{"id":3024,"date":"2009-08-06T12:13:27","date_gmt":"2009-08-06T17:13:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/?p=3024"},"modified":"2009-08-06T12:13:27","modified_gmt":"2009-08-06T17:13:27","slug":"the-bromance-is-over-for-marvel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/?p=3024","title":{"rendered":"The Bromance is Over… for Marvel"},"content":{"rendered":"

The most hilarious thing I’d seen solicited in months was the “Marvel Bromance” trade paperback.<\/p>\n

\"39950712\"<\/a>I remember it being solidly mocked amongst my blogging peers, as is anything Marvel tries to do that is hip, because Marvel is not hip. They are at best occasionally ironically hip. But they seemed to at least understand <\/em>that, on this trade, because the solicitation text is a winking, knowing, funny piece of writing:<\/p>\n

If This Be Bromance–! Marvel\u2019s greatest buddies take the spotlight in this one-of-a-kind collection, and it\u2019s male bonding like you\u2019ve never seen \u2014 as Cable and Deadpool swap stories, Wonder Man and the Beast share a plane ride, Spidey and the Human Torch battle back-to-back, Wolverine makes a bet with Nightcrawler, Black Panther and Everett Ross lay their feelings on the line\u2026and the Warriors Three set sail for fun! Plus: Captain America and the Falcon, Iron Man and Jim Rhodes, and more! Be here as Marvel says, \u201cI love you, man!\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But it did get some… coverage… in the larger not-just-wonks blogosphere as well, as MTV’s Splash Page ran a pretty straight-up piece on it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Alas, it appears that the Bromance is over.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Just moments ago I got a press-release about a very familiar sounding project, with a more conventional title and solicitation text with all of the winks and knowing edited right-the-fuck-out.<\/p>\n

The Buddies of Marvel Take Center Stage in Marvel Super Hero Team-Up<\/div>\n
The best buds of the Marvel Universe come together in the explosive Marvel Super Hero Team-Up collection featuring an all new cover by Jorge Molina as featured on MTV! \u00a0An all-star list of creators including the likes of Stan Lee and Chris Claremont deliver the mighty men of Marvel uniting to battle evil, save the day and\u2026win some bets?! Captain America, Iron Man, Jim Rhodes, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Deadpool, Cable, Nightcrawler and more get the spotlight as their friendships are put to the test!<\/div>\n
Marvel urges retailers to check their orders on Marvel Super Hero Team-Up, as the collection generates mainstream press and significant buzz. \u00a0Which guys get along best in the Marvel U? \u00a0How do super heroes really hang out when not fighting crime? \u00a0Check out all the answers in the testosterone-filled Marvel Super Hero Team-Up!<\/div>\n
MARVEL SUPER HERO TEAM-UP TPB (JUN090651)<\/div>\n

The Buddies of Marvel Take Center Stage in Marvel Super Hero Team-Up<\/p>\n

The best buds of the Marvel Universe come together in the explosive Marvel Super Hero Team-Up<\/em> collection featuring an all new cover by Jorge Molina as featured on MTV! \u00a0An all-star list of creators including the likes of Stan Lee and Chris Claremont deliver the mighty men of Marvel uniting to battle evil, save the day and\u2026win some bets?! Captain America, Iron Man, Jim Rhodes, Wolverine, Spider-Man, Deadpool, Cable, Nightcrawler and more get the spotlight as their friendships are put to the test!<\/p>\n

Marvel urges retailers to check their orders on Marvel Super Hero Team-Up, as the collection generates mainstream press and significant buzz. \u00a0Which guys get along best in the Marvel U? \u00a0How do super heroes really hang out when not fighting crime? \u00a0Check out all the answers in the testosterone-filled Marvel Super Hero Team-Up!<\/p>\n

MARVEL SUPER HERO TEAM-UP TPB (JUN090651) [solicit info removed]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A quick check reveals that yes, in fact “JUN090651” is the item formerly known as “Marvel Bromance”. Apparently the word… and concept… of Bromance was just a little to hip for the room and we get a “team-up” collection. We also get all the kitsch taken out of the solicit, and the phrase “testosterone-filled<\/strong>” added in. Maybe that was the copy-writer’s revenge for having to dull-down the original solicit?<\/p>\n

Here’s the thing that I find the most intriguing about all of this though, the press release I received doesn’t mention anywhere that this thing used to be Marvel Bromance<\/em>. I mean, they’re mentioning that the book got coverage “on MTV”, but the reason it got any coverage at all is because it was called Marvel Bromance. <\/em>Seriously. Here’s the quote from MTV:<\/p>\n

Given MTV’s history with covering\u00a0great moments in “Bromance” history<\/a>, Marvel wanted to\u00a0give Splash Page readers the first look<\/strong> at the never-before-seen Jorge Molina cover to “Marvel Bromance.”<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Marvel tried something different, got some decent press coverage for it, and then… totally balked and tried to pretend it never happened.\u00a0They did implore retailers to “check their orders” on the book though, without mentioning that they never ordered a book with this title, or why it got all of the “buzz” that they’re touting. It’s\u00a0almost like Marvel panicked<\/em> or something.<\/p>\n

I hesitate to draw any conclusions from this, I mean publishers change the titles and descriptions of already-solicited books that have received good media coverage all the time. This \u00a0could just be Standard Operating Procedure, right? But the more I look at these decisions, the more I feel like the whole thing feels a little bit… queer?<\/p>\n

– Christopher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The most hilarious thing I’d seen solicited in months was the “Marvel Bromance” trade paperback. I remember it being solidly mocked amongst my blogging peers, as is anything Marvel tries to do that is hip, because Marvel is not hip. They are at best occasionally ironically hip. But they seemed to at least understand that, … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “The Bromance is Over… for Marvel”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comics-retailing","category-superheroes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3026,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3024\/revisions\/3026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comics212.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}