What’s this – Marvel’s Avengers comics published by someone other than Marvel Comics?
Inconceivable! Impossible! Unheard of!
Well, that’s exactly what’s happening. And from what I hear, it’s got the retail comic book stores all a-flutter…with nervousness!
Let’s set the speculation aside for a moment. First and foremost, let’s talk Marvel Action Avengers #1,a brand new first issue featuring the world’s greatest superhero team. Published by <a-hem> IDW Publishing.
Not Marvel Comics.
Marvel Action Avengers #1
Written By: Matthew K. Manning
Illustrated By: Jon Sommariva
Published By: IDW Publishing
It’s a new era of action and adventure and heroics for the Avengers! Here, in the first issue of the new monthly series, the team is formed to battle the weirdest wildest of the world’s most dastardly threats!
Best of all, the new series is aimed at middle school kids – a perfect comic book entry point for new readers, boys and girls!
Written by Matthew K. Manning and illustrated by Jon Sommariva, join Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, Black Widow, the Hulk as they battle all the evil the Marvel Universe can throw at them! It’s the kind of graphic adventure fiction that every kid should experience!
But why IDW Publishing and not Marvel Comics? Well, speculation abounds. IDW is known for their comic book licensed properties including Transformers, Go-Bots, My Little Pony and many others. Now they’ve got the Marvel line, with a smattering of comic book titles aimed at a younger generation of readers.
Is Marvel Comics not capable of this themselves? Why is parent company, the entertainment behemoth that is Disney, allowing for out-license of their prime assets when they can be publishing in-house?
It’s a big question. And it’s one that doesn’t have many answers right now.
But with bog money to be made in film and merchandising, one begins to wonder if comic book publishing for Disney is loss leader, in business terms. And perhaps they’ve come to the conclusion that it’s better to license the properties instead of publishing them in-house.
And that’s the burgeoning fear of comic book shops everywhere. That comic book publishing, in lieu of movies and television and video games, begins to disappear entirely.
But that’s an altogether different sort of editorial conversation.
Until then, make the Boxing Day run to your local (and magical) comic book shop and pick up Marvel Action Avengers #1!
