Captain America Dead: Marvel Comics Shows Us How To Keep A Fire Lit
A quick refresher for those who happen to not be huge comic book reading geekazids like yours truly:
Over the past 10 months, Marvel Comics, who publishes some of the most successful comics to ever hit the stand (Spidey, X-Men, Hulk & Friends) has been hitting record numbers with it’s gripping “Civil War” story line. really, it’s seen it’s best sales records in like over 10 years, hawking hundreds of thousands of issues a month of the series and it’s subsequent tie-in issues. The story pits two of it’s mainstay characters, Captain America and Iron Man, versus each other in a war amongst superheros with some pretty serious political overtones. A neat concept to put silly costumed crime-fighters into.
That being said, a few weeks ago marked the final issue of the Civil War series with issue 7, where Captain America surrenders, much like our very own Civil War. Many fans have been awaiting the moment for some time. And now it was over.
Ahh, not so fast. Yesterday, they actually killed off the Captain America character in his very own comic. As a regular Cap reader (since Brubaker began), I had the unfortunate privilege of finding out from my little sister ( I was at a business expo and didn’t make it to the comic shop.) While I was a little peeved at having this secret revealed to me, I couldn’t help but laugh at how well Marvel played off this stunt.
Momentum. Marvel used the momentum gained with the publicity and sales of the Civil War series and, just as everyone thought it was over and the dust began to settle, BAM!, they hit you with a bomb that made national headlines.
And you can do the same thing. Let’s say you get mentioned in a blog or a magazine on Monday. Then you better have a bomb dropping post on your site on Tuesday.
I made this mistake last week when I got Dugg and got slammed with traffic. I should have had an awesome follow up ready to go to the next day. I should have used that momentum to keep that attention and really grab people by the hair and say, “Hey I rock.”
So keep that in mind as your developing your site’s content. Understand how to build momentum and to keep the train moving, ’cause it can be huge for your and your site. Light a small fire and fan it into a marketing blaze!
I still think killing him off was a mistake, but your point is good.
How much do you wanna bet he comes back to life? I remember when they killed off Superman – I rushed out and got the comic special edition…now it’s worthless. Just a thought.
My point has nothing to do with fanboy collecting. They probably will “bring him back”. considering he’s on tap as a movie franchise. Or maybe he never really “died”. That will just be another story to tell. The point I am trying to make is how well they pulled off building hype up to that moment and the success they’ll have because of it. Comics usually get a rep about being silly, but these guys are planning their story lines out years in advance. I find it rather fascinating.