The Four Color Media Monitor

Because if we're going to try and stop the misuse of our favorite comics and their protagonists by the companies that write and publish them, we've got to see what both the printed and online comics news is doing wrong. This blog focuses on both the good and the bad, the newspaper media and the online websites. Unabashedly. Unapologetically. Scanning the media for what's being done right and what's being done wrong.


What if "Marvel for Dummies" turns out to contain way too much?

Newsarama recently announced the publication of another entry in the "For Dummies" series of guidebooks (which can discuss computer science, in example), this one covering 85 years worth of Marvel:
Do you want to read Marvel Comics, but don't know where to start learning about the original comic versions of the characters and stories that have now become household names thanks to the MCU? The new book Marvel Comics for Dummies has you covered. And yes, that's "Dummies" meant very affectionately, as is the signature of the Dummies series of books that have offered accessible primers for nearly every topic under the sun.

That now includes Marvel Comics, with the aforementioned Marvel Comics for Dummies book kicking off a series of Marvel related books in the Dummies line, with Captain America for Dummies soon to follow.

[...] The Marvel for Dummies line will include six titles, with future installments featuring explainers on the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, Spider-Man, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe (X-Men lore seems to have been too dense for even the experts to attempt to condense into one book).
This only obscures a most challenging query: why bother with what came after the early 2000s? Much of that stuff is an embarrassment, and if a Dummies guide about Spider-Man focuses on J. Michael Straczynski's dreadful run unobjectively, to say nothing of what followed One More Day, then to purchase such a guide will be a waste of time. Stuff like that, which has only tainted the legacy of Marvel, is not worth discussing in an alleged history guide. I hesitate to think of what an Avengers For Dummies book will be like, quite possibly giving an uncritical view of the tainting of Scarlet Witch under Brian Bendis when the Disassembled event was published. And Mary Jane Watson's unlikely to fare better. Why must anybody be led to believe those stories are suitable canon? If there'll be 2 books about X-Men talking about post-2000 stories, it'll just be a waste of paper.

2 commentors to the article said:
Honestly, if they want people to get into the Marvel Comics universe, they shouly cut it off at about 1993!
And:
Learn all the great lore and history of Marvel comics and then enojy current writers taking a dump on it!

Maybe investing in editors who know how to do their job would have been better.
Not to mention owners who actually care about the products. I've heard of conservatives who want to invest in products like social media sites, but to date, I have yet to hear of any who're actually interested in investing in comic publishers and classic properties like Marvel and DC. Regrettably, none seem remotely interested in the challenges that can come from buying into a veteran comic publisher.

It's regrettable anybody supposedly working in history coverage today actually believes the post-2000 Marvel tales are worth telling about for even a franchise like the For Dummies guidebooks. Or, if they won't deliver a book written with objectivity and an ability to make distinctions between good and bad. That's what this new project sounds like it'll end up doing. I hesitate to think of the likelihood that DC For Dummies will be next along the road, and that too will only stuff in so much worthless storytelling history post-2000, with Identity Crisis one of the worst things they may include if such a project ever gets greenlighted. The Marvel Cinematic universe is hardly a big deal either compared to the earlier comics. What the audience should really be encouraged to seek out are the published archives for much of Marvel's storytelling up to the turn of the century. Why is a so-called guidebook like For Dummies a big deal compared to story archives for past Fantastic Four and Spidey material prior to the early 2000s? That's what consumers should really be looking for. Then, there's only so much up to the early 2000s they could learn about, and evaluate what's good or bad in all of them. What came afterwards is worthless.

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