NuSpidey stories: Cementing the retcon and alienating the moderates ...
On this comm, stillanerd asked, What is Marvel's O.M.I.T.? As always, he did some damn fine Internet detective work to support his hypothesis, which I happen to agree with.
So, assuming that stillanerd's suppositions are correct - IE. that O.M.I.T. is "One Moment In Time," the four-issue story arc by Joe Quesada and Paolo Rivera on Amazing Spider-Man #638-641 that will finally reveal what "really" happened on the day of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's wedding - what does this portend for the future of the title?
Over on the Spider-Man Crawl Space Message Board, a poll has been posted about O.M.I.T., allowing posters to select one of the following three options:
In reality, I do expect there will be a bit more of a sales bounce due to option two - those who dislike Amazing Spider-Man, but will buy this story arc in spite of that fact - if only due to morbid curiosity, not to mention a few folks who dislike Amazing Spider-Man and are perhaps holding out hope that O.M.I.T. will somehow "fix" things more to their liking. Of course, since there's no way that O.M.I.T. will please those who already dislike Amazing Spider-Man, look for those readers to go away as soon as it's done.
The bigger danger to Marvel, with a story arc like this, is the moderates, and let me explain what I mean by that. There have been three periods during the current status quo at which the title's sales drops temporarily leveled out, and every one of them preceded a much-anticipated "event" story arc - "New Ways to Die," "American Son" and "The Gauntlet" - the first two of which were expected to answer some significant questions, or at least to move forward some aspects of the status quo. "American Son" was followed by the sales spike of the anniversary issue and a slew of variant covers, but "New Ways to Die" saw sales return almost immediately to their previous level, at which point they started falling at a faster rate than they'd been doing before that story arc. More damning still, after barely any sales bump, "The Gauntlet" has suffered from accelerating sales declines DURING its heavily promoted story arc.
So, what does this actually mean? Here's my own theory, based on the admittedly anecdotal evidence of reading the reactions of fans online - I think that a LOT of fans consider Amazing Spider-Man to be "okay" at best, and that successive groups of fans each have their own patience thresholds, for how much mediocre pablum they're willing to put up with before they leave the title. I think that a good number of early fans only held on through the "Brand New Day" story arc because of the promises of decent storytelling and genuine resolutions in "New Ways to Die," and when THAT story arc failed to deliver very much in the way of either, that "bottom floor" of readership numbers, from just before "New Ways to Die," fell out from under the title's feet. I suspect something similar would have occurred if "American Son" had not been followed by the anniversary issue, simply because of the number of fans I heard from who declared that the anniversary issue was their "jumping-off point," even though the sales spike of the anniversary issue itself makes it impossible to verify this. Likewise, as each successive chapter of "The Gauntlet" has made it absolutely clear that there will be ZERO forward motion for Peter Parker, and every single "classic" villain reintroduction winds up following damn near the same "Hush"-style formula, I think that's why we've seen the sales drops during that story arc accelerate, as each successive group of fans' patience is finally worn out.
I call these fans "moderates" because they're the ones who said, "I might not have liked 'One More Day,' but I'm still willing to give the 'Brand New Day' status quo a chance." At first, the folks who left the title were almost all anti-OMD partisans, with maybe a few moderates among them who were disappointed with BND's early issues, while the folks who stuck with the title were not only pro-OMD partisans, but also a significant percentage of moderates who were still willing to give BND a try. The problem is, as time has gone on, those on-the-fence moderates have become less and less undecided, and unfortunately for Marvel, the overwhelming wave of them has broken in favor of leaving the book. The one thing that almost all of the moderates have in common - even the ones who are still buying the book - is that they deeply disliked OMD for being an editorial mandate that was badly disguised as a story, and the one thing that almost everyone can agree on, whether pro- or anti-OMD, is that any story at this point explaining how and why Peter and Mary Jane didn't get married will itself be little more than an editorial mandate posing as a story, simply by necessity.
Is everyone connecting the dots yet? The only thing keeping this title from sinking to its lowest sales EVER are the pro-OMD partisans and the ever-decreasing numbers of moderates who are still willing to stick it out for the promise of good stories from BND, and what's coming up is precisely the sort of editorial-mandate-pretending-to-be-a-story that even the moderates who are still patiently buying the title are most likely to deeply dislike.
Publishing this story is like deliberately steering the Titanic directly into the path of the oncoming iceberg.
