I’ve been on an old comics kick lately – lots of bronze age stuff, some 80s and 90s books as well, maybe some stuff I’ll write about, maybe not – and it never ceases to amaze me how long it takes to read any average issue from 1985 or 1995 compared to almost any example from 2011. The change is easily explained: after Quesada and Jemas took over Marvel in 2000, they did away with thought balloons and third-person narrative captions. Not all at once, but slowly and more-or-less permanently. I still don’t know, and really have not seen a single compelling reason, why these changes were pushed through so thoroughly, but the more I think about it the more I am fully convinced that this shift was undeniably deleterious to the long-term quality of the line. It’s a question of economy: captions and thought balloons were an extremely efficient way of communicating a large amount of information in a surprisingly concise package. Back in 2000 $2.25 for 15 minutes of reading was a good deal. No amount of inflation will make $3 or $4 for 5 minutes a good deal for anyone.
In the course of reviewing Mighty Thor #2, Tim O’Neil says a lot of what I tried to say here, but does it better.