>Hello Tom. I have a couple things I was wondering about and I want to point out that I am not trying to be condescending, I am just curious since I am interested in what direction my favorite publisher is going in. 

It seems that within the last several years Marvel has really been trying to get new readers at any expense really. Whether it be re-imagining a character or having a character more reflect their cinematic counterpart. Judging by your tumblr this often makes long time readers upset and you’re usual response is something really short like “because it’s our decision and not yours” or “it’s time to let the younger generation have its turn”. This is particularly interesting to me since from what I understand Marvel’s ascension to the top starting in ‘61 was based off the idea of having these super hero books but make them more mature for older readers. This of course was a success since college students around the country fell in love with the books and bought millions of issues. 

So I hope you can see what I am getting at. Has Marvel’s direction changed? Is the editorial staff tired of being “held accountable” for books that might contradict continuity? Has marvel given up on it’s core fanbase, judging by how they interact with you and you interact with them, and aiming for a younger core readership? It’s all very interesting to me, and regardless I will still be buying Marvel comics 30 years from now.

And I want to compliment Marvel on a few things. I really enjoyed Waid’s writing of Sam in Original Sin #0 and I am a big Richard Rider fan so that should mean something. I really liked the promotional eyeball, kitschy stuff like that works very well on me. And lastly I want to say thank you for taking a chance on the Guardians of the Galaxy and making a movie, they have been my favorite team since I can remember. I heard a few of the original members will be in the movie and that makes me waaay more excited.>

You’re conflating older readers–readers of a greater age–with older readers–readers of a longer duration. But they’re not the same thing.

Stan and company aimed their comics ate an older, more sophisticated audience. We still do that. But he wasn’t going after readers who had been reading comics for years, not specifically. And he certainly wasn’t servicing that audience to the deficit of the newer readers of any age that he was attracting.

We clearly have not given up on our core fanbase, as the vast majority of what we published is aimed straight at them. But there’s a faction among that fanbase that seems to get upset whenever anything we publish isn’t aimed squarely at them. Not much I can do about that, other than reiterate our position.

And newer readers doesn’t necessarily mean younger readers–though we love younger readers. It means anybody that hasn’t read our books before, but now starts, in whatever format. There are more of these people than you might think.

Glad you liked ORIGINAL SIN #0 and are looking forward to the GUARDIANS film.