I probably should have done a post like this earlier. I probably shouldn’t have mixed sleeping pills with cocaine either, but I stopped having visions of my old algebra teacher so I’m going to make this post, damn it. It’s an issue worth discussing if only because I know it has everyone as frustrated about it as me. It happened this past weekend at the C2E2 Convention in Chicago. Marvel and all the other comic book companies traveled to the Windy City to gorge on deep dish pizza and soak everyone’s panties about upcoming summer events. And this big announcement this time around had to do with yet another death gimmick. This time, Marvel is really swinging for the fences. They’re going to try and kill Wolverine. Offing Peter Parker wasn’t enough. Now they have to kill the guy who is without a doubt one of their biggest characters, right up there with Spider-Man.
Now absolutely nobody’s panties should be soaked for this big announcement. This has been a rumor that has been floating around the internet like a bad case of rectal warts for quite a while now. Bleeding Cool reported way back in April 2013 that Marvel had plans to kill off Wolverine. I didn’t doubt it for a second. But now fuck me with frozen twinkee, they turned out to be right. And believe it or not, I’m not outraged or upset. At most, I’m inconvenienced. At worst, I’m just ashamed.
Let’s not beat around the bush here. We all know why Marvel is doing it. It’s the same reason drug smugglers are willing to stuff a dozen bags of heroin up their asses and why lobbyists are willing to suck every dick in Congress: MONEY. Many fans bitch and moan about these events in ways that can only be matched by a spoiled six-year-old at a toy store. But the fact remains we still pay for this shit. We still willingly fork our money over to Marvel, knowing that the story they tell is going to piss us off and exploit our love of these characters.
They’re not assholes for doing this either. They’re just good businessmen. They know they need to make money and sadly, this is what makes money. If tomorrow they found out that a million people were willing to pay 100 bucks for a comic that consisted only of Wolverine kicking Sabretooth in the balls, they would make that shit yesterday. But right now, killing characters and pissing off fans seems to be the only way to get more people to fork over their money. That alone isn’t what’s pathetic. The fact it still works so damn well is what makes me feel shame as a comic book fan, a consumer, and a human being.
Now don’t think for a minute that Wolverine is going to stay dead. This isn’t Uncle Ben. This isn’t even Jean Grey, whose major purpose in comics is to die and be reborn. This is one of Marvel’s most popular characters. Keeping him dead is just going to be bad for business. And anyone with half a brain can expect Marvel and their Disney overlords to do whatever they think is going to make them money. They all saw the sales of Blackest Night. They know bringing characters back to life can be just as lucrative as killing them because we consumers are a bunch of trained lab rats who will sprint through a sea of piss and liquid shit to get their pre-packaged cheese.
Add to that the movies. We just saw it with Peter Parker. Does anyone here who isn’t a JFK conspiracy buff believe that it’s a coincidence that Peter Parker is coming back to life just as another Spider-Man movie is coming out? Fuck no. And there’s both another X-men movie planned for 2016 and another Wolverine movie planned for 2017. Both will most likely suck ass, but that doesn’t matter. There’s simply no way that Marvel is going to keep a character that makes too many people enough metric fucktons of money dead. It’s not a matter of good stories. It’s just fucking economics. The best anyone can hope for is that it doesn’t suck too badly. Nuff said!
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