So this might be a really dumb question, and I apologize in advance, I'm not hugely familiar with Marvel stuff outside X-Men and Spiderman, but I want to learn more about this character, since she seems to be really popular with everyone.

What exactly is an inhuman, and why is Kamala, a regular human being in New Jersey, an inhuman? Wikipedia isn't super helpful, it just talks about the social impact of the comic rather than the actual comic.

55 minutes ago, Supertoe said:

So this might be a really dumb question, and I apologize in advance, I'm not hugely familiar with Marvel stuff outside X-Men and Spiderman, but I want to learn more about this character, since she seems to be really popular with everyone.

What exactly is an inhuman, and why is Kamala, a regular human being in New Jersey, an inhuman? Wikipedia isn't super helpful, it just talks about the social impact of the comic rather than the actual comic.

Inhumans have been around for a long time. They’re a race of super-being kind of like mutants. The difference is that their powers are somewhat dormant unless they’re exposed to something called the Terrigen Mists. The Mist unlocks the hidden power of the Inhuman, a process that often deforms them. The Inhumans were introduced way back in like Fantastic Four #45. Black Bolt, Medusa and a bunch of other Inhumans were part of the first group.

At some point there was a crossover event called Inhumanity where a lot of the population got exposed to the Mist. A bunch of people that didn’t even know they were Inhumans developed powers. Khan was one of those.

58 minutes ago, gokubb said:

Inhumans have been around for a long time. They’re a race of super-being kind of like mutants. The difference is that their powers are somewhat dormant unless they’re exposed to something called the Terrigen Mists. The Mist unlocks the hidden power of the Inhuman, a process that often deforms them. The Inhumans were introduced way back in like Fantastic Four #45. Black Bolt, Medusa and a bunch of other Inhumans were part of the first group.

At some point there was a crossover event called Inhumanity where a lot of the population got exposed to the Mist. A bunch of people that didn’t even know they were Inhumans developed powers. Khan was one of those.

Cool, thanks. 😀

6 hours ago, cheapmate said:

6 hours ago, cheapmate said:

I missed that, thanks

I think she is a reasonable choice, she's checks multiple demographic boxes at once and she has been involved with several major teams since she was created.

And FFG has a habit of gender equality in its games, like Arkham Horror and Lord of the Rings, for the sake of diversity

Besides she is one of the few "new" Inhumans created, which were actually fun

You say for the sake of diversity, and that feels disinginuous to me. It is just equal representation. Can we just have equal representation for its own sake?

How would you feel if the set was all female?

Considering the core set and announced hero packs don't include Wolverine or Deadpool, I'm thinking the mutants are off the table for the time being. I'd love to see Storm, as well. She's one of my favorite X-Men.

16 hours ago, Radix2309 said:

You say for the sake of diversity, and that feels disinginuous to me. It is just equal representation. Can we just have equal representation for its own sake?

How would you feel if the set was all female?

If it was thematic I would not have a problem with it

i just don’t agree with gender diversity just for the sake of diversity, in the way FFG does with the LOTR

1 hour ago, cheapmate said:

If it was thematic I would not have a problem with it

i just don’t agree with gender diversity just for the sake of diversity, in the way FFG does with the LOTR

What do you feel about diversity because the world we live in (and the games take place in) is diverse?

19 minutes ago, Tonbo Karasu said:

What do you feel about diversity because the world we live in (and the games take place in) is diverse?

Correct, hence FFG’s (or perhaps Marvel’s) choice for Ms Marvel and She-Hulk

Diversity is fine as long as it is a natural thing, not a form of “positive” discrimination

I know that terms like popular and awesome are relative terms, so here's some estimated shipping numbers for the last 6 months via Comichron (which sources from Diamond). These are estimated shipped comics, not actual sales. This does not reflect digital sales. I do not have the digital sales, but I think it's safe to say that these numbers don't really translate to popular or awesome, at least in print. Hopefully she's a cool character in the game.

Jan #37 14,250
Feb #38 12,374
Cancelled.

