Marvel is preparing to do something it has never done before: bring two of its biggest universes together for Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles. For the first time, the long-running worlds of Marvel superheroes and Star Wars will collide in a comic book crossover.
And I have one simple question.
Why?
Seriously. Who asked for this?
I’m sure someone, somewhere, is excited about the possibility of Darth Vader standing across from Doctor Doom or Spider-Man swinging past an X-wing. That’s fine. Enjoy it. But let’s stop pretending that every two things we recognize automatically need to be smashed together.
This feels like another example of a comic book industry that has developed a very strange response to its problems.
When in doubt, double down on failure.
We’ve seen this movie before.
During the 1990s, variant covers and collector-driven gimmicks exploded. For a brief period, it worked. People bought multiple copies of the same comic because one had a different cover, another was foil, another was embossed, and another was supposedly going to put your kids through college someday.
Then the market started telling publishers it had enough.
Did the industry pivot?
Of course not.
It doubled down.
More variants. More gimmicks. More manufactured collectibles. More reasons to buy multiple copies of books people weren’t necessarily buying because they wanted to read them.
We all know how that ended. The comic book market crashed, stores disappeared, publishers struggled, and Marvel itself eventually filed for bankruptcy.
Then came another era.
By the early 2000s, the big company-wide crossover event became the industry’s favorite new toy. At first, these events actually felt like events. Something major happening across a universe could get readers talking and bring attention to books they might otherwise overlook.
But once again, moderation apparently wasn’t an option.
One event became another event, which led into another event, which teased the next event. Eventually, readers needed a checklist just to figure out what they were supposed to buy.
And now we’ve arrived at the next stage.
Crossover slop.
Everything has to meet everything.
The concept isn’t inherently bad. Crossovers have been part of comics forever, and some have been incredibly fun. But there is a difference between creating a crossover because somebody has a great story to tell and creating one because two recognizable logos on the same cover might generate a temporary sales bump.
That’s where Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles loses me.
No one, and I do mean no one, was standing outside their local comic shop demanding Marvel finally give them the Star Wars and Marvel Comics crossover they’ve been waiting their entire lives to read.
Meanwhile, the comic book industry has much bigger problems.
Comic shops are closing. Comics don’t have the same mainstream media presence they once enjoyed. Getting new readers into stores remains a challenge, and the industry continues leaning heavily on an aging collector base while competing against practically every other form of entertainment imaginable.
And the answer is…put Marvel superheroes and Star Wars together?
That’s not fixing the roof.
That’s hanging a new poster over the water damage.
What frustrates me most is that the comic book industry has been given something most industries rarely receive: multiple opportunities to learn from spectacular failure.
Yet somehow, many of the same philosophies that helped nearly destroy the business decades ago continue resurfacing in slightly different packaging.Variants didn’t solve the problem.
Endless events didn’t solve the problem.
Constant relaunches didn’t solve the problem.
And I seriously doubt putting a lightsaber next to Captain America’s shield is going to solve it either.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting Star Wars/Marvel: Hope Assembles is going to single-handedly kill the comic book industry. That’s ridiculous. One crossover isn’t powerful enough to do that.
But another nail doesn’t have to build the coffin.
It just has to go into it.Maybe Hope Assembles turns out to be fantastic. Maybe there’s a genuinely great story behind all of this and I’ll happily admit I was wrong. I hope that’s exactly what happens.
But the larger issue isn’t one comic.
It’s an industry that too often responds to declining interest by giving existing customers more of the things they’ve already started losing interest in.
At some point, you have to stop asking how many covers you can sell, how many universes you can crossover, or how many events you can squeeze into a publishing calendar.
You have to start asking a much more important question:
How do we make people excited about reading comics again?
Maybe the industry wakes up before it’s too late.
I still believe it can.
Then again, this column is called For Those Who Believe for a reason.
About For Those Who Believe
For Those Who Believe is an opinion series by Alexander Storm examining comics, toys, entertainment, fandom and the industries surrounding them without pulling punches.
The opinions expressed in this column are those of Alexander Storm and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of Plastiq News.
