The relaunch of the Epic line was one of the New York-based company's brightest spots in a relatively ho-hum year. Yeah, 2003 has seen Marvel celebrating the successes of three films (one major success with X2 and two minor successes with Daredevil and The Hulk) and found moderate success with new endeavors like the Tsunami line of edgier manga-like titles like Runaways and the increased focus on the Ultimate universe, but 2003 has seen a lot of lawsuits (courtesy of Stan Lee and Sony), pointless attention-grabbing news items (like Princess Di's resurrection as a featured player in X-Statix), and a period in which Marvel titles weren't #1 every month (Hush, the first Lee/Loeb run of Batman, held the spot throughout 2003).

When Epic's relaunch was announced back in March, the major draw of the imprint was to let the fans have fun with the Marvel Universe. Epic, which published titles like Groo the Wanderer, Elfquest, and Akira in the 80s, was going to give you a chance to either work with their current stable of characters, incorporate your characters within the Marvel Universe, or just create your own universe.

Fun stuff right? Not quite.

One of the major faults with the new formula was that you didn't really own what you created for Epic. You basically did your own titles under the watchful eye of Marvel, using your talents to create something that could make an impact in the Marvel Universe. You only owned a piece of the book. Just a piece. If the book did well, you'd get a lot more of the money. But Marvel still owned the bulk of your creation.

That was the old plan.

Here's the new plan.

Marvel doesn't want amateur writers and artists creating anything for them. Marvel doesn't want to share anything with its creators of the books for the Epic line. Marvel only wants properties they could own so they could market the hell out them. Kind of like what they do with their regular titles. They're not interested in making comics that are, um, comics. Marvel wants comic properties that could become movies, video games, or television shows. They just want titles that serve to become something other than comics. In short, Marvel wants Epic to be anything but epic.

Epic's first title out of the box was Trouble, a Mark Millar-penned title that tantalized an unsuspecting comic readership. Well, not really tantalized, more like confused. See, they only put up a cover image of the lead heroines which lead the comic fans confused. Were they teenage girls? Were they older girls trying to look young? Were they crossdressers? Were they crossgendered teens? Now, Trouble was supposed to be the quintessential Epic title, not being a traditional Marvel title, and not quite a MAX title. Something for an older readership who was looking for a great read rather than something that could be overmarketed. That's why this new direction of Epic perturbs me to no end. Why would Marvel just put the kibosh on the new talent search as well as just make Epic the "entertainment properties to be exploited" line of Marvel Comics?

Does Marvel hate new creators that much? So many questions, so little time.