The Four Color Media Monitor

Popverse says one of Marvel's now-worst editors is currently serving as apologist for an industry downfall he helped precipitate:

Recently, a long-standing member of the industry took to substack to address that question, and though he didn't focus on only the positives, there was cause for hope in what he said. That was Tom Brevoort, the longtime editor at Marvel comics and soon to be captain of the X-Men relaunch, on his Substack, Man with a Hat.

The message, titled Comics: Dying Since 1935, takes a step back from the woes of comic sales today to look at the big picture. Conversations about the death of the comic book were happening in 1989, says Brevoort, who also supposes "they were going on before that, particularly in the 1970s and the 1950s, and so on and so on."

"Those folks who were predicting the demise of the field ten or twenty or thirty years ago," he says, "would no doubt be shocked to learn that it is still here."

However, Brevoort does admit that old systems of comic sales have died out. The days of candy store spinner racks are gone, he says, "mostly because that type of store no longer exists." But does that mean that the industry itself is doomed? Not at all, says the editor.

"The diversity of material new and old that is readily available today is astounding," Brevoort asserts, "and shows no genuine sign of abating. What is likely happening is that the market is changing."

Yes, but depending what we're talking about, is he favorable to it? If we're talking about independent comics - especially those written by Comicsgate supporters, he's likely to be quite opposed to their products, and to date, I haven't heard of him defending Mike Baron's Private American after all the trouble leftist ideologues caused him over it. And regarding shock over discovering the industry's still around, not exactly. They'd be shocked to discover the Big Two are still here, now serving as political propaganda arms for the far-left, churning out ideologies so horrific they make what could be seen in the 1950s look pathetically tame by comparison. But is Brevoort really admitting the old system is like sour milk now? Not if he's fine with continuing on the same old path of pamphlets, and not if he sticks to the pathetic defense that a certain type of store is defunct. What's missing is the talk of merit. Predictably, he botches it.

Since Brevoort's the current subject, Yahoo Entertainment/Superhero Hype reports a series called Avengers Incorporated was cancelled with just 5 issues:

Marvel Comics editor Tom Brevoort has confirmed that Al Ewing and Leonard Kirk‘s Avengers Inc. is coming to an end with January’s issue #5.

A reader named Cathal recently wrote into Brevoort’s Substack newsletter, asking, “Is Avengers Inc. over with #5? I’ve been enjoying it so far.” Brevoort — who serves as the Senior Vice President of Publishing at Marvel — replied, “Unfortunately, Cathal, there weren’t enough like you, so we will be wrapping up the series with issue #5.”

This revelation is surprising, seeing as how Avengers Inc. was originally announced as an ongoing series. Furthermore, there are online listings for a sixth issue of the series, which apparently would have released on February 21.

Nope, it's not, if we consider how far-left Ewing is, and maybe Kirk too. It's certainly fortunate this was so short-lived, because who knows how much stealth propaganda they shoehorned in, not unlike the former's Hulk run? This is nothing to miss.

And then, as mentioned previously, Popverse announced Brevoort's switching editorial assignments from Avengers to X-Men, and he complains there's not enough viable male characters of black descent:

If you've been keeping up with X-Men comics in the past couple of years, it may surprise you to learn that Marvel has even bigger plans for its multitude of mutants. They've already been to Mars, becomoe immortal, and established their own nation, but now the X-Folks are taking on an even bigger role: Marvel's biggest brand. And with more focus than ever on the X-titles, there's one issue that their commander-in-chief feels should be addressed: a lack of "viable black male characters."

Alright, let's back up for some context. The person making this statement is longtime Marvel shot-caller Tom Brevoort, whose time editing Avengers titles like Civil War, Secret Invasion, and Secret War made him a notable actor in the history of the publisher and at least partially responsible for some key storylines in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In August, Brevoort announced on his Facebook page that his attention was turning from the Earth's Mightiest Heroes to the Uncanny X-Men, saying:

"[...]after a quarter of a century editing Avengers and its associated titles, I am going to be moving away from those characters and titles and instead stepping into the world of mutants."

