Comic shops are dying in the States lol.
I have NO IDEA what's going on with Marvel nowadays. I think DC has Marvel beat in terms of quality? Whenever I look at Twitter, people seem to talk about characters like the Teen Titans, Batman, Robin, or Nightwing (that dude's been blowing up).
But apparently comic books (specifically superhero ones) are dying off because of multiple reasons
1) EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED. Marvel doesn't reboot their universe, but even if they do, I think people will drop it since a lot of the writers don't know what they're doing. Like the recent Spider-Man comic has Peter Parker losing his relationship with Mary Jane AGAIN despite the fact that Nick Spencer did everything to build it up . A lot of these new writers are obsessed with "subverting expectations" and think "oh, making characters miserable automatically makes me a better writer because world is miserable". They put readers in a loop and readers don't know if they can trust the writers again. I think that's why people love Manga more. It's just one writer and that's it. They know what they're getting.
I see this as a main issue and people were talking about it on Twitter.
2) The movies seem to be the replacement for the comics. People see the films as the definitive. When they read the comics, they find out characters are completely different from how they're portrayed on screen. As a result, Marvel tries to find ways to match the comics up with the films to bring people in. I've heard that's been annoying for readers. I remember this one YouTuber being afraid for Moon Knight since THAT comic was given permission to be weird af since it's niche af.
3) A lot of the writers at Marvel (and DC) aren't subtle in their commentary. One thing I remember Kelly Sue DeConnick, who told people "if you don't like my comic, don't read it". And that's fine! I can respect that! But here's the problem: your comic is connected with other comics I like and I would like to have more context if there's another big event going on. People may say politics in comics have been around in the early 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's and let me just say: that's not a good argument when a lot of those comics were poor propaganda (Red Scare, WW2, "BUY WAR BONDS!", asbestos can stop fires!!). And a lot of people nowadays use this an excuse to get away with weird political plotlines to stay relevant.
Like how Static starts off with people getting mutated through mustard gas at a BLM protest.
I remember telling my progressive friends about it when I tried entering the Milestone competition so they can give me thoughts on my script, (since a task was to write about Icon, a republican superhero, and Rocket, a democratic superhero, arguing and then finding something in common) and when my friends found out how the people in the Milestone world got their powers they couldn't stop laughing at how tone deaf it was. Not only that, but they laughed at the rules of the competition.
4) I heard Marvel's been forcing comic book stores to buy holograph covers or something and big events have been hurting comic book stores as a result since comic book stores don't want to buy certain comics or something.
5) Manga writers just bring their A-Game and come from a place where they keep to themselves. The United States feels like they're obligated to make a statement every five seconds. ESPECIALLY the writers in California.