Relaunched as Magnificent Ms. Marvel
Mar #1 27,706
Apr #2, 26,173 (including a promotional overship)
May #3, 18,386
June #4, 16,735

If we went by what was strictly the best-selling on-going comic book titles of June, the Core Heroes would be Black Cat, Silver Surfer, Spider-Man, Hulk, and Venom.

https://www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2019/2019-06.html

A bit spidey-focused, but I could dig that line up.

8 hours ago, qwertyuiop said:

I know that terms like popular and awesome are relative terms, so here's some estimated shipping numbers for the last 6 months via Comichron (which sources from Diamond). These are estimated shipped comics, not actual sales. This does not reflect digital sales. I do not have the digital sales, but I think it's safe to say that these numbers don't really translate to popular or awesome, at least in print. Hopefully she's a cool character in the game.

Jan #37 14,250
Feb #38 12,374 
Cancelled.

Relaunched as Magnificent Ms. Marvel
Mar #1 27,706
Apr #2, 26,173 (including a promotional overship)
May #3, 18,386
June #4, 16,735

Ms. Marvel has always done better in digital comics and trade paperbacks than single issue sales (which seems to have a lot to do with what demographics she's most popular with). I posted a bunch of links in another thread just a few minutes ago, but here's one real quick: https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/08/31/ms-marvel-sold-half-million-trade-paperbacks/

If you have something showing numbers broken down by volume, I'd love to see them. 500k over 9 volumes with the admission that at least 20% of them were from the 1st volume doesn't really match the hype. Additionally, we don't really know exactly how digital sales are tallied in all cases between per publication purchases and on demand all you can read content. We do know that digital trades routinely sell for less than list and in some cases as low as 99 cents USD. Are free comics counted as sales? It should also be noted that digital comics have a wider reach than their print versions.

When I do a google search for Ms. Marvel digital sales, here the first two are about Captain Marvel on demand/digital movie sales; number three is a Ms. Marvel article from 2014. Fourth up is a piece about starter collections which again mentions Captain Marvel instead of Ms. Marvel. The BC link is 5th, there's an identity driven article in there, three more Captain Marvel movie results, and another article essentially mirroring the BC article. That rounds out the first page. Oddly, the related search tabs list Hulk villain, Abomination, before Kamala Khan and Carol Danvers...but he also beats out Superman, Spidey, and Batman, for what it's worth.

Great sales numbers don't necessarily reflect on the quality or appeal of a character to its audience. It doesn't matter to everyone if a character has similar powers to another or that certain aspects are valued more than others or that a character is created and promoted because a different company had movie rights to a different, more popular elastic character.

Again, I hope Ms. Marvel is great in the game. I just don't see it in the comics.

I don't really see how any of this is relevant. At the end of the day, Asmodee and Disney are both businesses. Every product they release is part of a strategy to maximize profits. Whether or not Kamala Khan sells comics is irrelevant if they've got some other business justification for promoting her (it's not like they do those single-page ads where Thor defeats a villain with Hostess Fruit Pies anymore). Maybe they wanted a Generation Z superhero to get high schoolers hooked. Or maybe they expect Champions to draw in a bunch of lapsed fans and movie fans and want a more recent superhero to draw them back into the comics.

The point is that I doubt any of us know Marvel's business better than the actual executives who made this decision, and trying to use armchair research to validate or invalidate it is downright silly.

5 hours ago, qwertyuiop said:

If you have something showing numbers broken down by volume, I'd love to see them. 500k over 9 volumes with the admission that at least 20% of them were from the 1st volume doesn't really match the hype. Additionally, we don't really know exactly how digital sales are tallied in all cases between per publication purchases and on demand all you can read content. We do know that digital trades routinely sell for less than list and in some cases as low as 99 cents USD. Are free comics counted as sales? It should also be noted that digital comics have a wider reach than their print versions.

