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Not that long ago, as prices on comics started to rise to $3.99, companies were looking for ways to justify the price increase. Before DC decided to reduce their page count to 20 pages and the price to $2.99 and Marvel decided to, uh, randomly reduce certain titles to $2.99 but ignore the rest of their line, the main solution seemed to be back ups.
DC bombarded the market with back ups, including Blue Beetle, Metal Men, Black Canary, the Question, and Legion of Super Heroes. All of the back ups were for characters with devoted followings, but not followings large enough to support an ongoing. The hope was that not only would fans find that they were getting their money’s worth, but that featuring these cult favorites would drive sales on these titles. Despite using some top notch creative talent, like Greg Rucka, Geoff Johns and Cully Hamner, the back ups were largely met with indifference.
The only one of these back ups to generate any real buzz was Metal Men, by the JLI team of J.M. Demattis, Keith Giffen, and Kevin Maguire. Many, myself included, thought it was better than the Doom Patrol stories it shared a book with. DC was certainly more public with their efforts, but Marvel quietly got in on the act as well. Captain America began running a back up starring Nomad, an obscure alternate universe Bucky. And in Bendis’ Avengers titles, we got a text piece about the history of the Avengers through a faux book about their history. DC recently released two new back ups, a Jimmy Olsen story by Nick Spencer and R.B. Silva and a Commissioner Gordon back up by Scott Snyder and Francesco Francavilla. On top of this Marvel is putting additional material in the Amazing Spider-Man every month by top tier talent like Dan Slott and Fred Van Lente.
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Even better, both of these back ups seemed to find a way to integrate themselves into the main story without being obtrusive. The presence of vultures on Dick Grayson’s balcony in Detective Comics is ominous and creepy if you read just that story, but if you read the back up you find out that all the birds got released from the zoo. Wondering who the sniveling LexCorp lackey is in Action Comics? Why he’s Jimmy’s arch nemesis in the back ups. It was a nice, subtle way to integrate the backups beyond simple tone that wasn’t in the least obtrusive, but rewarded anyone who read both. Marvel’s getting rid of Nomad in the near future, but replacing it with some stories about Steve Rogers. Back ups seem to be a part of the Big Time relaunch for Amazing Spider-Man, but we’ll see once the title progressed beyond that. And Bendis certainly has enough material to do his Oral History of the Avengers for years.
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Of course comic prices are ridiculous today, and at the end of the day, I’ll be happier if we get cheaper comics. But the whole point of these back ups was to add extra value to these comics and make it worth your dollar. I know we’re never going to get a Jimmy Olsen ongoing by the Spencer and Silva, but hell, I’d pay an extra buck for 10 pages of their stuff every month.
I just read Detective Comics and it was another great read, but I missed having the Commissioner Gordon backup. I understand DC wanting to go back to $3, but for Action and Detective they had it right and they should made these as exceptions to the rule. Marvel' s back up in Spider-Man is okay, but I Nomad in the back of Captain America is a waste of paper. I'm all for $3 comics, but when I get 30 pages of quality I will pay $4.
ReplyDeleteAnd that's the other pitfall of back ups. If you don't like them, boy are they irritating. I can see your point and unless you just have the main creative team do both, its going to be hard to please everyone. Even then its not a sure thing.
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