Why is Marvel making a podcast universe?

A Marvel Podcast Universe is in the works starting with a Wolverine episode.

It’s safe to say that Superhero culture has dominated all of the media these days. We make great movies out of them, we make not so great movies out of them. We watch superheroes on TV, read about them in comic books, we play as these characters in video games, and now fans will get to enjoy content from another type of art form, podcasting. That’s right, Marvel Entertainment, a company that already has a few podcast series under their belt, will create a brand new serialized podcast series called Wolverine: The Long Hard Night. This podcast will tell a story about the popular X-Men character Wolverine in a scripted-style similar to Serial and other popular narrative podcasts.

The new series will arrive in 2018 and will star actor Richard Armitage as Logan, and will include a cast made up of Chris Gethard, Bob Babalan, and Scott Adsit to name a few. You know Richard Armitage as Thorin from The Hobbit Trilogy, and Chris Gethard is a rising comedian who’s appeared in Don’t Think Twice, The Heat, and The Chris Gethard Show on truTV. Scott Adsit was most known for being a recurring cast member on 30 Rock, and Bob Babalan is the famous actor from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. With the exception of Armitage, it is unclear which characters the other actors will play. The podcast will be available on Stitcher Premium at first and will plan to arrive at other outlets.  And if this sounds cool to you, Marvel is planning to make more series like this and create a Marvel Podcast Universe (MPU).

Though I love superheroes and podcasts, I don’t see myself listening to this in the future. I am not a fan of narrative podcasts like Serial, but nonfiction format shows that discuss news, reviews, analysis of film, etc.

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Marvel’s plan for this podcast is to create what’s called a “radio drama.” Which tells a story with just music, dialogue and sound effects, no visuals. This format was very popular when radios were invented. And were one of the only forms of media entertainment at the time. I just don’t see the point. We already have so many movies, TV shows, and video games where we can actually see many iterations of these characters in action, so it’s difficult to think a podcast universe will appeal to as many people as other media.