So, assuming that stillanerd's suppositions are correct - IE. that O.M.I.T. is "One Moment In Time," the four-issue story arc by Joe Quesada and Paolo Rivera on Amazing Spider-Man #638-641 that will finally reveal what "really" happened on the day of Peter Parker and Mary Jane Watson's wedding - what does this portend for the future of the title?
Over on the Spider-Man Crawl Space Message Board, a poll has been posted about O.M.I.T., allowing posters to select one of the following three options:
- Yes, I will buy it, because I still enjoy Amazing Spider-Man.
- Yes, I will buy it, even though I dislike Amazing Spider-Man.
- No, I will not buy it, because I dislike Amazing Spider-Man that much.
In reality, I do expect there will be a bit more of a sales bounce due to option two - those who dislike Amazing Spider-Man, but will buy this story arc in spite of that fact - if only due to morbid curiosity, not to mention a few folks who dislike Amazing Spider-Man and are perhaps holding out hope that O.M.I.T. will somehow "fix" things more to their liking. Of course, since there's no way that O.M.I.T. will please those who already dislike Amazing Spider-Man, look for those readers to go away as soon as it's done.
The bigger danger to Marvel, with a story arc like this, is the moderates, and let me explain what I mean by that. There have been three periods during the current status quo at which the title's sales drops temporarily leveled out, and every one of them preceded a much-anticipated "event" story arc - "New Ways to Die," "American Son" and "The Gauntlet" - the first two of which were expected to answer some significant questions, or at least to move forward some aspects of the status quo. "American Son" was followed by the sales spike of the anniversary issue and a slew of variant covers, but "New Ways to Die" saw sales return almost immediately to their previous level, at which point they started falling at a faster rate than they'd been doing before that story arc. More damning still, after barely any sales bump, "The Gauntlet" has suffered from accelerating sales declines DURING its heavily promoted story arc.
So, what does this actually mean? Here's my own theory, based on the admittedly anecdotal evidence of reading the reactions of fans online - I think that a LOT of fans consider Amazing Spider-Man to be "okay" at best, and that successive groups of fans each have their own patience thresholds, for how much mediocre pablum they're willing to put up with before they leave the title. I think that a good number of early fans only held on through the "Brand New Day" story arc because of the promises of decent storytelling and genuine resolutions in "New Ways to Die," and when THAT story arc failed to deliver very much in the way of either, that "bottom floor" of readership numbers, from just before "New Ways to Die," fell out from under the title's feet. I suspect something similar would have occurred if "American Son" had not been followed by the anniversary issue, simply because of the number of fans I heard from who declared that the anniversary issue was their "jumping-off point," even though the sales spike of the anniversary issue itself makes it impossible to verify this. Likewise, as each successive chapter of "The Gauntlet" has made it absolutely clear that there will be ZERO forward motion for Peter Parker, and every single "classic" villain reintroduction winds up following damn near the same "Hush"-style formula, I think that's why we've seen the sales drops during that story arc accelerate, as each successive group of fans' patience is finally worn out.
I call these fans "moderates" because they're the ones who said, "I might not have liked 'One More Day,' but I'm still willing to give the 'Brand New Day' status quo a chance." At first, the folks who left the title were almost all anti-OMD partisans, with maybe a few moderates among them who were disappointed with BND's early issues, while the folks who stuck with the title were not only pro-OMD partisans, but also a significant percentage of moderates who were still willing to give BND a try. The problem is, as time has gone on, those on-the-fence moderates have become less and less undecided, and unfortunately for Marvel, the overwhelming wave of them has broken in favor of leaving the book. The one thing that almost all of the moderates have in common - even the ones who are still buying the book - is that they deeply disliked OMD for being an editorial mandate that was badly disguised as a story, and the one thing that almost everyone can agree on, whether pro- or anti-OMD, is that any story at this point explaining how and why Peter and Mary Jane didn't get married will itself be little more than an editorial mandate posing as a story, simply by necessity.
Is everyone connecting the dots yet? The only thing keeping this title from sinking to its lowest sales EVER are the pro-OMD partisans and the ever-decreasing numbers of moderates who are still willing to stick it out for the promise of good stories from BND, and what's coming up is precisely the sort of editorial-mandate-pretending-to-be-a-story that even the moderates who are still patiently buying the title are most likely to deeply dislike.
Publishing this story is like deliberately steering the Titanic directly into the path of the oncoming iceberg.