What is Dead May Never Die
On Marvel’s present-day obsession with the past, and why it feels more tired than ever.
If I told you there was a comic on the horizon called Venom: Lethal Protector and that the New Fantastic Four and Spider-Man 2099 figured prominently in Marvel’s near-term plans, it’s entirely possible you would think you accidentally time traveled to the early 1990s. That would be an understandable reaction. But I have good news for you: you’re still in 2022. 16 You haven’t time traveled.
Marvel has.
Those aforementioned releases are part of a recent deluge of titles that don’t just revisit the past, they exist within the cracks of previous eras of Marvel. Whether it’s going back to Wolverine’s pre-X-Men days or another X-Men fave being revisited by his creator around the time of his creation, the House of Ideas is rolling deep on previous ones these days. This isn’t a new approach, of course. Marvel has published titles like these before, including ones I quite enjoyed. 17 The publisher loves to revisit the past.
The difference is the number that fit this description. As far as I can tell, it’s never been at this volume at one time before, which is why it isn’t just one of Marvel’s most exhausting trends, but among its most prevalent. In the next three months alone, six of these titles will arrive, with two others already announced with no more of a release date than the amorphous label of “2022.” And that’s just two months into the year. This is likely the tip of the iceberg, especially considering how much this is accelerating. And it’s easy to determine why that is. Marvel has long been a company that doubles down on things that sell.
And these titles sell.
Near as I can tell, the title that started this wave was Peter David and Greg Land’s Symbiote Spider-Man, a mini-series that launched in April 2019. This title explored the stretch when Spider-Man was wearing his black costume but before he realized it was an alien symbiote. It likely wouldn’t surprise you to learn this title did well, if only because there are few things that sell better in the direct market than Spider-Man plus literally anything involving symbiotes. It didn’t just do well, though; it was a top performer for Marvel, with its debut being the 12th most ordered comic of 2019 18 and the rest of the mini putting up Star Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy numbers. 19
Each subsequent title that fit this theme was a sales success as well. Maestro from David, Dale Keown, and German Peralta explored the origins of that future version of the Hulk 30 or so years after the character debuted in Hulk: Future Imperfect, launching as a top ten title in August 2020. 20 X-Men Legends delved into gone but certainly not forgotten stories from previous eras, debuting just shy of the top ten and maintaining orders that were in range of the non-flagship Krakoa titles. And the latest release was Ron Marz and Ron Lim’s Silver Surfer: Rebirth, with the famed duo behind the character’s most renowned stretch in the 1990s returning. They were rewarded with a top 20 seller in January 2022, per ICv2’s ComicHub charts. 21 Sometime in the midst of all of this, it seems as if a lightbulb flashed in Marvel’s collective head. The publisher knew this was a powerful formula in the current direct market environment, and it massively amped up its commitment to these kinds of titles in 2022.
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Okay, that might actually be bad news.↩
Like the rather charming Wolverine: First Class series from Fred Van Lente, Andrea Di Vito, and others in the late 2000s.↩
No doubt aided by an order-gated Artgerm variant, of course.↩
This title was so successful that it later earned a resurrection in the form of a King in Black tie-in. That’s right. Marvel published a title set in the 1980s – exploring what Knull was up to back when Spider-Man was in the black costume – in 2020 that was also an event tie-in. That might be peak Marvel shenanigans.↩
And later earned another mini-series due to those sales, presumably.↩
Those charts are derived from the 100 or so comic shops that use ComicHub as their point-of-sale system. They reflect actual sales to customers rather than orders from shops. So apparently these titles don’t just get high orders, they are strong sellers in-store as well.↩
Another appealing factor of these titles to Marvel is that they offer more bites at the movie tie-in apple, as the upcoming slate seems to be reflective of.↩
Which simultaneously is the most perplexing release and a natural one given that Secret Invasion is an upcoming Disney+ show.↩
The best part of this one is it’s a five issue mini-series, which means the New FF gets more run here than in its original story from Walt Simonson and Arthur Adams.↩
Who are working on Secret Invasion and the Doctor Strange one-shot respectively.↩
Effectively a What If…? story that explores what House of X would have been like if it was told in 1992.↩
I put “matter” into quotes there because that concept is both nebulous and essential to so many superhero readers.↩
It could also be said that these titles are a double-edged sword, eating up valuable real estate in Marvel’s line that more forward-thinking titles might exist in, creating a real opportunity cost there in the process.↩
Or open a streaming service or whatever you do to watch things during a pandemic in the year 2022.↩
Okay, that might actually be bad news.↩
Like the rather charming Wolverine: First Class series from Fred Van Lente, Andrea Di Vito, and others in the late 2000s.↩
No doubt aided by an order-gated Artgerm variant, of course.↩
This title was so successful that it later earned a resurrection in the form of a King in Black tie-in. That’s right. Marvel published a title set in the 1980s – exploring what Knull was up to back when Spider-Man was in the black costume – in 2020 that was also an event tie-in. That might be peak Marvel shenanigans.↩
And later earned another mini-series due to those sales, presumably.↩
Those charts are derived from the 100 or so comic shops that use ComicHub as their point-of-sale system. They reflect actual sales to customers rather than orders from shops. So apparently these titles don’t just get high orders, they are strong sellers in-store as well.↩