(Photo courtesy of Marvel)I’ve been a fan of comic books for as long as I can remember. I’ve always loved the characters and the settings, but more than anything, I’ve always been captivated by their ability to tell entertaining and effective stories through a visual medium; their ability to continue to tell stories about characters everyone is familiar with while taking them in a new direction. However, when Marvel announced that it would be killing off Wolverine at the end of his current story arch, I immediately found myself both frustrated and annoyed.
I’ll be completely honest, as much as I like watching him beat up bad guys, and as much as I love seeing Hugh Jackman kick ass as Logan in the movies, Wolverine has never been my favorite character. I was talking to my buddy Gary about this very subject last week, and we came to the conclusion that quite simply, he’s just a boring character on his own.
He’s a character that everyone knows everybody knows everything about and who is very angry about that fact. Beyond that, there just isn’t much to him. As such, the story arc itself seems to be a result of Marvel’s desperate need to make money off of the character while keeping him relevant
That’s fine, but realistically there’s only one reason Marvel would choose such a popular character to give the axe to: money. For the past few years, D.C. has been outselling Marvel with almost all of its titles. That isn’t to say the quality of the books has been better; it's just been selling better
As such, Marvel did the best thing it could do to jump-start its revenue: Kill off a major character. When word spread that that was its intention, fan boys everywhere started speculating about how Wolverine would go out, how the story would unfold.
The notion got people talking about Marvel comics over those of D.C., letting people know that this was a comic event that could not be missed, similar to the recent Civil War storyline.
Quite simply, it worked, as almost every comic book fan and reader I know has talked about Marvel’s bold move at least once a month, perhaps even more, leading up to the release of the first issue in the series. This makes sense, after all, business is business and it is Marvel’s overall goal to make money, especially off of their comics given they were in print long before the Cinematic Universe was ever a thing.
The problem with killing off Wolverine is plain and simple: It’s just for attention.
Killing off beloved characters is nothing new. In 1992, D.C. made comic book readers watch in awe as it killed off Superman in the “Death of Superman” storyline. However, Superman later came back to life, making the sacrifice pointless and ultimately just a way for D.C. to sell more Superman comics.
The same can be said in the X-Men Universe, with the (multiple) deaths of Jean Grey, including two deaths between 1976 and 1980. Grey comes back as Phoenix, but the fact of the matter is, she never truly died. Marvel simply made it seem like she did so people would continue purchasing comic books.
I would have no problem if killing Wolverine was the real deal, but the fact of the matter is he’s too popular of a character to write off for good, thus making his death a pointless cash grab. It might make me a bad comic book fan to ignore the storyline completely, but I have no desire to invest in a character’s death only for it to be undone some amount of issues later. Ultimately, I think it sparks a debate about lack of creativity within the comic book writing community, but that’s a debate for another time.
If trying to sell comics is the ultimate goal, it’s absolutely working, but Marvel won’t be selling any of this particular arc to this comic book reader. Why should I waste my time reading something that is ultimately meaningless?
Reach the reporter at seweinst@asu.edu or follow him on Twitter @S_Weinstein95.
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