Marvel cancels Gambit, Red She-Hulk

Marvel cancels Gambit after issue 17

As I said in this week's review of Gambit, I do think that the book is finding its footing. The next few issues will still go on to prove or disprove that but sadly for fans of the most charismatic X-Man, it won't particularly matter at that point. By and large I don't think the book was doing anything far off from what's being done in other books, aside from focusing on Gambit, but that didn't make it a bad book by any means. Asmus had a feel for the character and Clay Mann had solid artwork and it's always sad to see a pretty good book go down. However, Gambit books never do seem to last and it seems harder and harder for solo books to gain traction these days. If anything was giving James Asmus and co. hope, it should probably have been Fraction's Hawkeye book, which was a solo title for a character that never can sustain a solo title but, instead of being cancelled, it's gotten huge critical acclaim and seems to sell really well. Hawkeye doesn't feel like a superhero comic, though. Clint also doesn't feel like a superhero or even much of a hero in it either. Gambit toed the line between heist book and thief book and all sorts of other things on that spectrum but, at the end of the day, it still felt like Gambit was a superhero and was doing things to be a hero. Even when he was stealing from people, it was stealing from the rich, clearly bad guys. Again, I don't want to infer that being a superhero book was a poor decision for this title because I don't think it was. I don't know where else you go with this character and I sure don't know enough Gambit history to tell anyone what to do with him. It is risky though, in this day and age where Marvel releases loads of books, to sustain one title about a less popular character (less popular than someone like Cap or Iron Man or Thor) and have it feel like another superhero book. Readers can lose interest in that and you're typically starting off with a smaller base anyway so reader loyalty is hugely important. Still, sad to see this one go, if only because I rather like Asmus. For other fans of Asmus, you should know he'll lead a book called "Quantum and Woody" for Valiant, starting in July. The little promotional poster I got from my local comic book store seems to feature a goat on it, so keep an eye on that title.

Marvel cancels Red She-Hulk after issue 67

Surprising no one whose read the blog except for me, this cancellation stings a bit more. Despite my feelings on Hulk books in general at the time (now I think Red Hulk ranks lowest for me by a pretty wide margin, and that's where this book kind of spawned from), I've found myself engrossed in the story and loving the main characters throughout this run. One of the upsides and also downfalls of Hulk throughout his history is that he's the ultimate Jekyll and Hyde but his change is so drastic that it rarely allows for breaks in the plot. What I'm trying to say is that Hulk is so clearly not Bruce Banner (unless we're talking about one of the several runs where Hulk gains intelligence or Banner gains access to Hulk while keeping his own mind) and they're either kept very separate (to the point of we only see Hulk or only see Banner ever) or they're fighting one another. It limits the amount of plots you can have and it limits how much you can connect with your main character if he's constantly afraid of a green monster coming out of him or if he's constantly a green monster. With the She-Hulks, though, they've both found a way to temper their Hulk state and keep it at a more human-like appearance and a more regular brain state. What I'm getting at in a very long-winded way is that I appreciate the fact that we can understand our main character and her motivations and that she's rather fun to be around. She's still enough different from the human Betty Ross that we know the transformation is more than purely physical, but there's still enough Betty left in her to drive the story and the character. We also got the revelation that the She-Hulks, at least Red, can hulk out even further than they have, which is an interesting turn. Add to all this character stuff that there's a compelling story with a somewhat mysterious villain in General Fortean, an upcoming appearance by She-Hulk, incredibly old machinations by SHIELD and Nicola Tesla himself, and one of the best support characters I've seen re-emerge in recent days in X-51 and this has been a monumentally fun and interesting book that felt different than most other books out there. Sadly, for all my talk above about how Gambit wasn't quite different enough to succeed, Red She-Hulk was a little too different to succeed. She's also a character who isn't popular enough to really sustain readership and the comic wasn't featuring huge guest stars and was featuring Nicola Tesla and a machine that can see the future and possibly make the world run. They were fighting an uphill battle all the way (most of the series that have been cancelled in recent days I've read while saying "geez, I can't believe this is still a series." Not to say they didn't deserve to be, just to say that they didn't quite fit the "successful series" bill). Still, I'm far more sad about this than I would have expected to be just a few months ago. Another solid book down, I suppose.