Marvel Announces Second Reboot Within Eight Months
Well, this is sad.
Eight months ago Marvel announced a company-wide reboot of their products called Marvel Legacy, which would launch around the end of their Secret Empire storyline that fall. Ordinarily superhero-mag publishers wait at least a year before desperately hitting the button again, but the window appears to be tightening. Today they unveiled “Fresh Start,” the new reboot from the makers of “Marvel Legacy.”
To be fair, it’s not exactly the same Marvel that pulled a relaunch eight months ago..back then, the president was Axel Alonzo and the most prominent writer was Brian Michael Bendis. Bendis has since signed an exclusive contract with DC, and Alonzo was replaced last November by C.B. Cebulski, also known as the mysterious Japanese writer Akira Yoshida (yes, it’s THAT guy). I’d imagine they have their own ideas they want to try.
But Marvel as a whole has been a tire fire for the last year or so, even with the original guys on payroll. The men in charge faced an endless number of self-inflicted PR disasters and did little to repair the damage before the next blow hit. They’ve faced boycotts from readers and in some cases even comics shops. A new round of #1s is just putting a band-aid on a broken leg and it only kicks their sales problems down the road for about two months, at which point they’ll be in the exact same hole.
“What’s next, holographic gimmick covers?” Um….
Only one title from the upcoming relaunch has been revealed: Avengers #1, written by Jason Aaron and drawn by Ed McGuinness.