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Wednesday, April 06, 2005
Reappearing comics
Marvel has informed retailers that Combat Zone the five issue miniseries recounting true stories of soldiers in Iraq has been cancelled.
Instead, the material will be collected and presented as an original graphic novel which will go on sale in July.
Oh...uh...I guess that answers my question of what the Hell happened to that series. It created a bit of a stir when it was solicited however many months ago but apparently not shipping and making it impossible for anybody to read it is one effective way of quelling any controversy. Now I suppose anyone who's interested in readings the likely slanted reports back from Iraq in comic form will soon have the opportunity.
What's odd is that this reminds me, as it did Jog, of Marvel's book 411. Here was a book with a political bent, albeit one totally opposite of Combat Zone, that created some fodder for the gossip and rumor fans because an essay by an anti-nukes activist (can't remember her name) was rejected. It too slowly slipped away from view, although in that case it was because the last issue didn't ship and I don't think anybody was reading it anyway (although I did like the Mark Millar/Frank Quietly story that Marvel had free on their website). I suppose Combat Zone has fared better because now we can read the whole thing, although something tells me Marvel is just going to dump this trade on retailers with little fanfare, the result being that barely anybody picks it up. It will sit next to the Marville trade on the shelf, reminding only a select few that every incarnation of Marvel has its own definition of "bottom of the barrel."
Unless, that is, people start talking about it, either praising or damning it, all over the internet. As Lyle pointed out concerning Countdown to Thingy Blah Blah, more talk is more buzz is more sales. Any type of talk will do, as long as there is a lot of it. Hell, this post alone could move about 10 more units if Marvel's lucky. Frankly, I don't see that happening. The world of vocal internet comic fandom has moved on. I believe the schedule now is to run out the Countdown outrage, kill some time going on about Marvel padding out stories in their "Ultimate" line, complaining about "House of M," back to DC whenever their new event mini-series comes out then maybe some freelancer will get fired and that will be good for a month or so of message board and comments section space. I don't know if Combat Zone will find a place with such a tight plan set up for the next few months but if "House of M" is smoother than predicted it can squeeze in. We'll see.
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