Overview[]
Tsunami was a short-lived imprint lasting only for 2003-2004.
History[]
Tsunami was a failed imprint of Marvel Comics founded in January 2003. Marvel's goal was to create comic books that would appeal to manga readers. Other than in the art, the titles shared little in common, with, for example, Runaways and Sentinel being aimed at children and younger teenagers and Mystique touching on espionage and darker themes better suited for an older audience.
The results were a mixed bag. While New Mutants, Mystique, Runaways, and Sentinel earned critical acclaim and a devoted fan following, Human Torch, Namor, and Venom were complete flops, with the last surviving to issue 18 only on the back of exceptionally high initial sales. Many comic book fans regarded the entire imprint as a cheap attempt by Marvel Comics to capitalize on the growing popularity of Japanese manga. (though the Marvel Mangaverse was a much more blatant attempt at this)
The imprint was discontinued in late 2003. Mystique was the longest continuously-running survivor - lasting until issue 24 overall, although it was folded into the regular, mainstream Marvel Comics imprint and had a change of writer as part of the "X-Men: ReLoad" event after issue 13, while New Mutants, also part of ReLoad, was relaunched from issue 1 as New X-Men: Academy X Yearbook #1 at the same time. Venom and Runaways carried the imprint branding for the longest period, lasting until issue 18, after which Runaways was briefly cancelled before being relaunched as part of the Marvel Next initiative, while Venom was cancelled outright. The other series were cancelled with issue 12.
Since then, Runaways has received a boost from high Digest-sized trade paperback (TPB) sales, which was one of the reasons for its relaunch, while Sentinel was also revived, as a five-issue miniseries, for the same reason. However, Human Torch also received a single digest without signs of revival.
New Mutants received a single standard-size TPB, of its first six issues, as well as complete collections in the same format of its successor series, New X-Men: Academy X, which was revamped shortly after the Decimation as simply New X-Men. Mystique and Venom were fully collected as standard-size TPBs, but shows no sign of being revived.
Namor has not been collected, nor are there any reports of it being so in the remainder of 2006.
Titles[]
See also: Category:Tsunami