When I do a google search for Ms. Marvel digital sales, here the first two are about Captain Marvel on demand/digital movie sales; number three is a Ms. Marvel article from 2014. Fourth up is a piece about starter collections which again mentions Captain Marvel instead of Ms. Marvel. The BC link is 5th, there's an identity driven article in there, three more Captain Marvel movie results, and another article essentially mirroring the BC article. That rounds out the first page. Oddly, the related search tabs list Hulk villain, Abomination, before Kamala Khan and Carol Danvers...but he also beats out Superman, Spidey, and Batman, for what it's worth.

Great sales numbers don't necessarily reflect on the quality or appeal of a character to its audience. It doesn't matter to everyone if a character has similar powers to another or that certain aspects are valued more than others or that a character is created and promoted because a different company had movie rights to a different, more popular elastic character.

Again, I hope Ms. Marvel is great in the game. I just don't see it in the comics.

You just don't see it in single issue sales, which is an area in decline across the board.

Ms. Marvel has sold best in trade and digital formats since her introduction. Which shouldn't be that surprising since she's a character introduced in 2014. That she would be consumed in a different format then character from the 60s shouldn't be a novel concept in anyway.

27 minutes ago, ScottieATF said:

You just don't see it in single issue sales, which is an area in decline across the board.

Ms. Marvel has sold best in trade and digital formats since her introduction. Which shouldn't be that surprising since she's a character introduced in 2014. That she would be consumed in a different format then character from the 60s shouldn't be a novel concept  i  n any  w  ay.

That does bring up an interesting point. If the single issue sales are poor, how does it justify the trade? If the trade format is the goal, and I think it's safe to say Marvel has been pacing their arcs for trades, why not just bypass single issues and release trades? Maybe pacing for the trade makes the actual trades less exciting to the core market and the new market can't make up for it. I don't know. I think based on the other information presented here we can state that TPB sales for the title are also in decline. Selling best in a format over another format doesn't necessarily translate into selling well, but you're right, it isn't surprising or novel given today's available formats. I don't believe I said it was.

I think it's a good question from someone who either doesn't know about a character or knows about the character's general lack of success to ask why it'd be included..or at least included so early.

While RSDockery's recent post generally falls flat, it does make one good point. Ms. Marvel is a new character that Marvel has been trying to push for a while. There's clearly some investment. A youthful character for a youthful audience makes sense, and one or two new characters is low risk when dealing with more experienced audiences. It could have been worse; we could have gotten Spider-Ham. Ms. Marvel is a safe choice.

Including Captain Marvel is a good choice. I'm not going to get into any controversies around the character, comics, or movies. Suffice to say, Capt. Marvel isn't really loved on the comics side of the business. Some of that carried over to the movie, but in general, the movie was a success and fresh enough in the minds of average people who may also game. Love or hate the character, it's a good move. There isn't a huge number of female characters in the collective conscious that slot into a general category like Capt. Marvel. Most others are most recognized as parts of other Expansions.. I mean teams.

The real question is why the heck is She-Hulk a flagship character in the core? I get that FFG has shown more interest in evening out the number of male/female characters in games.. but She-Hulk?

I've said this before, but I'll say it again, regarding She-Hulk.

Say you want a female character.

You also want a character who really highlights the notion of Alter Egos.

You also want a character who hasn't appeared in any movies, so that you can really drive home that this product is based on comics, not any movie franchise (each of which had its own merchandise deals).

Who is a better choice than She-Hulk?

23 hours ago, qwertyuiop said:

I know that terms like popular and awesome are relative terms, so here's some estimated shipping numbers for the last 6 months via Comichron (which sources from Diamond). These are estimated shipped comics, not actual sales. This does not reflect digital sales. I do not have the digital sales, but I think it's safe to say that these numbers don't really translate to popular or awesome, at least in print. Hopefully she's a cool character in the game.

Jan #37 14,250
Feb #38 12,374
Cancelled.

Relaunched as Magnificent Ms. Marvel
Mar #1 27,706
Apr #2, 26,173 (including a promotional overship)
May #3, 18,386
June #4, 16,735

Marvel doesn't share digital sales, we kind of just have to take their word for it. However, popularity seldom translates into cancellation. Maybe Marvel doesn't want to give us too much of a good thing?

