Though Marvel may not openly admit it—or maybe they have and I just missed their blatant honesty—the upcoming Marvel NOW! Initiative seems like a direct response to DC’s New 52 relaunch from a year ago.
If you haven’t heard, the plans for Marvel NOW! involve relaunching most of the company’s core titles with brand new #1 issues beginning in the second week of October, with new creative teams, presumably to get the same kind of media attention and sales boost that DC saw with their New 52 lineup.
The war of escalation between the two companies usually revolves around major line-wide event comics—“I’ll see your Final Crisis and raise you one Secret Invasion”—but now the new mode of operation looks to be a battle of who can get the most attention for their #1 issues. As we saw with the New 52 relaunch—a revamp of character continuities and alchemical mixture of creative talent—the promise of thrilling new first issues didn’t exactly carry over to promises of high quality for the following year. Some series remained excellent, but many of the New 52 floundered in their first year, with heavy-handed editorial mandates driving some creators away from the company or frustrating others enough that they spoke out about their problems working on the first year of revamped comics.
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