Solar cancelled?!

The "Gold Key Three" from publications outside of the Valiant universe.

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jmatt
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Re: Solar cancelled?!

Post by jmatt »

cray_ws wrote:Yeah, I think DIVINITY can make people forget SOLAR was ever part of Valiant. ...
Besides, I like new stuff. New characters, origins and content. This is Valiant's strength: They can introduce new characters in a way that DC and Marvel can't. The Big 2 are locked in, if it's not Batman or Wolverine, the fanbase is not all that interested. That's why they relaunch every 36 months.

Valiant has a clean slate.

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Re: Solar cancelled?!

Post by cray_ws »

jmatt wrote:
cray_ws wrote:Yeah, I think DIVINITY can make people forget SOLAR was ever part of Valiant. ...
Besides, I like new stuff. New characters, origins and content. This is Valiant's strength: They can introduce new characters in a way that DC and Marvel can't. The Big 2 are locked in, if it's not Batman or Wolverine, the fanbase is not all that interested. That's why they relaunch every 36 months.

Valiant has a clean slate.
I don't think Marvel and DC are locked in at all, I think they choose to milk their properties because they don't want them to lose any relevancy. Their existing I.P.'s have become a burden to change. They like to say that there's change, but it always reverts to status quo because you can't market a character with an (visual) identity crisis to third party businesses. So while Wolverine might be dead or Superman might be blue...both these I.P.'s are sold to businesses as unchanged. Meanwhile I.P.'s like Midnighter and Apollo are never marketed or supplanted as replacements to their existing Batman and Superman marketing juggernaut. The comic business for Marvel and DC has become less about advancement of characters and storylines, and more about keeping their foothold. They keep their biggest I.P.'s relevant by blitzing the market with them. There idea of relevancy is spin-offs of franchise characters and events where they headline them.

There have been circumstances where they have put out books that succeeded beyond their expectations because the market was craving new or renewed interest in older or less relevant I.P.'s. It happened with the Annihilation storyline and it jumpstarted Marvel's cosmic I.P.s so much that it overshadowed X-Men, Spider-man and Avengers. It even made the Ultimate line feel neglected. It's no accident that cosmic storyline has invaded Avengers and X-Men since the Annihilation storyline concluded. Now there's more Avengers and X-Men books that you can shake a stick at. Can't really see any cosmic Marvel I.P.s being used other than Guardians of Galaxy. I'm not sure if there's a Nova or Silver Surfer series going.

I think Marvel and DC are too top heavy, and not enough balance among their I.P.s. Too many different editors going in various directions. Again I think it's their own choice to do business like this. I truly think they can put out new I.P.'s and be successful with it, but I think it comes with a lot sacrifice. Probably too much sacrifice to them at least. So maybe that's what you mean by locked in.

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Re: Solar cancelled?!

Post by Captain Craig »

I've been seeing it for awhile now but try as I might don't get the indifference to out right disgust over the idea of bringing the GK3 back into the fold IF that should become an available option for VEI. Have them wholly outright owned, not leased.
  • It'd be great publicity.
    I'd fully trust VEI to create an organic situation(s) to re-introduce the characters back into the mix.
    Having them doesn't negate or cancel out the great new original concepts nor would it mean an end to new original characters. They likely would be springboards for new original characters.
They work well within the context of the VALIANT Universe. If the DynaKey experiment and/or DarkKey experiment showed us anything it's that as separate titles they are a little less fun, for whatever mismanaged reason(s). However, as players with roles to play in a larger canvas they are so much more fun to have around.

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jmatt
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Re: Solar cancelled?!

Post by jmatt »

cray_ws wrote:So maybe that's what you mean by locked in.
It is. :thumb:

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jmatt
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Re: Solar cancelled?!

Post by jmatt »

Captain Craig wrote:It'd be great publicity.
Then again, it could be really bad publicity -- and I mean from the standpoint of readers who stand in an LCS once a week, not a splashy article in the Washington Post.

If I was not a VEI reader but followed the industry, and I saw that Valiant was trying to resurrect these properties for the third time in five years, I would cast a jaundiced eye on the likelihood that it would succeed. Even as a Valiant fanatic, I do it.