59 minutes ago, CitizenKeen said:

I've said this before, but I'll say it again, regarding She-Hulk.

Say you want a female character.

You also want a character who really highlights the notion of Alter Egos.

You also want a character who hasn't appeared in any movies, so that you can really drive home that this product is based on comics, not any movie franchise (each of which had its own merchandise deals).

Who is a better choice than She-Hulk?

I'm not sure it's in FFG's best interest to avoid using MCU characters. If this is a product appealing to the masses, which I would think FFG wants to do, you would go with visual and name recognition. Comic fans will buy it regardless of which heroes are on the box, because they know them all. The general public only knows MCU. Captain Marvel is clearly an example of an MCU character who's recognition FFG is hoping to cash in on. Black Widow or Scarlet Witch might have been second choices for She-Hulk. I do prefer the She-Hulk choice to either of those however.

2 minutes ago, urloony said:

I'm not sure it's in FFG's best interest to avoid using MCU characters. If this is a product appealing to the masses, which I would think FFG wants to do, you would go with visual and name recognition. Comic fans will buy it regardless of which heroes are on the box, because they know them all. The general public only knows MCU. Captain Marvel is clearly an example of an MCU character who's recognition FFG is hoping to cash in on. Black Widow or Scarlet Witch might have been second choices for She-Hulk. I do prefer the She-Hulk choice to either of those however.

Four out of five of the heroes are MCU. I don't think they're avoiding MCU. But having one non-MCU (non Sony, non Fox) character, I think, makes sense.

Regardless, I'm sure there were a lot of meetings where people who know a lot more about (a) Marvel's business, (b) Marvel's plans for the future, and (c) the LCG landscape, made decisions about who would be included.

15 hours ago, Vlad3theImpaler said:

Ms. Marvel has always done better in digital comics and trade paperbacks than single issue sales (which seems to have a lot to do with what demographics she's most popular with). I posted a bunch of links in another thread just a few minutes ago, but here's one real quick: https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/08/31/ms-marvel-sold-half-million-trade-paperbacks/

Headline sales like this can be misleading. It makes the reader think there is a huge number of individual fans out there buying these TPB's. The reality is Marvel has been marketing "diverse" trades like Ms. Marvel to schools and libraries. I would bet a large portion of the sales made are by those groups, rather than gotta-have-it comic fans.

I wasn't even gone an hour. How did the goal posts move again ?

So now we can only count sales to "gotta-have-it comic fans", instead of buildings chock full of tomorrow's biggest consumers of toys and games.

I'm out. This thread is likely to get locked, and even if it isn't, God help me I can't even.

21 minutes ago, CitizenKeen said:

I wasn't even gone an hour. How did the goal posts move again ?

So now we can only count sales to "gotta-have-it comic fans", instead of buildings chock full of tomorrow's biggest consumers of toys and games.

I'm out. This thread is likely to get locked, and even if it isn't, God help me I can't even.

No, that's not the point. Sales are sales. For a comic's success however you need sustainable sales. School's and libraries are not going to fill their shelves with endless volumes of Ms. Marvel. After six years of purchasing Ms. Marvel trades, how many more volumes is a school or library going to purchase? You need fans invested in the comic and the character to continue to make sales. There's a reason Ms. Marvel was cancelled and went in a new direction with new writers, and here's a hint: it wasn't popularity.

19 minutes ago, urloony said:

No, that's not the point. Sales are sales. For a comic's success however you need sustainable sales. School's and libraries are not going to fill their shelves with endless volumes of Ms. Marvel. After six years of purchasing Ms. Marvel trades, how many more volumes is a school or library going to purchase? You need fans invested in the comic and the character to continue to make sales. There's a reason Ms. Marvel was cancelled and went in a new direction with new writers, and here's a hint: it wasn't popularity.

i know you white internet dudes want so badly to believe ms marvel was cancelled because she's a brown girl but sorry bruh that aint it

https://www.marvel.com/articles/comics/farewell-to-ms-marvel-an-open-letter-from-g-willow-wilson

cry more 😂