As of this writing, Amazing Spider-Man #26 is in the hot little hands of readers worldwide. The commercial reception has yet to be tallied, but the critical reception is unkind towards Zeb Wells, Nick Lowe, and everyone at Marvel who had a hand in the finale to the “What Did Peter Do?” arc.
Is the critical drubbing a surprise? For cynical curmudgeons such as yours truly, no. I hoped to be surprised, but my hopes (and the hopes of many other readers like myself) were unmet. If you’d like to read my detailed review of the issue, click on the link below:
Any effort undertaken contains the possibility of profit but always contains the promise of cost. It costs money to make Amazing Spider-Man – from paying the creatives to paying for printing and distribution to business costs associated with promotion and marketing. For a business to survive, the goal is always to offset those costs by selling more comics than it costs to make those comics. It really is that simple.
But today’s Op-Ed is about the secret cost that isn’t as clear and doesn’t get as much attention – brand loyalty.
In a nutshell, brand loyalty refers to a customer’s willingness to stick with a brand, even through ups and downs. When a company has the luxury of brand loyalty, there’s a padding of grace customers will extend when a company makes a mistake or delivers a sub-par product or service. In sports terms, brand loyalty can be seen in diehard fans who stick with their team through good seasons and bad, always cheering the team on to success.
For marketers and salesmen, brand loyalty is the Holy Grail of accomplishment for your company. Every company wants brand loyalty, so don’t believe a word from anyone who says otherwise.
This brings us back to Marvel…
Marvel has brand loyalty (as my mother would say) “up the wazoo.” Decades upon decades of fantastical storytelling and imagination have cultivated a fanbase that will cheer Marvel’s successes and boo Marvel’s failures but still keep buying every comic, t-shirt, lunchbox, and kitschy piece of crap you can imagine because it has a Marvel logo on it.
Most companies would kill and sell their grandma’s soul for the level of brand loyalty Marvel enjoys because they know, no matter what, their customers won’t suddenly disappear. Marvel’s customer base is established and won’t go anywhere anytime soon.
But there’s always a cost point. A cost point that supersedes brand loyalty under the right (or wrong, if you prefer) conditions, and Amazing Spider-Man #26 may have reached that point for several readers.
First, Marvel cost readers time. Amazing Spider-Man (ASM) #1 was released in April 2022 with a big bang, but not a single clue or hint was dropped until issue #21, starting the finale arc that ended with this week’s ASM #26. Readers had to wait over a year for the payoff to issue #1, so when the ending failed to meet expectations, readers lost a year’s worth of time in waiting.
Second, Marvel cost readers money. If you count up all the issues between ASM #1 and ASM #26, including event-tie-ins, the collective purchase price approaches $125. Since the mystery was ignored for a majority of the run, even though Marvel didn’t describe it that way, readers paid nearly $125 for what amounts to a 7-issue arc.
Third and trickiest to quantify, Marvel cost readers their trust. Putting the brand loyalty aspects aside, when a reader spends money to buy a Marvel comic, there’s an expectation that the comic will provide equal or greater value than the money paid. It’s a symbiotic relationship. A reader gives money to Marvel, trusting that Marvel will give equal entertainment value in return.
When Marvel gladly takes money from retailers, LCSs, and readers without giving equal or greater entertainment value in return, trust is broken. Marvel fans who have brand loyalty accept the risk that not every comic will meet expectations, but that risk acceptance has its limits.
Put those three factors together, and you reach your cost point which diminishes brand loyalty.
Fans can be patient to a fault. Fans can look past mistakes and bad decisions if the potential for better stories remains. But if you willfully waste a fan’s time, money, and trust, no amount of brand loyalty is strong enough to keep fans invested.
Can Marvel make up for the damage to brand loyalty? Sure, but it will take time, money, and a restoration of trust. If Marvel doesn’t find some way to make up the differences in those three factors soon, the cost may become too high to bear.
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