The answer is simple; better stories. I grew up a Marvel kid. I loved Spider-man, Wolverine, the X-Men, Daredevil, Captain America, Iron Man, and the Hulk, but as I got older and my reading comprehension grew I started to read not because I liked the characters; I read for a good story.
After coming back to comics four years ago I jumped into catching up on Marvel, DC and Vertigo titles. I was trying to read as much as I could. I blew through graphic novels and new issues, but after about a year of this I started to move towards more DC and Vertigo titles than Marvel, because they had far better stories. I'm now reading mostly DC and Vertigo titles and my Marvel reading is down to 6 single issue titles a month and a random trade here and there.
Besides better stories DC is keeping their books cheaper overall (Drawing the line at $2.99). Marvel however, is still pumping out $3.99 books that don't hold my interest and often times come with a really shit extra story in the back. This never justifies the price of the book in my opinion. And when it comes to graphic novels DC, Vertigo, Image and other publishers have reasonable prices, while most Marvel trades start at twenty bucks but average 25. How this works out in the long run for Marvel is baffling to me.
Marvel is also over working their good writers. The few titles I pick up the writers are working on other fluff stories for minis and one shots, and you can tell that the caliber of main books suffers because of this. DC is guilty of this too, but I think they are more on top of trying to keep this under control. So, for those of you curious as to why my Marvel reading is not what it should be it is honestly because of quality and cost. Maybe some day in the future this will change, but for now I think I would much rather pick up an independent book I know nothing about that a Marvel book about a character I like.
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