Hmmm… I wonder if Tom Brevoort read my Nova cancellation article?
Normally Brevoort comes off as pretty hostile to fans and places the blame on anything and anyone but themselves, but this time, in a rather respectable manner, Tom Brevoort takes the blame for the recent cancellation of the NINO Nova and the Star-Lord relaunches.
Brevoort posted on Tumblr after a fan questioned why they were cancelled and if they were ongoings or minis:
They were ongoings.
I didn’t work on Nova, but on Star-Lord, the series was planned from the beginning to continue on past issue 6. Unfortunately, the sales were not there to support the book continuing. I was pretty bummed about it–I think Chip and Kris made an AMAZING book, and it’s going to be a gorgeous and heartfelt TPB when it’s collected.
Not sure where the idea that Star-Lord was always meant to end early came from…but that was not the case. I know that in the past series that were originally planned as miniseries were instead launched as ongoings which then ended after that initial arc…but even in those cases, the idea is to boost sales and have them continue on. If the sales had supported the book continuing past that initial arc, it would have continued past it. I don’t remember there ever being a case where Marvel launched a series as an ongoing instead of a mini, got high sales, and ended the book anyway. It’s possible there was one I am not thinking of…but it would probably take unusual circumstances for us to cancel a book that is doing well.
I wish me thinking book was amazing was enough to let us keep publishing it, but unfortunately, there are other matters to consider, and sales are a large part of those other matters. And please don’t think I am blaming the audience for the book being cancelled–no one is under any obligation to buy our books. On the contrary, we are under an obligation to make books you will want to buy, so feel free to lay the blame for the cancellation on me. That said, I remain proud of the series, and an glad we were able to put out the issues we did.
I’ll say I can respect Brevoort for taking the blame, even if he wasn’t directly on the titles; however, it doesn’t do much good if Marvel isn’t catering to the fans, like I have literally been writing about for years.
If what Brevoort says holds true – “we are under an obligation to make books you will want to buy” – then he will green light a harder science-fiction Richard Rider Nova book without NINO (Nova in Name Only Sam Alexander), in a fashion similar to what Abnett and Lanning did with their 2007 series and similar to Giffen’s Annihilation (I believe Abnett is exclusive with DC, but Lanning might be available?)
The 2007 Richard Rider Nova book saw a readership of 35,000. Sam can’t get anywhere near half that, and it’s been like that for literally years.
Regarding the latest Star-Lord relaunch, honestly it was one of the worst books I had ever read (I gave it zero out of five stars), especially since we’re huge fans of Abnett and Lanning Marvel COSMIC, so it’s no surprise that no one else wanted to read it as well.
I hope Marvel realizes fans actually want to spend money and buy their books, Marvel just needs to PROVIDE!!
And maybe do me a favor? Somebody tweet this to @tombrevoort because he has me blocked on Twitter.
