A friend of mine was wondering aloud at Wizard World Chicago why Robert Kirkman wasn't doing anything new at Marvel.
From the NY Times (holy crap, they report on comic book moves like this?):
He was noticed by Marvel, which hired him to contribute stories to Captain America in 2004, and the next year to pen Marvel Team-Up, a series that frequently featured Spider-Man. For four years he worked under an exclusive contract, which Marvel and DC give only to their most popular creators. The contract, which excepted his Image titles, ended this month.
Yeah, appears that slowly dropping off of every Marvel property was probably because this move was in the works for a bit.
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Well, destroying Ultimate X-Men can get you off of titles as well.
ReplyDeleteHa, yeah that is true. Good luck to Kirkman and all but he probably won't be missed by Marvel in all honesty as his books were pretty much crap.
ReplyDeleteWow...all this hate at Kirkman's Marvel work. I really liked the original Marvel Zombies and his Marvel Team-Up. I had no use for his Ultimate X-Men (his run is where I finally gave it up, but I had been moving that way for awhile).
ReplyDeleteBut he certainly displayed talent with their books. I don't think it is a case of Marvel feeling he wasn't doing good enough work over there, but that he was focusing on this new opportunity.
What annoyed me the most about his Ultimate X-Men, after looking at them carefully before selling them, was that the Magician character WAS Kirkman; he put himself in as the damn Mary Sue character.
ReplyDeleteHe couldn't even write himself out of the book in a way that said "Gee, maybe people really don't like the Magician, despite that kind of being the point about the character."
Yeah...the Magician was a sign to me that not even Kirkman could save my interest in the title. I'll just leave it at that. ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't hate Kirkman (I've got trades of Battle Pope & The Walking Dead sitting to be read), I was just very unimpressed with his Marvel work.
ReplyDeleteUltimate X-Men was just awful, there were all sorts of problems during his run. Captain America & The Falcon got cancelled as did Marvel Team-Up which I found average at best and the fact that they made such a big hubbub about it getting past 2 years showed how low expectations they had of it. Ant-Man got some buzz but you just have to look at the sales on it.
The first Marvel Zombies was great, the second was fine but was more or less just cashing in. They were the exceptions but overall Kirkman didn't deliver big sales regularly hence he is not that big a loss to Marvel in my opinion.
Well, quality doesn't always equal sales. The Ant-Man fans were very passionate about the book and it received a good deal of praise across the 'net.
ReplyDeleteThe low expectations on Marvel Team-Up were more about the style of book. The reason why Marvel and DC don't do more books like Marvel Team-Up, DC Comics Presents, or (the original) Brave & The Bold is due to the fact that sales vary wildly based on who is appearing in each issue. Thus, they don't do too well in the age of non-returnability.
I remember reading Ant-Man up to issue #3.
ReplyDeleteThen I quit because in that issue, Ant-Man and that SHIELD chick who was dating his dead friend were about to have sex ON HIS FRIEND'S FRESHLY LAID GRAVE. Where does this happen? Even in a comics world, really?
I mean, come the fuck on.
It was about as bad as Chuck Austen constantly making every woman he wrote in Uncanny X_Men some horny tramp.
I'd suggest you're being a little selective in where you demand realism if that part bothered you, sir. ;)
ReplyDeleteAnd that's the sort of over-the-top thing you could see in some movie.