Marvel's Civil War--Attack of the Comics!

If you are a Civil War comic book reader, you know all about the delays, about the amount of titles included in the cross-over event... and you also know that for the last 2 weeks there hasn't been any Civil War tie-in's, one-shots, or regular Civil War titles released. Not a one.

Three weeks ago there were several, and then nothing for 2 weeks. Now next week we're going to be bombed with the rapid-fire releases of the tie-ins and one-shots. I say bombed because there's a TON of them coming next week. WHY Marvel can't do a better job of spreading this stuff out is completely beyond me. I have complained, as have other retailers, to some of Marvel's top tier, about this crap, and they just refuse to make changes.

The Civil War titles are Civil War Front Line #9; Civil War: War Crimes One-Shot; Fantastic Four #541; Iron Man #14; Iron Man Captain America: Casualties of War One-Shot and New Avengers Illuninati #1 (Plus the regular New Avengers title, which while it's not being labled as a Civil War cross-over this time, is a title that most people reading Civil War will pick up). So, that's 6 titles, 7 if you count New Avengers, AND they originally scheduled the Civil War #6 issue to come in that day too - now I'm kind of glad they held off.

And it's not just Civil War. For example, there were 6 X-Men titles, 7 if you count Exiles that came out this past Wednesday, Dec. 13. So, after weeks of one or no X-Men books, suddenly they all show up. I guess I should just tell the X-Men buyers to come in mid-month and basically all the books will be there, rather than having them come out here week after week for nothing.

You know that while it may have happened, I do not remember a time when all or most of the Batman books or Superman books came out in the same week.

While the relationship between Marvel comics and the direct market retailers has gotten better, there are days when I just shake my head and ask, "Why Marvel? Why???" I'm pretty sure that Marvel is on Marvel's side, not the retailer's side.