I think it's pretty stupid to be honest

Especially if they're trying to attract new readers. Kids/young adults who are fans of the MCU movies/TV shows and are looking to get into comics most likely want to read Tony Stark as Iron Man, Bruce Banner as the Hulk, Thor as...well...Thor, etc.

In a fictional universe populated with super powered beings, the possibilities for new characters are essentially endless.

Don't see why they don't just go that route if they're looking to diversify their roster.

I think it's quite clear with the Ms. Marvel that a new character, with only a small connection to an existing MU character, can succeed... even (perhaps especially) a minority. I agree the issue is these characters are REPLACING beloved characters, rather than enriching them.

The other problem is Marvel wants its cake and eats it too; it doesn't care about continuity when release comics, except when they do.  That just doesn't work, IMO.   They've made it so (I think) most people don't care about the Marvel universe anymore, they just following specific books, or creators.

Perhaps it has to do with creators not wanting to create for Marvel and DC, but rather for themselves? I'm sure its far more lucrative to keep your own rights to your original idea.

My thoughts also. Who would these new readers be? Fans of the movies. So they go into a LCS looking for Iron Man, Thor & Capt America. Then they find out none of them are the same characters as in the movies. So they either leave or maybe buy a trade that has Tony as IM, Steve as Cap, etc.

Let's see, the US population is upwards of 250 million people, the best selling comic these days moves 100K copies, which means the Wednesday Warriors who will only but the characters they have known since the Silver Age represents less than half of 1% of the total population. The number of Wednesday Warriors has continues to dwindle and dwindle over the last 30 years while the popularity of the characters in the other 99.9% of the population has grown. They can continue to pursue a business plan that relies on the nostalgia of an aging demographic whose purchases have steadily shrunk over the last 30+ years, or they can try to find new readers with characters that appeal to a wider demographic than aging 35+ year old nostalgia driven customers who whine anytime there is actual change in the product. Let's see, chase customers whose purchases have dwindled over the past 30 years even when their ideals were being catered to by the industry while they drove away the other 99.95% of the population as potential customers or seek new customers among the other 99+% of the population who are spending money on the characters in licensing and other media at unprecedented rates. The Wednesday Warriors are not responsible for the spike in merchandising and licensing of these characters, the other 99% of the population who don't currently buy comics is.

But when they look at the big picture and make the smart long term business decisions, their niche core audience and their retailer partners who depend on the life support of that niche market to stay in business get upset and whine their desires aren't being met-when for the last 30+ years it was only their desires that were met and sales and revenue still shrunk. Unfortunately the only portion of the business model that the publishing wing is measured by is direct market sales, because it's the only small piece of the pie that is the super-hero business these days that they contribute to, so direct market sales are the only yardstick of the level of success of their tiny contribution to the overall business model, and if those numbers don't tell an attractive story in the short term, panic sets in and the suits go back to the tried and true stuff their niche core wants, the stuff that has been a long term failure for the last 30+ years turning a mass medium into a niche hobby with zero chance for survival beyond the next decade or so unless it finds a new audience to keep it going, something it hasn't succeeded in doing since the abandoning of the newstand/massmarket and something that isn't happening despite the multi-billion dollar success of the properties in other mediums.

But that tiny fragment of our revenue stream that is direct market comics looks good for a couple months and gives us an attractive quarterly report to show the higher ups and save our jobs for a few months, despite the fact we are keeping the business on the path to extinction that will happen when the current fans die off and we've missed gaining a new generation of fans of the comic books themselves going on the third generation since they abandoned newsstands. But hey as long as we are getting a bigger piece of the shrinking pie, it looks good and we can say we are successful and selling better than the other guy and that's all that matters right? I mean market share is all that matters even when the market is tiny and getting smaller right?

There aren't enough new readers in the half a percent of the population who potentially buy comics to keep it viable beyond their lifespan. If they don't do something to bring in a significant crop of new readers from the other 99.5% of the population, many of whom are already fans of the super-hero genre and the properties these publishers feature, then the entropy comic sale have been enduring for the last 3 decades will reach it's natural conclusion. It may be there is no saving the comic industry as it is currently constituted with monthly floppies being a dinosaur product suited for a market place almost 40 years in our rear view mirror. But catering to Wednesday Warriors is not a solution, it is the core of the problem why comics were passed over by mass culture and became a niche product to begin with.

