Marvel's First Alien Series Announced!

[Xiggz456]

Ya Johnson said it seemed like they were so worried about potential leaks that he just wasn't getting any responses to his inquiries.

He also said creative teams are moved around based on sales and that everyone at Marvel has been pleasantly surprised at how well the comic is selling

Well thats devestating

The Marvel Alien launch debuting at #1 was a huge success, absolutely. But with issue #5 being 42nd in sales and 53rd in sales dollars, it needs to bottom out and stop the month-to-month drop soon or there will definitely be changes announced I wager by the end of the year.

Johnson mentioned that Marvel always accounts for attrition as issues progress and that they've been under shooting what they think they'll sell and needing to do second printings. So it's highly unlikely that changes will be announced by the end of this year. Maybe by the end of next year though as I expect the same creative team for at least these first 3 arcs.

[BlueMarsalis79]

I'm just filled with disgust.

[Engineer]

Ya Johnson said it seemed like they were so worried about potential leaks that he just wasn't getting any responses to his inquiries.

I'm still not buying this. Sounds like an excuse someone came up with (not saying it's Johnson specifically). Marvel doesn't have loose lips, so why would cold iron be worried about leaks coming from the marvel camp but not from dark horse, Titan or free league? It's not like Tom Holland was involved...

[Nightmare Asylum]

If I had to take a guess, I'd imagine that the Fireteam Elite team, which had been working in tandem with Dark Horse/Titan projects to align with them, probably had no interest in shifting everything in their already deep-in-development game on their end to accommodate what is a still-developing new canon that Marvel is forging that is seemingly not taking into account the Dark Horse and Titan materials.

Basically, Alien canon is all over the place right now with the different licensees all kind of just doing their own thing with limited direct collaboration. Best not to just overthink the shared universe nature of the expanded universe stuff in any medium at the moment.

[Voodoo Magic]

He also said creative teams are moved around based on sales and that everyone at Marvel has been pleasantly surprised at how well the comic is selling

The Marvel Alien launch debuting at #1 was a huge success, absolutely. But with issue #5 being 42nd in sales and 53rd in sales dollars, it needs to bottom out and stop the month-to-month drop soon or there will definitely be changes announced I wager by the end of the year.

Johnson mentioned that Marvel always accounts for attrition as issues progress and that they've been under shooting what they think they'll sell and needing to do second printings. So it's highly unlikely that changes will be announced by the end of this year. Maybe by the end of next year though as I expect the same creative team for at least these first 3 arcs.

The undershooting makes me laugh a bit because sales are clearly dropping.

I agree we may very well have the same creative team for three arcs, because the scripts and artwork are done months in advance, but I totally disagree on the announcement timing. If Marvel sees sales dipping too far they'll easily make a course correction announcement sooner than later that a new creative team is coming to signal to the readership stay with the comic - it will get better... or just announce the comics cancellation. This always comes several issues before it actually happens. I've seen that happen more times than I can remember.

Been buying Marvel comics and maintained a pull-list for decades and I know how this works. The attrition is of course expected in the first few issues. Alien #1 sold 300,000 copies and no one expected it to maintain even a third of that. But comic shops put pre-orders in based on their clientele's subscription "pull-list" plus a few extra copies to keep on the rack for walk-in customers and/or online orders. Marvel tallies all the pre-orders and fills them completely while printing a small percentage above that number for re-orders and replacements for copies that were damaged in shipping. That above printing is the only thing they can "undershoot".

A month prior, Alien sold 54,304 copies. July's Alien sold 49,616 copies. If it keeps decreasing readership at this -5k per month rate, in two more months it will dip under 39,000 copies and that begins the danger zone for Marvel titles and their creative team where they will be clearly looking at how to stop the bleeding. And that's why I say the month-to-month drop has to stop soon or there will definitely be changes announced. You can't negotiate with gravity.

[Engineer]

If I had to take a guess, I'd imagine that the Fireteam Elite team, which had been working in tandem with Dark Horse/Titan projects to align with them, probably had no interest in shifting everything in their already deep-in-development game on their end to accommodate what is a still-developing new canon that Marvel is forging that is seemingly not taking into account the Dark Horse and Titan materials.

