"All-New Marvel NOW" Those are the words that officially killed any intelligence coming out of the Marvel marketing department. It was bad enough with their shit ass teasers last week for Inhumanity that generated no interest, but to slap "All-New" in front of the already sucky "Marvel NOW" is just too much. As much as DC is all over the place the "New 52" is still reigning strong. Sure it's not new and it's like a twenty year-old radio station just slapping new on the title when they fire a DJ, but it's better than just adding to the previous marketing. What's even better is that they're making the numbering even crazier than they ever have before. Some of you are like, "shut up and tell me what you're talking about" and if we were in person I would simply tap on the top the screen which contains the websites name. Fair point though!
I'm talking about two new titles that Marvel has announced. The first is just Avengers, but it's being given a cute subtitle "Avengers in Space" "Rogue Planet". Here's the numbering kicker. Under the "Marvel NOW" banner the comic will be number at #24, while under the "All-New Marvel NOW" banner the book will receive a fresh number one on the cover. Meaning that they're shipping two books with different numbers. I get that for new readers and digital readers this will be easy to follow, but let's be honest how many collectors are going to want both? A lot.
The second title is James Robinson's first solo work at Marvel. He'll be teaming with artist Steve Pugh for All-New Invaders. Probably a good fit for Robinson since the Invaders are Marvel's version of the JSA, but the series track record in the modern era has been pretty weak.
Marvel also revealed that Inhumanity is a part of the "All-New Marvel NOW" and that more creators will be joining the "All-New Marvel NOW" banner, which to me means reboots or just doing the same thing they're doing on Avengers and shipping numbers for the same issue.
Remember when Netflix was going to divide their company to make it easier for people to understand the business and no one understood it? This reeks of similarity. Next year I expect the same tired ass marketing team to add the word "Exciting" before "All-New Marvel NOW" and for Marvel to ship the same issue with three different numbering.
