I could have sworn I'd actually read somewhere that Bendis planned originally to have Steve be a pretty significant part of the storyline he's doing now - before Brubaker killed him off. For one thing, he was clearly headed in the direction of reassembling the Avengers, something he now can't really do until/unless Steve comes back. he could put together a team, but it wouldn't really be the Avengers in spirit.
Whatever they intend to do, Marvel really needs to stop deliberately tricking fans into thinking they're going to give them what they want and then taking it back again. The more they pull stunts like this promo ad (and the Alex Ross cover for Avengers vs. Invaders, and a skrull Cap showing up in the Savage Land, and every thing else they've done to give fans a moment or a few weeks of hope before dashing it again), the more disenchanted and irritated their readers are going to get. Right now, Steve's still one of their most popular characters (as witnessed by all of the miniseries they keep pitching involving him), and just the sugestion that they might be getting real Steve back is enough to get many fans to buy a comic, but Marvel can only play "boy who cried wolf" so many times before fans' annoyance at being cheated over and over will start outweighing the momentary boost in sales caused by each stunt (and those single-issue sales boosts will eventually stop as well, because fans will start expecting a cheap trick and not bothering).
*sighs* With the exception of Marvel Adventures and Thor, comics have gone from being something I loved enough that Wednesday was my favorite day of the week, and something I could gleefully bond with my girlfriend over, to something I have to painfully force myself to read, because the possiblity of a light at the end of the tunnel gets more remote every month. I don't know that I can hold out "several years."
I also think waiting that long would be a mistake as far as the individual Captain America title goes. The title's sales have been steadily dropping - it went down over thirty places on Marvel's "copies sold" list the month Bucky put on the costume, and it hasn't gained any readers back. My sole hope is that sales on Captsain America will drop low enough that Marvel will be forced to pull Brubaker off the title and replace him with someone else who will bring Steve back (since I'm starting to doubt Brubaker ever will -- not since it became obvious that the whole storyline's basically an excuse to put his Mary Sue in the costume and have him replace Steve as the main character. And to think I used to actually respect his writing).
Well, that and that if they really want to do a Captain America movie in 2011 and be able to promote it via the comics/sell comics through it the way they have with Spiderman and Iron Man, they're going to need Steve (real Steve) back in 616 canon by then.
*eyes post* This was originally three times as long, until I cut the worst of the ranting out -- I didn't realize I had so much anger and resentment towards Brubaker in me until I started typing.
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Whatever they intend to do, Marvel really needs to stop deliberately tricking fans into thinking they're going to give them what they want and then taking it back again. The more they pull stunts like this promo ad (and the Alex Ross cover for Avengers vs. Invaders, and a skrull Cap showing up in the Savage Land, and every thing else they've done to give fans a moment or a few weeks of hope before dashing it again), the more disenchanted and irritated their readers are going to get. Right now, Steve's still one of their most popular characters (as witnessed by all of the miniseries they keep pitching involving him), and just the sugestion that they might be getting real Steve back is enough to get many fans to buy a comic, but Marvel can only play "boy who cried wolf" so many times before fans' annoyance at being cheated over and over will start outweighing the momentary boost in sales caused by each stunt (and those single-issue sales boosts will eventually stop as well, because fans will start expecting a cheap trick and not bothering).
*sighs* With the exception of Marvel Adventures and Thor, comics have gone from being something I loved enough that Wednesday was my favorite day of the week, and something I could gleefully bond with my girlfriend over, to something I have to painfully force myself to read, because the possiblity of a light at the end of the tunnel gets more remote every month. I don't know that I can hold out "several years."
I also think waiting that long would be a mistake as far as the individual Captain America title goes. The title's sales have been steadily dropping - it went down over thirty places on Marvel's "copies sold" list the month Bucky put on the costume, and it hasn't gained any readers back. My sole hope is that sales on Captsain America will drop low enough that Marvel will be forced to pull Brubaker off the title and replace him with someone else who will bring Steve back (since I'm starting to doubt Brubaker ever will -- not since it became obvious that the whole storyline's basically an excuse to put his Mary Sue in the costume and have him replace Steve as the main character. And to think I used to actually respect his writing).
Well, that and that if they really want to do a Captain America movie in 2011 and be able to promote it via the comics/sell comics through it the way they have with Spiderman and Iron Man, they're going to need Steve (real Steve) back in 616 canon by then.
*eyes post* This was originally three times as long, until I cut the worst of the ranting out -- I didn't realize I had so much anger and resentment towards Brubaker in me until I started typing.