Basically, Alien canon is all over the place right now with the different licensees all kind of just doing their own thing with limited direct collaboration. Best not to just overthink the shared universe nature of the expanded universe stuff in any medium at the moment.

I'm just saying I have my doubts that it was cold iron who gave marvel the cold shoulder. And even if they did marvel could have gotten the insider info needed from Titan or free league or even fox. Cold iron was once owned by fox after all, and would have been in the know... marvel is the odd man out on the larger cooperation that was taking place, and I just don't think that they were unable to get the info they needed to maintain consistency. More likely marvel didn't want to be taking any beats from cold iron or anyone else... given how the Star Wars IP was handled, I'm honestly impressed they allowed all this stuff to come out still but I'm expecting it'll all be dropped from canon soon anyway...

[[cancerblack]]

As for art... well that opinion is in the eye of the beholder so as much as folks on here rail about it, the art isn't exactly a quantifiable metric for "quality".

His opinion and your opinion are just that and there's no right or wrong here just preference.

You are factually incorrect. The level of lazy tracing, f**ked perspective etc Larocca is using would get anyone absolutely eviscerated by any illustration tutor at any art school in the world.

[Xiggz456]

Yes and art critiques are also constructed from opinions. Sure you could claim that certain opinions hold more weight but they are opinions nonetheless.

[426Buddy]

It's your opinion that it's just an opinion

[Xiggz456]

 

[judge death]

So larroca stealing art and tracing like a mofo is seen as okay and fully alright by you ok.....

about sales: As someone mentioned it seems some of those who purchase marvels alien comics knew about the dark horse aliens but didnt buy then but now under marvel buy it but never read it.
Since marvel readers seem fanboyish and only buy whatever marvel put out and dont buy from other comic book makers, makes me speculate:
Sells will drop to a level similair to dark horse had, afterall most purchased the alien nr 1 comic just for it was new and under marvel but keep spending money on comics one wont read, and many of the marvel readers havent even read the comics: Im sure the sells will keep dropping.

For canon: marvels comics are far from it, I see alex white and free leauge(free league has done a marvelous work on the lore, pun intended, see and learn marvel) way higher up and iron studios based on their lore, so to me it sounds like he is just upset his alien comic with his mutant xenos, the new breed of xenos isnt seen as canon.
Alpha, sil creature that keep reoccuring so I still bet money we will have a karrigan charachter one day, why else are he still writing in the sil creature into the story? And we have those awful facehugger mutants with centerpid legs on the tails....
Did we ever find out why the facehuggers and xenos looked like they did, gene expermintation, cloning?

Remove larocca, new writer and give me the original/normal xenos than those mutants/new breed whatever they are, and a better understanding of the franchise than just seeing the movies once long time ago like that one shot comic they released where they even forgot the warriors head is ridgetop and not dome and the blast radius etc.
then I might consider buying marvel, if they also apologize to tristian. But I doubt that will happen

[Engineer]

For canon: marvels comics are far from it, I see alex white and free leauge(free league has done a marvelous work on the lore, pun intended, see and learn marvel) way higher up and iron studios based on their lore, so to me it sounds like he is just upset his alien comic with his mutant xenos, the new breed of xenos isnt seen as canon.
Alpha, sil creature that keep reoccuring so I still bet money we will have a karrigan charachter one day, why else are he still writing in the sil creature into the story? And we have those awful facehugger mutants with centerpid legs on the tails....
Did we ever find out why the facehuggers and xenos looked like they did, gene expermintation, cloning?

In general I agree with you but I see one problem. Marvel is owned by Disney; the others, even though they've done a far superior job with the lore, are not... so when push comes to shove, and looking to past Disney/marvel precedent, marvel's stories are more likely to be kept around long-term. It sucks, cuz I don't think marvel is doing a good job at all...

[BlueMarsalis79]

It is absolutely lazy garbage.

[Engineer]

It is absolutely lazy garbage.

This I ALSO agree with

[[cancerblack]]

Yes and art critiques are also constructed from opinions. Sure you could claim that certain opinions hold more weight but they are opinions nonetheless.

Haha this f**kin guy.