If you're as old as I am (born 1950) the major change I have seen the flooded marketplace (too many titles, variations of characters, etc.) Marvel and DC basically exist as IP/trademark farms. The numerous volume restarts (#1's), one-shots, mini-series, etc make my mind numb from the collector/reader's POV. I never signed up for that!

I've lost track of what goes on in the Marvel universe... Is there still such a thing as a continuous Marvel history, or are new stories just written as their own thing, which could be seen as soft reboots?

Not judging either way... just curious about what goes on these days. The titles I see advertised often seem to be set in a quasi MCU, and only partially related to the MU from the pre-movie era.

Isn't that part of the problem, though? If older readers are being alienated, and newer readers aren't flocking to LCSes in large numbers, they're limiting themselves quite a bit, there. And, even if they are attracting a large swath of new readers, when you don't treat your loyal customers with any consideration, that doesn't seem like a sound way to do business. I quit new comics back in 2011 after feeling pretty much the same alienation.

While I understand the buying habits and underlying economic conditions have changed over the decades, that still doesn't make the current situation tenable nor does it mean they could not do it better. Since the periodical-comic-buying niche market is so small and only shrinking, I would think not driving away members faster than necessary would be prudent.

For me personally, and echoing comments of others I've seen so not just me, the combination of rising prices, decompression and increasingly-numerous-yet-redundant issues accelerated my leaving the hobby. Look, I get that behind the 4th wall, the economic realities are going to impact the stories. You need to structure stories for the 6-issue trade format? Okay, fine. You need to have more issues and number ones to get interest? If you must, but at least put in effort and respect me.

When I really started to sour on Marvel, it wasn't just because there was another big event with tie-ins. It was that there were so many tie-in one-offs and minis that added literally nothing. They were redundant with the main story and one another. Nothing of any impact or import happened. The events themselves were increasingly plot-driven and disrespected the characters. Even outside of events, there was a glut of titles with no clear purpose or separate identities, repeating the same characters. Combined with the decompression, it became too convoluted and expensive to try and follow increasingly less-substantive stories.

i.e. they wasted my time and money, and I did not like that.

Yeah, niche hobbies are smaller markets that have to charge more to sell a specific audience a specific thing they want, so you have to pay more, but my point is, they are no longer selling what the audience* wants, so they are losing some of that market.

*some of the audience, like me and Taxi etc. Obviously a lot of the other audience is still buying it, but if they were anything like me before I dropped, a lot were doing it out of habit/collector mentality/still getting some diminishing enjoyment/hope it would improve again.


All that said, I was probably going to drop at some point anyway. I largely aged out of most of the stuff I grew up on (not to call people who still read it childish, just speaking life stage and cycles for me) and shifting time and financial priorities.

I never thought I'd see the day you'd admit to being sick of variants