Something important happens in this issue! Really, we mean it this time!

[Velorath]

What happens when a comic book company keeps promising big things but always fails to deliver?  Apparently people actually do wise up to it eventually.  Recently Marvel has noticed that some of their hyped-up books aren't being ordered in the numbers they'd like, like X-Men: Deadly Genesis for example.  So what was their solution?  If you said "stop promising big changes and start getting back to producing good stories" then apparently you've never read an interview with Quesada before.  No, the big idea to get sales back up is to throw spoilers into the solicits for upcoming books.

That's right, in this day and age where we know the line-up of the New Avengers about two years ahead of when it's "officially announced" in New Avengers #15, know that Spider-man is going to get a new costume before the crossover is even half-over, and had so much info about House of M available before the series came out that reading that you could skip all the way to the last issue and not have missed anything, Marvel has decided that they need to release even more spoilers to sell a book.

Fans of Daredevil were especially shocked when the April solicits gave away the death of a major supporting character (I won't say who) before Brubaker's run had even started.  Due to the poor sales of Deadly Genesis, Marvel revealed in solicits for issue 5 that the identity of the 3rd Summers Brother would be revealed (never mind the fact that it was a loose plot thread from a decade back that's based solely off a one line from Mr. Sinister, and Fabian has already said he intended it to be Adam-X).  In other news, apparently Gambit is going to become one of the new Horsemen... since Apocalypse is going to need some new ones when he returns in a month or two.

Back in the old days, a good creative team and positive word of mouth were enough to sell books.  Now Marvel has so little faith in their own product they're going for more cheap shock than ever.

[Llava]

How long ago did we know Adam X was the third Summers?

If they stick by that, that could be the longest time ever between spoiler and actually telling the story.

[Velorath]

How long ago did we know Adam X was the third Summers?

If they stick by that, that could be the longest time ever between spoiler and actually telling the story.

Fabian's posted it in newsgroups before, probably as far back as several years ago.  I don't think that's the direction Marvel is going to go in though.

[HaemishM]

See, I don't remember anything about a third Summers brother, probably because it was one of the many stupid plot threads they never got around to from shuffling creators in and off of the X-books for so long. But then, I never like Sinister or Apocalypse anyway. I thought they were rotten, one note, stupid villains who weren't threatening so much as annoying. They'd pop in here or there, drop a hint about something that never gets resolved, disappear until the next creator came along and just muddy the whole goddamn thing. Apocalypse's death was shitty, the "Search for Cyclops" mini that it spawned was shitty. Deadly Genesis hasn't been much better.

Oh and Apocalypse is already back, two issues ago in "Adjectiveless." I fucking hate that character. You know, the X-Men has one of the most interesting lineup of characters, and some of the worst continuity and stories in history.

[Velorath]

See, I don't remember anything about a third Summers brother, probably because it was one of the many stupid plot threads they never got around to from shuffling creators in and off of the X-books for so long. But then, I never like Sinister or Apocalypse anyway. I thought they were rotten, one note, stupid villains who weren't threatening so much as annoying. They'd pop in here or there, drop a hint about something that never gets resolved, disappear until the next creator came along and just muddy the whole goddamn thing. Apocalypse's death was shitty, the "Search for Cyclops" mini that it spawned was shitty. Deadly Genesis hasn't been much better.

Oh and Apocalypse is already back, two issues ago in "Adjectiveless." I fucking hate that character. You know, the X-Men has one of the most interesting lineup of characters, and some of the worst continuity and stories in history.

Like I said, the 3rd Summers brother plot thread is only brought up in one line of conversation between Sinister and Cyclops.  Sinister says something along the lines of "you and your brothers" and then corrects himself.

[Raging Turtle]

Oh and Apocalypse is already back, two issues ago in "Adjectiveless." I fucking hate that character. You know, the X-Men has one of the most interesting lineup of characters, and some of the worst continuity and stories in history.

.... they named something 'adjectiveless'?   

[HaemishM]

No, that's just what the comics press I've seen refer to it as. Of course, so do the Marvel guys.

Really, Marvel is, IMO, in a huge fucking tail spin creatively and have been since Disassembled.

[Velorath]

No, that's just what the comics press I've seen refer to it as. Of course, so do the Marvel guys.

Really, Marvel is, IMO, in a huge fucking tail spin creatively and have been since Disassembled.

They just need to let go of trying to do the Big Event stuff like DC does.  Really 90% of Marvel's events throughout their history have sucked (Infinity War and Crusade, Secret War II, Onslaught, Maximum Security, Heroes Reborn, ect...), but the shit Bendis is putting out right now reads like a really bad fanfic.  He seems to have certain "moments" in mind when he's writing this stuff and everything else is padding.

But this latest idea of spoilers in solicits... it's just really missing the point of the one lesson they should be learning from DC in all of this.  You don't need to give away what happens in order to get people to buy a book.  If you tell people major shit is going to happen, and then you pick up the book and major shit actuallys happens, the readers will probably believe you next time you say it.  If you tell people every book has a major, universe-shifting event in it and then nothing important happens in any of the books, people will stop giving a fuck and that's the boat Marvel is in now.