MCU Prequel Comics Are Useless

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is something of a misnomer. While it is predominantly a mammoth movie-based series, with 14 films so far and Inhumans. But there’s also something else, something oh-so-fitting of Marvel: comics.

Although the MCU is mostly a screen event (in the multiverse it’s Earth-199999), it still has a finger in the comics pie; each major theatrical release comes with an accompanying Prelude comic that expands this specific corner of the world, introducing new characters and setting up plot threads. They’re far from essential – Marvel’s biggest success in crafting its mega-franchise has been how its movies function without any required pre-reading – but for die-hard fans it’s a new form to experience the story.

It’s not a bad business model for the company either. The fact that comic sales have been mostly unchanged by the explosion of movies based on their characters shows that there’s simply not much interest for cinema audiences in going out and reading the source stories - seemingly from a mix of disinterest, social stigma and labyrinthian continuity. The former two are hard to shake, but the third can be addressed by telling stories set within the MCU; they're more likely bring in movie fans and for comic readers weaned on alt takes they’re pretty damn interesting too.

Or at least, they’re interesting in theory. In actuality they can be a bit flat. Let’s take a look at the 2017 offerings: retelling Hulk's creation. They’re little more than glorified print recaps, which begs the question – are these comics worth existing any more?

MCU Storytelling Has Evolved Beyond The Comics

Guardians of the Galaxy 2 prelude comic Dance Off

It’s not like Preludes were always just the visual version of a “Based on the movie” novel adaptation. The further you go back, the more expansion you get; for Doctor Strange's prequel took a deep dive into the role of various sorcerers, including a pre-corrupted Kaecilius. Why are the recent ones so bland?

The obvious problem is one of storytelling. The MCU’s approach has refined and matured over the past decade to the point where it’s able to connect everything so intricately there’s not really much need for exposition. In Phase 1, the narrative was so convoluted that three films (The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2 and Captain America: Civil War and Thor: Ragnarok pick up the two key threads left by the second Avengers almost directly. There’s obviously downtime between them, but in of telling genuinely significant stories that can have some bearing on the movie’s narratives, pickings are slim beyond repetition.

For the 2017 movies we’ve already discussed it’s particularly pronounced; Guardians 2 is set how Hulk gets to Sakaar, that's probably going to be a plot point rather than some unexposed backstory.

This structure is excellent from a movie standpoint, meaning that audiences can immediately dive right into the new adventures without having to catch up on reams of between-film context; and, regardless, any interesting nuggets of information are otherwise revealed more readily and widespread Black Panther's inevitable prequel run), but even that's becoming of less worth with standalones built up in previous movies (Civil War told use everything we need to know about T'Challa). Essentially, it’s entirely possible that the MCU is at this point too advanced and fully operational to need such tie-ins beyond a business sense. And that business is the other reason.

Fractured Marvel

Using the word “Marvel” as a banner term to describe the company behind all Marvel-d content is almost as big a misnomer as the “cinematic” in MCU. The movies are the product of Marvel Studios, which since a corporate restructuring in 2015 Iron Fist’s failure shouldn’t be indicative of any potential issues with future movies).

And it's Marvel Entertainment – specifically subsidiary Marvel Comics – who are behind these Prelude runs. Up until the changeover when the Studios was under the same umbrella, this was presumably rather harmonious, but since that there’ll be decreased communication (at least going by the comparable TV relationship). This leaves writers and artists with little creative input on the story and unable to add much beyond what’s been shown on screen. It’s unlikely to change any time soon either, so we’re stuck in the purgatory of regurgitation. Based on the Guardians and Spidey comics, they’re even a step down from traditional adaptations, which at least usually add in some unique flavor; these comics are rushed, simplistic takes on the material.

When you have a situation like this, the exact purpose of the comics changes. Instead of being illuminating and providing interesting additional info about movie plot points, they’re just a piece of merchandising – an object that’s more about what it represents than the story it actually contains. From a merch standpoint, that’s fine enough, but it does go against the established reason why you’d explore this avenue in the first place.

Whether Marvel needs to – from a financial standpoint – try and segue its film audience into print is a debate by itself, but in the current situation it feels that Prelude comics aren’t the way to do it. And we may be seeing things change soon; starting with Guardians 2, the company is going to start advertising its regular books ahead of feature films and on TV. That sounds so obvious, but for decades the actual presence of comics in mainstream avenues has been muted, so this approach will be infinitely more inclusive and have the potential for proper dividends.

The tie-in comic has always been the awkward sibling of proper graphic novels, but when they provide something bigger about the world – for all the movie’s flaws, link the end of Man of Steel to Dawn of Justice and expand the DCEU – they can be a useful tool. The MCU has evolved beyond such purposes, both on screen and behind-the-scenes, so perhaps it's time they saved the paper.