Marvel Heroines books (Simon & Schuster, 2022)

Post Reply
User avatar
shevek
Producer
Producer
Posts: 3742
Joined: 11 years ago
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Contact:

Yes, I understand that these are technically not "comics", but since they are published from Marvel, it certainly didn't seem to make any sense to put this post in "Superheroine Stories", so here we are.

I found this out by accident when one of these books (Silver Sable) was advertised in a Drive-Thru Comics email in a Kindle format.
I like the old Silver Sable comics (I basically based our character Fenneca the Silver Fox after a hybrid of her and Black Cat) so I investigated.
Apparently, a series of "Marvel Heroines" books began to be published last year, very quietly with no publicity fanfare.
(Maybe the promotion was directed only at bookstore audiences - if so, I missed it.)

I can certainly see the rationale here for the target market:
What do most women hate to read? Superhero comics.
What do most women love to read? Books.
So make a series of adventurous, entertaining, empowering books about Marvel Heroines, and they will support them like they've never supported superhero comics. Makes perfect sense!

So they've hired a group of mainstream fantasy author types who specialize in writing about other people's characters, in the same way that they wrote about Star Trek and Star Wars back in the day. The "jobbers" of the industry, who can spin out an exciting formulaic action-packed yarn every few months.

What's interesting about this approach is this is not the previous "diversity" push that you see with the Young Adult offerings from DC and Marvel. It's not the 'I Am Not Starfire' angry bisexual goth, or the Jessica Cruz indigenous Mexican folklore, or Nubia teaching Diana about oppression. As you can see from the characters below, these are Marvel characters mostly known to be hot and desirable (although their sex appeal is somewhat toned down for the book cover art, so as not to frighten the novice reader) and they all look rather similar in, uh...one respect.

You can tell that this book is not directed at some kind of phantom audience which has no money and does not buy comics, such as teens who hang out in libraries, or public school video-game nerds. This book is directed at an audience which is more mainstream and which has tons of disposable income - the Pumpkin Spice Latte crowd of the suburbs, who may have gotten into fantasy after watching Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, might be playing some Dungeons and Dragons or MTG at their local gaming shop, and have more than a passing familiarity with Marvel movies and TV shows (but not the ones that never pulled the trigger, like the cancelled New Warriors show featuring Squirrel Girl, or the cancelled Silver Sable and Black Cat movie, or the cancelled Mockingbird TV show spinoff of Agents of Shield...hmmm, anyone see a pattern here?).

White suburban women - the actual heretofore-undiscovered new affluent market audience for superheroes - step forward and spend that money!
(This is not to say that men can't buy these books, but they're not the primary target audience.)

Tell me I'm wrong.

[Note: For those who didn't know, 'Outlaw' is a member of Domino's mercenary team, The Posse. She's apparently been in a whole bunch of issues of Deadpool. She has superhuman strength and incredibly accuracy with firearms, and is extremely shapely and blond, and very heterosexual, having had flings with several of her male team members. Definitely fits the marketing pattern.]
Attachments
mockingbird-strike-out-9781839082177.jpg
mockingbird-strike-out-9781839082177.jpg (22.51 KiB) Viewed 755 times
rogue-untouched-9781839080562.jpg
rogue-untouched-9781839080562.jpg (22.6 KiB) Viewed 755 times
outlaw-relentless-9781839080746.jpg
outlaw-relentless-9781839080746.jpg (21.45 KiB) Viewed 755 times
black-cat-discord-9781839081347.jpg
black-cat-discord-9781839081347.jpg (20.42 KiB) Viewed 755 times
squirrel-girl-universe-9781839081712.jpg
squirrel-girl-universe-9781839081712.jpg (21.58 KiB) Viewed 755 times
silver-sable-payback-9781839082191.jpg
silver-sable-payback-9781839082191.jpg (23.06 KiB) Viewed 755 times
User avatar
Mr. X
Millenium Member
Millenium Member
Posts: 4598
Joined: 11 years ago
Contact:

So super romance novels.
User avatar
DrDominator9
Emissary
Emissary
Posts: 2453
Joined: 13 years ago
Location: On the Border of the Neutral Zone

Mr. X wrote:
1 year ago
So super romance novels.
Seems like it.
Follow this link to descriptions of my stories and easy links to them:

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=32025
User avatar
shevek
Producer
Producer
Posts: 3742
Joined: 11 years ago
Location: Pittsburgh, PA
Contact:

DrDominator9 wrote:
1 year ago
Mr. X wrote:
1 year ago
So super romance novels.
Seems like it.
Possibly. In a perfect world, these books would be "costume-rippers" (as opposed to bodice-rippers).
But I'm guessing that might not happen in these books. Maybe someone can read one, and find out?
Post Reply