Trying to find characters who resonate with under-serviced parts of that 99.5% of the population who doesn't currently buy comics is a logical plan in business terms. The way to grow a business is to find an under-served demographic and provide them with something that will make them a new regular customer. The way to grow a business is not to try to milk your existing shrinking market base of more of their money by giving them more of the same. That way leads to market saturation and dwindling sales-oh yeah, that's what we have seen for 30+ years, but that niche market gets upset when the company doesn't exclusively cater to their whims because they have become spoiled, but they can't save their beloved industry and they won't let go so their beloved industry can't seek growth in the places it needs to grow in to survive.

But hey it's all good as long as I can read the types of stories I have been reading for 30 + years because the world around me hasn't changed at all in those 30 years and customers today want everything they buy to be the way it was 30 + years ago because that's way business works right?

It can' be that sales are down because the monthly floppy format is obsolete and doesn't appeal to today's customers, it must be diversity's fault.

It can't be that sales at comic shops are down because destination stores are out of vogue and inconvenient to customers who pay for convenience but will not patronage anything they deem inconvenient, it must be because comics are too diverse.

It can't be that sales are down because the comic industry has spent 3 + decades driving away casual customers and not grooming new readers and it has caught up to them because their old readers have either moved on to other things, outgrown the Wednesday Warrior routine or (morbidly) literally started dying off, it has to be that comics are too diverse.

It can't be that sales are down because all the risk is on the retail partners because books are returnable and they lose money unless they sell 4 out of every 5 copies they order, and they can't afford to have copies on the shelves of books they haven't presold through pull lists so new books have zero chance of finding an audience because retailers can't afford to order shelf copies for potential readers to see because their is too much product out there as publishers flood the market for bragging rights in market share to save their jobs for another quarter, and comic shops are failing at an alarming rate, meaning there are fewer people ordering copies of books to pad those Diamond numbers that only measure sales to retailers and not to end customers, nope can't be that, it's because comics are too diverse that's why sales are down.

Ok, sure.

-M

I have seen about a dozen people talk about how much they love Riri at shops and shows this year. I have seen more Riri cosplay in the last 3 months than I saw of Tony at Cons in the last 3 years. I hear young female readers talk about how awesome it is to get a character they identify with in the role of Iron Man. All of them buy the books, most of them don't shop at comic shops. They buy books digitally, trades through Amazon or get their comics at conventions. They were new readers coming for Riri. I haven't seen a new reader say, hey I just just started reading Tony as Iron Man and never new hew had comics before. SO if they are capturing new readers, it is for Riri, not Tony. That's my point. Tony is a character that appeals to nostalgia. Robert Downy Jr. appeals to movie goers, not Tony. But Riri is a character that appeals to an underserved part of that 99.5% of the population who might start buying comics, but have no desire to read abut yet another middle age white guy who has been around since the 60s. That's my point. The new characters are finding an audience and are bringing in new readers, just not to floppies in the Wednesday Warrior buying pattern.

-M

PS and new readers aren't going to the lcs looking for comics, they are getting them form other venues, so their sales aren't going to be reflected in Diamond sales charts. And Diamond sales charts aren't composed of sales to end readers, it's how many copies did retailers pre-order 3 months before the book came out, which means how many did they pre-sell and can they sell on the day it comes out, they rarely stock past that, so going into an LCS to look for a comic to try is pointless in the vast majority of shops out there who order to sell out the first week so they can afford to pay for the next's week's shipment of books and not have their capital tied up in books on the shelf that may or may not ever sell. The system is designed to fulfill existing customers not to grow the business for new readers, the system doesn't allow for adjustments or effective reorders when the books comes out, it all has to be done before customers can ever see the product to see if they like it. It is for habitual customers not casual customers, another reason sales always shrink rather than grow. It's an archaic broken business model that only benefits Diamond and it exists because Diamond has a monopoly and keeps it working for them and no one else.

Coming from someone who can speed-read an entire volume of manga in under an hour, I agree with the quoted statement