YouTuber Eric July called out Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige for describing Captain Marvel as “one of the most popular characters in our comics.”
Feige spoke to Cosmic Book News where he described Captain Marvel as “one of the most popular characters in our comics, she’s one of the most powerful characters in the comics and will be the most powerful character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
While most people took issue with Feige confirming that Captain Marvel is somehow stronger than Thanos, Eric July called out Feige for describing Captain Marvel as “one of the most popular characters.”
July described Feige’s comments as “utter nonsense.” He would go on say, “The most ignorant thing he dared to say is that Captain Marvel is one of the most popular characters in Marvel Comics. What?!?” He adds, “This is objectively false. For the 90th time, Carol Danvers only recently became Captain Marvel. She was more embraced as Ms. Marvel. Even then she wasn’t one of the most popular characters. Kevin, no. Just stop.”
He continues, “What happened was, you guys have tried to force feed us Captain Marvel to make her into an icon even though very few liked her in the comics. She’s had relaunch after relaunch after relaunch.”
He would then get to the heart of Feige’s comments saying that even with Captain Marvel coming out and all the marketing they are putting behind Larson’s performance, Marvel Comics still can’t sell the brand new Captain Marvel series they just relaunched again.
“Y’all know mainstream comics have schemes to really inflate sales, and many retailers really just bend over and take it. This is why people like to refer to the units that are shipped as to actual sales as in the comic fan purchasing the actual comic book.”
He adds, “Once it’s out of Marvel’s hands, they’re good. But the retailers aren’t selling this garbage…Every single comic shop that I go to has so many Captain Marvel’s left that they are hanging off of the damn shelf. They were clearly overshipped and hardly anyone is buying this s***.”
He then questions, “How in the hell can you not sell first issues of a character that has all of this hype surrounding it, that has a damn movie about to drop?”
Finally, he concludes that Feige doesn’t actually buy anything that he’s preaching, “I get it, he’s being a salesman. The movie is for normies, so I’m assuming he doesn’t really believe any of this and he’s just trying to pump up the character. He can say things like that, and it’s not like they are going to know any better.”
July’s analysis is pretty spot on. Comichron reports Marvel shipped 111,391 copies of Captain Marvel #1 in January making it the second highest shipped comic, but as seen in Eric July’s video, there are stacks of the comics just sitting on shelves.
He’s also correct that Carol Danvers as Captain Marvel is an extremely recent change in the comics. The character first appeared as Captain Marvel in 2012. Since then, the character has been rebooted over and over.
Following the 2012 series, Captain Marvel would get a new series in 2014. She would get another series, Captain Marvel & The Carol Corps in 2015. The character would be relaunched in a new series in 2016. Marvel would then try and make the character one of their main players in their big event comic Civil War II. She would then get another new series, The Mighty Captain Marvel, in 2017. She would also get a series in 2018, The Life of Captain Marvel. Finally, the character got it’s most recent series in January.
That’s seven reboots in seven years. A reboot every year. None of the series ever made it past 17 issues. The longest was the first series from 2012. As for the characters popularity when she was Ms. Marvel, the series which wrapped in 2010 finished out after 50 issues.
Captain Marvel is definitely not one of Marvel’s most popular characters in the comics. One could argue she’s one of the most unlikable characters especially since she became Captain Marvel.
What do you think of Kevin Feige’s comments? Do you agree with Eric July and he’s just trying to be a salesman or do you think he’s getting fed bad information from Marvel Comics about the popularity of Captain Marvel?