I hear so many people talk about how great it is that they didn't get into comics, or that they stopped buying single issues of comics. They say things like "It was getting pretty bad before I had to stop myself," as if they're discussing heroin or punching elementary schoolers. Comics had ceased to be things that they consistently enjoyed and had become things that they felt like they had to finish. They had to buy every issue of every title so that they could potentially grasp one narrative. You know why a major book being a "standalone title" is often seen as such a awesome thing in comics? It's definitely not because they come around very often.

emiliefarrisphotos/Pixabay
"Oh, you want to complete the 'Spider-Man Locks His Front Door' arc? Ya gotta by the whole bottom row for that."

There's something so satisfying about holding a single issue of a comic book in your hands. It's light, colorful, and reminds you of the good times you had before you had to start paying for the things that kept you alive. So I hate to say "Time to scrap that concept," but the comic book industry needs to lean into the skid of what's actually working. If digital comics are on the rise, do more to promote those. If people are more likely to read trade paperbacks or full-length graphic novels, have more writers working toward creating them. I would much rather buy a graphic novel for $16.99 than a collection of single issues (some of which are probably terrible) for $30.

I don't think single issues of comics will ever go away, at least not in the near future. But I do think that a business model that deals mostly with what's working is a good step toward making sure that the comic industry isn't extinct in 20 years. Oh, and on that note ...

But Iron Man changed things. Now we weren't just setting up some director's individual, specific take on a character; we were being introduced to a universe in which comic characters would all interact with each other in a way that's pleasing to both fans of comics and fans of movies. People who had read Avengers comics for years could now delight in watching their childhood fantasies on screen. And it's made the movie industry a lot of Cocaine and Boats money.

Comics, well, not so much.

99pixel/Pixabay
The SS Comic Writer's Salary.

We've written about how superhero movies are fucking with superhero comics before, but I think there's a lot left unsaid in the benefits of separating them as much as you can. Because in the fight between movies and comics, movies will always win. Whether it's because they're harder to access or because they still have that dumb "Haha, comics are for nerdz!" high school stereotype stink on them, comics are the underdog. And they need to rise up and counter movies. And I don't mean with constant dick punches, which is what I would do.

PavloFox/Pixabay
Prepare your groins, evildoers. A reckoning is upon you.

If movies have entered the realm of the shared universe, comics must provide alternate takes. This is where diversity comes in handy. If the Marvel Cinematic Universe is providing one Netflix series about a female character, one Netflix series about a black character, and a bunch of minority characters who basically serve to provide a round of applause whenever Robert Downey Jr. does something cool, comics can fill in that space. They can do this by introducing more diverse characters, retooling characters to be more diverse, or simply telling more stories that wouldn't fit into the movie mold. I think it would work. Hell, it worked for me.

When Miles Morales was introduced as the new Ultimate Spider-Man, I was a little done with the character. The Amazing Spider-Man movies, with their skateboarding Peter Parker and half-assed world-building, seemed to have lost sight of what makes Spider-Man so appealing. After years of clone problems, intricate plotlines that led nowhere, and character revisions that led to even less, comic Peter Parker had stopped being a figure that I could see myself in, and had become just another hero with a mile-long backstory. And even the Ultimate Spider-Man comics, which were created to breathe new life into Spider-Man, had tumbled into awkward irrelevance.

And then ... hope.

But Mile Morales captured that Spider-Man-ness -- that feeling of being amazingly powerful yet constantly overwhelmed. And to make it even better, he was Black Hispanic, which meant that a whole bunch of readers now had their own Spider-Man. And because there wasn't a Miles Morales movie with special effects that could outdo a comic artist's drawings, I had to go to comics to get this particular kind of Spidey fix. I'm not saying that Marvel should make me GodKing of Business, but I can't be alone in wishing that comics would give us stories that we can only find there, instead of stories that are just movie-lite.