality (even if subjective) creating, but there are instances when no amount of epic writing or art it going to make a book readable to the masses.

So, yes, I'm admitting the crack in my argument with the "chicken and the egg" and "good creating/marketing" discussion

[The Mighty King Cobra]

Having read X-Men this week, I wholeheartedly disagree.  In fact, the level of confusion and disregard for new fans was pretty much equivalent in the LSH #1 and X-Men #534.  Both had stories with multiple levels of continuity required, both had sketchy character work, and both were essentially a chapter in an ongoing, overarching story arc. 

But at least we are coming together on the marketing bit.

[Gaumer]

Having read X-Men this week, I wholeheartedly disagree.  In fact, the level of confusion and disregard for new fans was pretty much equivalent in the LSH #1 and X-Men #534.  Both had stories with multiple levels of continuity required, both had sketchy character work, and both were essentially a chapter in an ongoing, overarching story arc. 

But at least we are coming together on the marketing bit.

Yeah, but X-Men #534 isn't part of a huge relaunch that, in part, is meant to allow new readership to jump aboard. And UXM is planning something along these lines. I'll be anxious to see how Marvel handles a number 1 as a starting point compared to the lackluster efforts of DC this month.

[Slappy]

I always found that being a fan of both groups, the Legion tended to be easier to jump into because plotlines were not threaded for 6 - 10 years at a time.  Granted they had hints dropped early but events like Gambit and Sinister, Days of future past, and the other Summers brother seemed like they went on forever.  The worst and longest Legion plotline I think was Shrinking Violet being kidnapped and replaced by Yera.