As the calendar moves from 2025 to 2026, it’s a good time for the powers that be at Marvel Comics to take stock of what they have been doing and how they can make things better for the readers. Comics are an art, and it’s important that the ideas of the writers and artists are well represented, but it gets harder for that to happen when the readers fall off.

These New Year’s resolutions come from a place of love, and are in no way meant to denigrate anyone’s work. The readers care deeply about these characters, and we only want the best for them. The same goes for those who create these titles. And, as we’re all after the same goal, it can be helpful to understand both sides of the comics industry coin. The hope is that, no matter what the coming year brings us, we all end up loving the comics we read.

Ease Up On the Mutant And Spider Books

The January 2026 solicitations have just under two dozen X-Men and Spider-Man family books, counting the Ultimate Universe books. If we remove Star Wars and a few outside the MCU books, that’s more than half of the titles being released that month. It’s just too dang many for anyone to keep up with.

Of course, not everyone is going to read every title, but how can someone be expected to keep up with the lives of Marvel’s Merry Mutants when doing so would cost them roughly $50 a month without buying any titles that don’t cover the X-Family? By releasing so many titles in a single month, you’re asking for some, if not most, of them to have poor sales. Not because the stories and art aren’t great, but because we just can’t afford to buy them.

Spider-Man And Mary Jane Need To Get Back Together

2026 will mark 19 years since Spider-Man: One More Day and the end of Peter and Mary Jane’s marriage. Fans didn’t like it then, and that feeling hasn’t changed. It was a bad call back then, and the time has come to fix it. After all, Ultimate Spider-Man shows just how much readers like seeing Peter and MJ married with kids.

We get the thought that Spider-Man works best when he’s single and sad, but the reality is that we want to see Peter struggle as a hero and a civilian. That’s what always made Spider-Man special. And any parent can tell you that having kids tends to make things a lot harder. Spider-Man trying to take down Rhino in time to make it to his kid’s little league game is a story that is waiting to be told.

Break Away From The Legacy Characters

It’s easy to see why publishers like legacy characters. Readers have an instant connection to them, and names that connect to well-known figures are likely to sell better than completely new concepts. But it also makes everything feel smaller. When it seems like 50% of the heroes in the MCU have “Spider” in their name, the diversity and excitement at seeing all the characters fades away.

Doing something new and different can be a challenge, but when it pays off, it can pay off big, even if it takes time. You don’t get characters like Rocket Raccoon or Deadpool without taking a chance. Yes, there will be characters who never take off (looking at you, Hypno-Hustler), but like every superhero knows, when you get knocked down, you have to get back up and try again.

Let The Big Events Rest

Yearly events are nothing new to comics, but we’ve hit a point where every event leads into the next event. And it seems like each one of these claims to change the status quo forever. The problem is, what status quo can be changed if the week after the latest event ends, the newest one starts revving up?

This doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be yearly events that connect all the heroes, but maybe take some time and lower the temperature. Instead of a nine-month event consisting of 70 comics, like One World Under Doom, maybe try something like Acts of Vengeance or Atlantis Attacks again. Events where everyone is involved, but the end goal isn’t to change everything we know about the heroes.

Don’t Restart A Series

There was a time when a major character getting a new #1 was a big deal. It meant that readers would be seeing some big changes to that character’s life. Now, it is almost a yearly event. This January, there’s an all-new Iron Man #1 coming out. It will be the fifth time this decade that Iron Man has gone back to #1. That’s a lot of restarts in half a decade. And you don’t want to know how many times it’s happened over the last 25 years.

We all know that the new #1 creates a sales boost. And we all know that, more times than not, that sales boost is a little less every time a title restarts. You’re chasing a high, we get it. But for the readers, this all just leads to confusion. It used to be easy to get into a character and chase down every issue of their series. Now, you need a Masters Degree to figure out the reading order of what can feel like endless volumes that are just continuing the same episodic tale.