In a recent Twitter post, Marvel Comics revealed an updated logo to better differentiate its film, animation and comic book divisions from one another. There can now no longer be any confusion that what you hold your hand is a not a movie, per se, but instead a booklet of still images to pursue at your own leisure. Confusing, I know.
Inspired by the earlier Marvel Studios and Marvel Animation logos, the new emblem has bolded and underlined “comics” to the exact size and dimensions of “Marvel” — both six-letter words — creating a sort of antimatter reflection of one another. “Marvel,” rendered in a white font encased by a red block, now sits beside “comics” in white-on-black—an inversion of Marvel Studios’ famous black-on-white logo. This comes a few short months after the introduction of another new logo for Marvel Animation, presenting both words in respective black-on-yellow and yellow-on-black inversions.
Which begs the question, is this really necessary? For a visual medium, Marvel Comics’ new banner is strikingly bland and derivative, aping the earlier Marvel Studios logo in a weird stab at brand synergy. This is mostly just confusing as our existence in three-dimensional space does most of the hard work for us in determining what is a comic book and what is a film. So why do it?
The answer’s a depressing one. The erstwhile House of Ideas seems to have finally come full circle in that its comics—comparatively inexpensive magazines of weird design and concept—are now chasing their own film adaptations for credibility’s sake. While many recent events suggest the superhero’s grasp on Hollywood has finally loosened, this new logo only seems to signify Marvel’s refusal to innovate a single ounce further. Observed in captivity, sometimes a snake really will eat its own tail.
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