The shift from Avengers to X-Men jobs might've once been seen as an admirable direction, but when you consider how far-left Brevoort's become over the years, that's why it's bound to be bad news, and when he raises that diversity balderdash, instead of emphasizing the vitality of merit, that's when you know something's bound to go wrong. Not only is their news unsurprising, there's nothing original in what they tell of the X-books either. Also note Brevoort was editor of some of the worst, most redundant crossovers in Marvel history, and you have an idea what else could go wrong. In his Man With a Hat page, he answered the following question involving the diversity pandering he's bound to engage in sans merit:

Kind of a side bar question. You're an OG Marvel editor with A LOT of experience under your wings. When it comes to mutants and DE&I its come with a lot of expectations baked in. You have one side thinking that its woke and pandering and you have the other side that genuinely wants to see themselves represented on panel. For example, I am Hispanic/Latino and I've wanted the X-Office to really elevate a Hispanic/Latino character for a long time by spotlighting and giving them that character arc to get to A-list levels. (I know writer/artist combos are also vital in this). But to get them to the level of Cyclops, Storm or Jean would be great. IMO. They did this with Synch in this current era in a great way. How do you find that balance of wanting more diversity but making sure it doesnt come off forced. Is it working closely with the writers? Looking through your catalog of latino/hispanic mutants to see who has the potential and the blank slate to be properly explored? Or is it just bring in more writers that are Latino/Hispanic to get that perspective? Is that just not something that is really thought about? I know its not great to think "oh we need an asian character a black character a gay character" like your checking off boxes but if Marvel is the world we see outside our window it would make sense for those types of individuals to be vital in the X-Men line. We have Wind Dancer and Magma that could be spotlighted and elevated in new ways. Rictor is around. As well as a few others. But it would be awesome to have a Latino/Hispanic character elevated and spotlighted in a way that can have a lot of us reconnect with them. But that’s all. Just some thoughts I wanted to write out.

This is a complex and complicated question, CG, and I’m not sure that I’m going to be able to do it justice here. But let me at least take a run at it. I think the first thing you have to realize in a situation such as what you’re talking about is that as much as you might like to, you can’t be all things to all people. As you correctly point out, there are only going to be so many slots in any team roster—let’s say 6 just for the sake of argument—and some of those slots are going to be taken up by the most established and popular and long-lasting characters in the franchise. So you may want to be as widely diverse as you possibly can, but if you’re starting with Cyclops and Storm and Jean Grey, you only really have half as much space to work with. Beyond that, though, this typically comes down to which characters the writers that you bring on board want to write about—which ones speak to them, which ones they want to tell stories about. To use an example: when we were last lining up a new AVENGERS roster and writer, I had certain feelings about what the team make-up ought to look like, but they weren’t absolute. And in the end, Jed MacKay put forward a team that mostly colored inside the lines of what I’d laid out (I suggested that it was time for Captain Marvel to take on a leadership position, for example) but also put forward some characters that hadn’t been among the ones I’d initially spoken about. So I think this is the only way to be successful at this. And I’m following a similar approach on the X-Books. I have some specific thoughts, but there’s plenty of room for the creators I and my crew are reaching out towards to rebut and put their own spins on things. And just because there are some particular types of characters that I see a deficit of in the X-Line (I wish there were more viable black male characters, for example) that doesn’t mean that those deficits are going to be immediately addressed. They become more of a general guidepost for development as we go. And so long as the casts that we feature showcase a decent amount of diversity of background—which, let’s face it, with the X-Men isn’t all that hard a bar to clear—then everything will be fine in a general sense. There’ll always be more work to do, but you can only do so much at any one time.

Forget it, I highly doubt he has any intention of doing so much for the sake of better storytelling. Plus, this decidedly ignores characters like Black Panther and Luke Cage, the latter who definitely was viable at one time. But if they no longer are, has it ever occurred to Brevoort this is because quality storytelling collapsed? And because they ostensibly tried to build them up much too late, all the while tying everything to crossovers? Also, there have been some Latino characters who were spotlighted once, like Sunspot from New Mutants and Firebird from Avengers West Coast, but today, under liberal ideologues like Brevoort's morphed into, no chance of genuine success via artistic merit.

Brevoort's right about one thing here, though. He won't be able to do justice for Marvel's products at all, and since the early 2000s, he certainly never has. Not with the way he's been going downhill for years on end already.

Labels: Avengers, bad editors, crossoverloading, history, marvel comics, msm propaganda, politics, sales, X-Men