The Heroic Age wasn't a relaunch though. It was simply a tagline on top of the covers for a few months to showcase to any readers put off by a number of darker crossovers one after anothe that they could come back as it was going to be a brighter more classic looking Marvel universe for a while.

The current relaunch is simply for readers who have never given a particular character or team a chance and give them a good jumping on point. I think Marvel has been very honest about their intentions with this. Despite the fact that a lot of creators do try and make things new reader friendly a lot of adult readers still feel daunted diving into a book with a lot of history. Selling a number of their bigger franchises with shiny new #1s and taglines that it's a "new direction" and making a point of how easy will be to pick up does entice people that are in two minds of checking a book out. Not only that but they ae hoping to entice people who have never picked up comics before but are digging the new cinematic universe.

Avengers, New Avengers, Secret Avengers and a few other series kicked off, again, from issue #1 under The Heroic Age so, technically at least, it was a relaunch, albeit minor.

^^^

Secret Avengers was a brand new title and Avengers hadn't been in publication since 2004 so while it was a relaunch it was one of a book that had been out of publication for years.

Relaunching New Avengers was admittedly pretty needless but I suppose the concept of the relaunched version was different enough to justify a relaunch. That was just one book though.

Relaunching an already ongoing book is fast become a necessary reality. When Marvel relaunched Spider-Girl as The Amazing Spider-Girl the fans were ecstatic as it was Marvel taking a much loved cult favourite that was struggling in sales and the stunt was to gain new readers even if the book itself picked off exactly where the #100 left off. Same with the Captain Marvel series featuring Genis-Vell. Marvel saw that it was a quality book and decided it needed a relaunch to reach a wider audience than it had been.

Marvel are just applying that strategy wholesale.

I reckon Marvel U could do with a reboot, horribly convoluted in some titles...

Too fecking right; I’m fairly new to comics and the trying to make sense of the X-men universe is near impossible.

I’m currently reading the first few Essential X-Men books and even those can be convoluted at times.

^^^

The X-Men family of titles isn't exactly a good barometer for how convoluted a universe is as there's long been an attitude that the X-Men are somewhat seperate from the Marvel U from both the fans and the writers. This attitide really boomed in the nineties when the X-Men seemed like a brand all on there own five monthly X books all focusing on different groups.

Getting the history of the X-Men is a lot more difficult than getting into the history of say Spider-Man or Daredevil or The Fantastic Four or The Avengers pre-New Avengers boom.

Not to mention every so often most writers coming on a new title do try and write as if you don't need to know the characters history to get into them. Essentialy that's the prime decision for Marvel Now. Then there's writers like Kurt Busiek who can genuinely write a story which relies on decades long continuity and yet still spin a yarn so entertaining it doesn't matter.

There's been no proper reboot from either Marvel or DC in their entire history if publishing. Even leaving out Legion's history there was still pre-crisis elements and references creeping in the post Crisis DCU which can be equaly confusing to new readers. Now try and explaining Earth 1, 2 and Crisis On The Infinite Earths to people who don't read comics and they'd be even more mystified than trying to explain Cable and Rachel Summers history.

A big flaw of reboots that if you're a fan of a character...let's say Cannonball. If the continuity of the Marvel U starts from scratch then it's likely he'll be gone for a while before a writers feels he can reintroduce him. If your a fan of Wally West in the Flash comics then it's tough right now as he doesn't exist yet and he was certainly never the Flash. At the end of the day comics are one of the few mediums out there that reward loyalty across such a long period. Reboots jeapordise that in my opinion.

For anyone who's interested, CBR have previews up for two of the upcoming Marvel Now! titles:

Uncanny Avengers #1
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...eview&id=13815

Captain America #1
http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...eview&id=13847

Looks quite interesting this new Marvel stuff especially Uncanny Avengers. Good thing about the Comixology app (or their Marvel custom app) is that they have previews of all the comics so you can check out the story style and artwork before purchase. Sometimes I don't like the look of a comic and won't buy.

Even if it was written by someone awesome?

Is 'Uncanny Avengers' any good? I used to buy comic-books, but now wait for the graphic novel instead!

I liked issue 1, picking up issue 2 later.

How are the new X-Men titles? And what are the team rosters? I agree, making sense of continuity is hard unless you have enough spare money to buy about 10 issues a month

Now that we're almost 6 months into Marvel Now, I decided to write a feature on the main titles.

Hopefully it can help those looking to jump in to titles they've never read before or haven't read for a long time:

http://theweekendwednesday.com/2013/...of-marvel-now/

I think Si Spurrier's X-Men Legacy is quite good. Wasn't sure at first but it's grown on me and I'm looking forward to seeing how it goes. I've been disappointed with Gillen's Iron Man but will give the next arc a chance before deciding whether to drop it or not.
I have, however, dropped Avengers, New Avengers and Secret Avengers. I ended the last Secret Av. run and just haven't bothered with the new run, I get enough comics. Av/New Av., though, I gave a chance to and just wasn't impressed. It was slow and plodding and when I found out they were part of a grand 3-year plan, I was out.
I really liked Hickman's Secret Warriors and what I've seen of his current Indie title (Secret, which I wish would hurry up and make some more appearances...) but most of his other stuff I find it's almost as if he intellectualises too much and the pace grinds to a halt.

I'm still getting Uncanny Avengers, FF, F4 etc.

Comic series' can't all be good all of the time and, after so long spent collecting comics, I can afford to be critical and drop stuff I don't like rather than trying to rose-tint things and battle through it like I did in my teens