Quietly revealed by Kathryn Immonen on her Tumblr, Marvel’s series Journey Into Mystery has been cancelled. First re-established by Kieron Gillen as a cosplayer-delighting waterfall of fantasy and Tumblr mischief starring a young version of Loki, Immonen jumped on after his thirty-one issues and redefined the series with artist Valeria Schiti and colourist Jordie Bellaire as a madcap monster-slaying romp, the funniest title Marvel had to offer. Coming out at a time when every other series was rebranded as MARVEL NOW, the series quietly fell down the sales charts. It’ll end in August with issue #655.

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More than the obvious voices saying this is a sign that female characters don’t sell, this is really more of a branding issue than anything else. Journey Into Mystery, for whatever reason, wasn’t relaunched for Immonen’s run, thus losing most of the power of the Marvel Now branding. A series of Marvel titles have been cancelled over the past month, including Gambit, Red She-Hulk, and X-Factor – leaving many to wonder if this will lead us to a ‘second wave’ of titles being announced shortly.

What you’ll notice there is that all the books which are ending – and X-Factor is debatable here – are light-hearted series, heavy on humour and character but light on ‘importance’ and disconnected from other books. Marvel have been relying rather heavily on their three major franchises recently (Avengers, X-Men, and Steve Wacker) above all else, and only one of those three franchises seems able to sell a comic which isn’t dark and important.

Journey Into Mystery was a rare series from the start, but became an even rarer thing once Immonen brought her freewheeling style and charisma to the book: a funny book. Those don’t seem to sell anymore, which is why we should take this cancellation as a notice to hug books like Skullkickers or Quantum & Woody even more tightly to our chests. We’re in danger of becoming overwhelmingly serious, and that would be the single worst thing to ever happen! Lighten up!

But anyway – the most important part of an cancellation like this. Kathryn Immonen has two new projects coming up, including Snipe in August. This will be a self-published series made available solely at the Fan Expo this year – so get down there quick! She’ll also be on another book called Russian Olive, which appears to still be wrapped in (journeyable?) mystery.

Valerio Schiti will hopefully be getting more work VERY soon, because his work was fantastic. No news on this front yet, but you can keep track on Tumblr.

Letterer Clayton Cowles keeps inventing incredible new ways of designing a page over on Young Avengers, and is working on a heap of other titles currently.

And Jordie Bellaire is, of course, busy colouring half the industry. You can find her on Captain Marvel and Half Past Danger and Zero and all kinds of great titles.

If you enjoyed the book, then follow the creators!

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17 COMMENTS

  4. O________O

    Wow, I’m really shocked. I think the comic definitely slipped off the radar when Gillen left – certainly off the tumblr radar – but… it shouldn’t really be down to the creators to promo books? Bleh.

  5. JMS did get a red Marvel NOW banner, but not the much-needed NOW #1. And, let’s face it, it can be difficult to sell anything that’s not a “#1” as a good jumping on point. It carries a stigma of heavy continuity and need-to-know backstory. So you have the fall-off of the Kid-Loki/Gillen loyalists but no replacements of new-series buyers.

    And who’s to say a #1 would have made it a giant success? Sif is hardly a must-read character. The book would have lasted longer than Morbius, though.

    I really enjoyed JMS but I can’t say I’m too surprised at this development.

    Also, IIRC Brevoort said on one of his tumblrs that, yes, there will be a second wave of Now books.

  6. Starting a comic article with the word “Quietly” might lead to confusion.

    Even if it is spelled Quitely

  7. Rob S. says:
    06/14/2013 at 5:48 pm
    Your larger point still stands, but I’m pretty sure Daredevil was also not a Marvel Now book.
    ———-
    It is, just not with a new #1. It started carrying the the “Join the Revolution” cover branding with issue #23.

  9. ” And, let’s face it, it can be difficult to sell anything that’s not a “#1″ as a good jumping on point.”

    I guess it’s the way fans are conditioned these days (thanks publishers). The first X-Men comic that I bought was #177. My first Avengers for #236 and so on. It’s sad that everything has to reboot to #1 for fans to feel like they can jump on a title.

  12. There are still plenty of humor books, I don’t know what the gripe is. Maybe you mean long running ongoing types? Well, guess not, but what humor comic books ever were long lasting in our generation? There’ve been any number of humorous mini’s in the recent past which I enjoyed (End Times of Bram and Ben, Todd the Ugliest Kid in The World for example), plus creators like Michael DeForge always bring the humor, even if it is of the dark kind. He had two books released just recently. There are others.

    And I didnt find Journey into Mystery at all funny in the only issue I read (the most recent issue). I found the book poorly written actually.

  13. I could be wrong (and I hope that I am) but I don’t think there are that many readers who would enjoy both Journey Into Mystery and the comics of Michael DeForge.

  14. Sif was never a character that would sell but it was branded a Marvel Now book and it was included in the Marvel bundles they did with DCBS. It seems like the article is blaming Marvel for the book not selling well.

  16. Humor? I read the first two issues of this series and found Sif getting turned into a dark and violent berserker. It was anything but lighthearted. It was grim and unlikeable. It was also, as others have noted here, not very well written. My wife and i really wanted to support a female creator writing a strong female character, but two issues were as much as we could give it.

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