Some Histories Are Written By The Losers

From Men of Tomorrow by Gerard Jones:

History is written by the winners – sometimes. But some histories are written by the losers. The history of the comic book has been told by those who got rooked and by those who sympathize with those who got rooked. The men who got rich from them kept their mouths shut. The men who founded the companies, bought the characters, and created the multimedia marketing empires kept their stories to themselves and let the writers and cartoonists write the history.

I’ve been thinking about that quote a lot, recently – Mostly in relation to the news that Disney/Marvel was awarded a summary judgment in the lawsuit filed by the estate of Jack Kirby over the termination of Marvel’s ownership of the characters Kirby created for them. There’s been a groundswell of support for Marvel making some level of reparation to the Kirby family on moral grounds, if not legal ones, following the decision, but what I keep thinking about is the fact that Disney and Marvel, on a corporate level, really don’t care about this matter at all. They get to keep their IP, and couldn’t care less about what the world thinks of them beyond that. History means nothing when compared with today and tomorrow, and the profits available therein.

Related posts:

1. Just One More Shot After This One
2. Superheroes Can’t Kill, But Not Because Of Morality
3. The Man I Used To Be
4. Turns Out I Am A Bad Comics Fan
5. Ten Days