Could it work? Possibly. But buying them outright is a whole lotta money to spend on something they a) don't necessarily need and b) have proven a failure repeatedly in recent years. That's a big gamble for something that might not boost readership at all. Moreover, it would absorb resources that could have been used to produce something they simply create out of thin air. :twocents:

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Re: Solar cancelled?!

Post by Captain Craig »

jmatt wrote:
Captain Craig wrote:It'd be great publicity.
Then again, it could be really bad publicity -- and I mean from the standpoint of readers who stand in an LCS once a week, not a splashy article in the Washington Post.
A reader, or LCS owner/clerk, paying attention would either inform themselves or their customer base about the difference should an explanation be needed by those not fully aware of the history VALIANT has with the GK3.
If I was not a VEI reader but followed the industry, and I saw that Valiant was trying to resurrect these properties for the third time in five years, I would cast a jaundiced eye on the likelihood that it would succeed. Even as a Valiant fanatic, I do it.
Um, what? It would actually be Valiant/VEIs first attempt at the GK3 since the collapse of Valiant/Acclaim years. Which is a decade plus ago now and would be further than that at any point in the future.
You are rolling in the Dark Horse year and the current Dynamite run into an unjust homogenous state of equality by saying "Valiant is trying to resurrect them 3 times in 5yrs". When the actuality is it's Western Publishing leasing them out twice in 5yrs and if VALIANT purchased them it would be a whole new ball game.
Could it work? Possibly. But buying them outright is a whole lotta money to spend on something they a) don't necessarily need and b) have proven a failure repeatedly in recent years. That's a big gamble for something that might not boost readership at all. Moreover, it would absorb resources that could have been used to produce something they simply create out of thin air. :twocents:
I don't wholly disagree with A, but it'd be nice to have them.
As for B, what that proves is that when mismanaged, they fail, anything fails. Spider-man failed under horrid management with the whole Mephisto OMD debacle. That book even at selling 3 times a month for a year to push the new status quo bled readership. Mismanagement = failure and that is what happened at DH & I think we are seeing at Dynamite. I trust Dinesh & Co. to manage with a better game plan(Shadowman aside).

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jmatt
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Re: Solar cancelled?!

Post by jmatt »

Captain Craig wrote:A reader, or LCS owner/clerk, paying attention would either inform themselves or their customer base about the difference should an explanation be needed by those not fully aware of the history VALIANT has with the GK3.
IMO, it's unlikely that an LCS clerk would take it upon themselves to try to explain to all of their clients the history of Valiant and GK3. If somebody asked, yeah maybe. But if they're not a Valiant fan already, what are the odds they would take the time to even notice, let alone ask?
Captain Craig wrote:Um, what? It would actually be Valiant/VEIs first attempt at the GK3 since the collapse of Valiant/Acclaim years. ...When the actuality is it's Western Publishing leasing them out twice in 5yrs and if VALIANT purchased them it would be a whole new ball game.
Of course. I was hoping that would be interpreted correctly. The problem is that many people that are not Valiant fans would probably not be inspired to think of it as a 'whole new ballgame'. It would be the properties' fifth incarnation, and third in five years. I think "Really? Again?!" would probably be many LCS customers' reaction.

To me, a 'whole new ballgame' would be an issue with new characters and origins and concepts that no one has ever seen before.

But I don't mean to be curmudgeonly or disagreeable. I just think the risk far outweighs the potential reward.

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Re: Solar cancelled?!

Post by magnusr »

jmatt wrote:It would be the properties' fifth incarnation, and third in five years.
Depending on how one counts, I would say your case is even stronger. I would count Gold Key, Valiant, Acclaim, Dark Horse and Dynamite as five previous incarnations. More doubtful if Whitman, City and iBooks can be counted.

While it in one way shows the strength of the characters, it's clearly bad for their reputation. They've always been favorites of the creators, it's "only" the buyers who care too little. Wonder if the licensing costs have been a part of the repeated failures or not?

/Magnus

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Re: Solar cancelled?!

Post by mateo107 »

so looks like Solar #9 will finally be coming out this week. it's been delayed long enough to have redrawn the whole storyline, I wonder if they ran into any legal trouble with those leaked Dr. Eclipse images...

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Re: Solar cancelled?!

Post by Captain Craig »

I just chalked it up to the unreliability of Dynamite being able to hold to a shipping schedule. Forgot about those Dr.Eclipse leaked images. Good point. :hm:


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