Many people have come to the conclusion that Marvel_b0y was nothing but a viral marketing campaign. I won't go into a lot of the different ways people have come to this conclusion. Only one is really important:
As soon as any seriously spoil-y spoilers appeared (from an anonymous commenter instead of the blog author), the LiveJournal got deleted.
Right after pledging to be around for a long time. I completely missed the comment that appeared, but CBR poster diana_fan pointed it out to me after the fact.
And what were those comments? According to a friend who saw them before the blog imploded:
- Skrull Hank Pym shoots Reed
- Skrull Captain Marvel blows open Thunderbolts Mountain
- Skrull Jarvis has something that makes all Iron Man shit not work
- Skrull posing as Sue Richards (but not Sue herself) goes into the Baxter Building and sends it in the Negative Zone
- Skrull busts open the Raft and the villains escape including Dr. Doom
- Last page is the Skrull armada landing on Earth
Update: I hear that Marvel is going out of their mind to take down spoilers revealed in the last comment before deletion of the Marvel_b0y LJ, but I haven't heard so much as a boo from them. I stand by my word: anyone official asks me to pull it down and away it will go.
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Sweet, I love me some Marvel spoilers. The most fake comment in my opinion was when he said that people went into Steve Wacker's office and questioned him. I kind of doubt anyone believed that Wacker would be the blogger.
ReplyDeleteYeah...that was definitely one of the potential tip-offs. ;)
ReplyDeleteOh well, it was fun while it lasted. I liked the Castellan website that they made for Checkmate myself as an example of good viral marketing.
ReplyDeleteI should copy those and put them on my blog I never use, maybe I can get an official notice! All of that stuff is just build up anyway. 95% of the people buying Secret Invasion won't read the spoilers and even if they did, as long as the end wasn't ruined its no big deal. If the story is any good people will want to read it after knowing the end anyway, reading it over and over as a TBP or whatever.
It would be funny if a real anonymous Marvel employee tossed the spoilers on the livejournal blog because the thought the fake website was dumb or something.
Thanks for the blog, and I'm glad I discovered (re-discovered?) your site.
ReplyDeleteSpoilers separate hype from substance. I will never spoil things for someone who doesn't want that - but i am very glad to see sales from books grounded in hype versus quality suffer because I feel the fans ultimately win.
Sharing the spoilers, for me, isn't a statement on whether I think Secret Invasion will be quality or not. I actually happen to think that Bendis just might do a bang up job on this thing.
ReplyDeleteTo me, it is about the viral marketing built on deception. I think it is a progression of the dishonesty that Marvel's used quite a bit over the last year or so. It's, also, just lame. ;)
I agree with you in that I do expect Secret invasion will be a quality story. Though this comment may damn me in some eyes - its the books leading up to it that have often been disatisfactory because of my feeling certain plots have been stretched out to accomodate this endpoint.
ReplyDeleteWhen all is said and done, its my hope that Bendis will not feel the need to have such decompressed storytelling anymore - and a more natural flow will return to the Marvel U books that he writes.
There is a relationship that exists between a company and its fans - and dishonesty definitely weakens those bonds. In any case, I could just be projecting, but it certainly seems that at present there is a huge sense of disconnect between Marvel and its fanbase.
I think the industry has pretty much learned that an extremely cohesive universe, when pulled off well, is a compelling read...but there are too many potential pitfalls that will keep it from coming off smoothly and headaches that just don't make it worth the effort.
ReplyDeleteCountdown to Final Crisis and the tie-in mess that JLA has become prove it from DC. Certain rumors suggest that it is true at Marvel, as well.
Why did you decide to post full on spoilers of a book without mentioning it in the title?
ReplyDeleteThis was really unclassy of you.
Pedro: the title says it is about the comment that led to the Marvel_b0y blog getting deleted. All of the attention swirling around Marvel_b0y was about his giving away of spoilers. Just because some people talk about him without addressing that key component doesn't mean it should be assumed that everyone will.
ReplyDelete