Well I wish Alonso well wherever he ends up. It may well be that a shake up was needed. Cebulski's greatest strength so far has been as a talent scout/recruiter, bringing a lot of talent to Marvel and discovering a lot of talent overseas that have gotten their big break at Marvel. I am hopeful that his tenure will see a wave of new talent (and with it new ideas) that can make Marvel feel fresh and the House of Ideas again instead of recycling the same old same old over and over again catering the the same shrinking niche market. Cebulksi has been their international coordinator for a while and headquartered in Shanghai, so maybe he will have had a chance to look at comics in other markets and bring some fresh strategies on ow to get comics into the hands of potential readers and grow the customer base. I am skeptical the corporate structure will allow much change, but am hopeful something good will come out of this.

-M

Very surprising pick with Cebulski. I would not have guessed that.

I figured the next E-i-C would probably be Brevoort, but he's probably seen as too traditional.

I was shocked but pleased when they asked Axel for the position.

I was hopeful of what he could bring in from his prestigeous position as one of Vertigo's best editors, but knew the incredible pressure would be difficult.

Where will Axel go ? Will hey with Marvel ?

Frankly, I could see him going out on his own, or setting up shop much like Karen Berger and Shelly Bond have with their own imprints at other publishers.

Marvel has mostly been dead to me since about 2000. If they could bring back the classic continuity and build on that as sort of a parallel universe, I could jump back in, but between Jemas and Quesada and what's come since, Marvel is a huge clusterfunk that I mostly don't care about. We've gone from Stan Lee-verse to Disney-verse, and I want the Stan-verse back, but I don't think it's going to happen.

Keep the current, cause I know they'll never abandon that, but give us a throwback universe we can enjoy.

I was just thinking today I wish DC would do the same with a separate imprint that carries on like COIE never happened.

They wanted Axel gone.

Marvel has been slipping and is largely perceived as not being as good as it used to be. A lot of that is related to its acquisition by Disney IMO.

Overall, I have great respect for Axel but he wasn't a very good fit for Marvel. It always felt strained and awkward. Honestly, Axel doesn't really strike me as a Marvel guy.

C. B. Cebulski fits the Disney profile, and it sounds like he's well liked, but I'm highly skeptical.

Marvel is practically dead to me.

It started with DeFalco and has only come up with Quesada and Palmiotti's Marvel Knights and the early Quesada reinvigoration as E-i-C.

After that Marvel has backslid horribly, bloatedly, out of character and context, with few exceptions like Daredevil or some of their out of continuity projects.

DC is closer to what I've enjoyed, though I'm not as solid on them as I used to be either. There's a lot to like there.

As far as Axel leaving and Bendis leaving, I'm sure there's linkage there.

Pure speculation on my part, but I'm thinking when word was in the air that there would be a new sheriff in town and Bendis wasn't approached, Didio and Lee whispering in his ear suddenly got a lot more real.

For what it's worth, to get a sense of where Cebulski is coming form, tweeted the following: "To prepare for the future, one must remember the past" and include d a picture of Sean Howe's Marvel the Untold Story in the tweet. No other context, but with his background in talent relations an recruiting and the nature of Howe's book I think a lot of the changes in motion will be behind the scenes stuff that will impact what we see on the pages but not be privy to what those changes actually are. Which is probably how it should be.

-M

Disney has never set great store in publishing, which is why they have been happy to hand it over to others, for many years.  They purchased Marvel for intellectual property that appealed to adolescent males, pure and simple.  They wanted that property for other media.  Publishing is just a way to keep trademarks active and maybe provide some material for use elsewhere.  It doesn't earn huge profits (hasn't in generations).  What they are concerned with is that it brings in enough revenue to cover their costs and stays in step with their other initiatives.  Actually, having it failing, providing it ddoesn't drag down other divisions (movies and tv especially), works in their favor, on the balance sheet.

I think the problem is that while some of those Marvel titles are good (I enjoyed what I've read of Silver Surfer) what they're trying to do (stand-alone, idiosyncratic, innovative) is being done far better at Image. I suppose I was psychologically shaped as a reader by how I got into Marvel comics. When I started reading in the mid-80's, I got heavily into the Handbooks and the shared universe concept was almost as important to me as the characters and stories. Divorced of continuity, I don't think I would have cared as much. It was all an illusion, of course, but the idea of a giant overarching story (The Marvel Universe) was enthralling to my young mind. 

I agree that Marvel creators should be given a lot of freedom as long as they don't go too far off model, but what I've sampled in recent years (like Aaron's Doctor Strange) is simply bad characterization masquerading as innovation. That is, if you have even a basic understanding of Doctor Strange. He's literally written like movie Tony Stark. Even in a perfect scenario where all your readers are brand new and know nothing about the character or his history, you're doing them a disservice. 

Yeah, yeah, I forgot Vision. That was as good as anything Marvel has put out ever, IMO. (Also really dug everything Warren Ellis did, and quite a bit of Jason Aaron' stuff.)

See, I think twenty or thirty books out of a hundred is a GOOD average. I'd say 5 is a good average. (And, again, reminiscent of the '70s where Spidey, the Fantastic Four, and Thor were kind of Ok at best.) "Flagship" books are kind of by-there-very-nature the least interesting parts of Marvel and DC's line.

If a company can produce a handful of comics that I'm excited about at any given time - And it has never been more than a handful since I was 10 and really liked Secret Wars 2 - they're doing very well.