None of this is to say that Marvel is necessarily destined to fail in the bookstore market. With the right title, and the necessary buzz backing it, anything is possible. That said, the company's ability to work the market to its own advantage seems limited by outside concerns and a need to expend as much of its extra cash in paying down debts rather than taking chances. Marvel's not looking for good books so much as saleable properties, which is why so many of its new initiatives reek so much of High Concept.

All of this brings us, in roundabout fashion, back to Trouble. It's a perfect metaphor for the company's position, when you think about it: an attempt to break into another, possibly more profitable market, it nonetheless retains just enough trace elements of the Marvel Universe to ensure that Mark Millar remains legally replaceable. It mimics the latest advances in modern teen novels (sex, booze and an attempt to deal with "modern issues"), but still feels like it was written by committee; I've had a chance to read the first issue, and frankly I couldn't shake the impression that I was about to watch Archie and Veronica fuck. Series like Love Hina and Chobits work because there's an underlying personality behind the storytelling; their authors have an owner's stake in the property and know that they're in it for the long haul; Millar's work reads like its job is to produce a hit comic which leads to bigger paychecks on better projects. This isn't a formula likely to produce longterm success, but it's the one to which Marvel seems irrevocably wedded. Trouble indeed.

¹ (footnote from first paragraph): I'm referring, of course, to Jack Kirby, who co-founded the Marvel Universe back in the early 1960s.

Dirk Deppey is the webmaster of The Comics Journal, as well as the author of its weblog, ¡Journalista!.