The way I interpret “Trouble in Tokyo,” the comic book industry is that artist, strapped in the Hollywood machine at its own expense. I fear we won’t see this turn around unless the comic book film boom that “Blade” kicked off experiences another “Batman & Robin.” I think then, we’ll see a return of comic books being published largely for their own sake.

I could be just reading into things, but two other places where I see allegories to the present-day state of mainstream superhero comics are “Static Shock: Rebirth of the Cool” (http://greatblackcomicbooks.blogspot.com/2009/08/static-shock-rebirth-of-cool.html) and “Spider-Man/Fantastic Four: Silver Rage.” (http://demsgoodreadin.blogspot.com/2007/12/spider-man-and-fantastic-four-silver.html) I read both as cautionary tales against creative stagnation at their core.

And instead we got the mess that was Jeph Loeb’s run in the Ultimate Universe, which saw, among other bad ideas, Fury retconned into being a century-old mutant and…Wolverine killed off right before the Wolverine movie came out.

Also, there’s plenty of other Marvel characters that can be featured in the single character franchises. So far we’ve seen the single character films build a continuity that leads to Avengers. I think we’ll see another batch of films do something similar that lead to a second possible Avengers film. After that we’ll probably see the focus on just the individual characters or on another batch of marvel characters that have still to be put to film.

Also, it occurs to me that I can think of at least one instance where a film has substantially improved a character’s status in the comics, which is Pepper Potts in the Iron Man books. Iron Man hadn’t had a strong, consistent female presence for years, until Pepper was added to line up better with the movieverse, and she has stuck around and become more central in the years since.

I mean, if a couple characters getting killed is the price for getting a sam raimi Spiderman movie, or a Favreau Iron Man or the kind of ambitious project that they’re putting together with the avengers movie and all the satelite films in it’s orbit like IM, Hulk, Thor and Cap and if I get to see them in a film with Skrulls and the cosmic cube (things that I have dreamed about since I was a kid and later after the first Superman film where I saw for the first time that you could adapt a comic to film and have it look spectacular)then so be it. I prefer the characters live, but if that’s the trade off, then off with their heads.

Mind you, this is the opinion of a 49 year old fan geezer who has gotten pretty much everything from the hobby that he is ever going to get and who is thinking solely of himself. ;)

Truth. A disappointing truth, but truth nonetheless. Our mainstream superhero comics have become soft brands to promote other multimedia projects.

I’ve been thinking about “Teen Titans: Trouble in Tokyo” a lot, lately…when I think about the central plot of that story, I feel like someone was trying to warn us.

I think it’s a pretty tough sell saying that IM’s popularity is remotely comparable to Nomad or Bucky Barnes. And I’d say that IM became hot again in the Marvel U because of Civil War(a storyline that predates the films by a few years). That’s not to say his own title was ever a big seller but he does have fondly remembered story arcs. Iron Man is one of those characters that is iconic but not a big seller. And there’s a difference between that and a character that isn’t all that iconic and not a big seller.

I don’t really see why they felt they needed to kill the characters off just because of the movie. It seemed like there were alternatives. Why not put Nomad in Young Avengers and just have Bucky get a new name and put him on one of the dozen Avengers titles? Especially since the Avengers Toon has been hinting at a Winter Soldier story.

Dumb decision but not unexpected.

James, yeah, I remember reading that Uncle Ben storyline, but I can’t for the life of me remember what the real story was.

And, yes, a real shame to lose Bucky/Winter Soldier. Especially outside the core title. And for such a lame, lame, lame event. Giving him another role would have been fine to me, but I suppose that his original death will be a plot/character point for the movie and they wanted to revert to that staus quo.

Steve Rogers would have been Cap again, movie or no movie — Brubaker has said as much (he actually didn’t intend for it to take as long as it did). Bucky could always get a new role, in this book or in another one.

I mean, if they’re so concerned about new readers being “confused” by the comics, why not go all the way, and give Cap his movie costume in the comics, make Nick Fury look like Samuel L. Jackson in the non-Ultimate comics, get rid of Thor’s human identity and get him together with Jane Foster again, ditch Pepper Potts’ superheroic identity, etc. etc.

They’re not doing any of those things, to my knowledge, so I have a hard time believing there’s actually some kind of dictate from on high saying that Bucky had to die.

It’s true that comics largely exist to promote IP nowadays, but I think the movie business has a lot less to do with the actual content of the books than people seem to think. Remember when everybody was so sure Jean Grey would come back to life in time for X-Men 3?

I’m hoping this isn’t really the end of the current Bucky character, he’s too popular and interesting for me to believe they’d really get rid of him. With a movie I knew Steve would be back in the Cap costume, but hopefully they find a new maybe secret role for him. Sort of like how Dick Grayson was Nightwing perhaps or the like.

I liked that Bucky was able to act like a person of that era would act if thrown into today, something that Steve couldn’t or it wouldn’t make him PC.

Brubaker’s run has been entertaining, and I just have to believe that he’s got something nifty up his sleeve. After all there was a time I was going “They are bringing Bucky back? Really?? Why??”

Ever since the Iron Man film and IIM relaunch, I’ve felt like these kinds of relaunches are for lapsed readers of the characters or current readers haven’t read the character’s series before. I would honestly be surprised if people at Marvel believed that the movies combined with new relaunches would attract new readers in any significant manner.

I didn’t hear about Nomad dying but I don’t find it surprising since, as you mentioned, everything is about the branding nowadays and Nomad has no awareness outside of the comic market it would be a lot easier for Marvel to go “Buy a Captain America comic since you saw the movie” than to try to push a new character. Same reason, if it’s true, that Barbara Gordon is becoming Batgirl again.

“It’s all about the brand, baby, and just mow down those who get in the way. They’re only ink on paper, after all.”

Playing Devil’s advocate here but…should Marvel, or DC, really care about characters who don’t have a particularly large comic following, either as a member of team or as a stand alone character, or are easily turned into multimedia properties?