Marvel has reacted to criticism from retailers and officially changed the final order cutoff date for Reborn #1 from June 11th to Tuesday, June 16th, which will give retailers at least a day to react to press coverage of the issue, which will hit on Monday June 15th. Retailers were upset because Marvel had previously informed them that “Reborn #1, by Ed Brubaker and Bryan Hitch, would be receiving nationwide press on 6/15, “possibly on par with the media coverage we received during Civil War.” But Marvel embargoed details and images from Reborn #1 until June 15th, and the book originally had a final order cutoff date of June 11th.
Marvel indicated that it “would do everything possible to insure that an overprint is on hand to counter the huge anticipated demand,” but retailers would have had to order blind based on Marvel’s assurances that the news about Reborn #1 would make it an event that will resonate outside the world of comics and greatly increase sales. Orders placed after the final order cutoff date would not have qualified for incentives and free variants that pre-FOC requests would have generated. Now retailers will have at least a day to analyze the impact of nationwide press stories and adjust their orders accordingly. Reborn #1’s on sale date of July 1st will not be affected by the change in the final order cutoff date.
Marvel’s contention that the news about Reborn #1 will garner newspaper interest on the level of that earned by Civil War has set off a wave of speculation on the Internet ranging from a report on Comic Book Resources that rather than the return of Steve Rogers the new mini-series will involve the black characters from the 2003 Truth: Red, White & Black (and the rather generic “star” graphic that Marvel has used for Reborn #1 has definite iconographic similarity to the design for Truth) to Rich Johnston’s contention (via The Sword is Drawn) on his new Bleeding Cool site that the actor playing Steve Rogers in the Captain America movie will be announced on the 15th and the comic book Steve Rogers will be drawn to resemble him. Or perhaps in a combination of both these scenarios, Will Smith will be announced as the movie Captain America with a story line that recalls the events of Truth.
Whatever the contents of Reborn #1 turn out to be, retailers will now have some time to gauge the potential effect on sales and Marvel appears to have answered, at least in part, the strenuous objections of retailers like Brian Hibbs, who writing on SavageCritic.com found Marvel’s original plan “ethically abhorrent and morally repugnant, and flatly against the best interests of the direct market and its constituent retailers.”
Part of the reason that retailers were so upset about Reborn #1 was that they had just experienced a similar situation with Captain America #600, which they had to order with little information (its final order cutoff date was last week). There is obviously a tie-in between Captain
