Ten Days
(If it’s a weekend where I’m doing io9 – including the 5 US Presidents Who Could Save Us From An Alien Invasion, thankyouverymuch – as well as the Comix Experience newsletter, then it’s a weekend where I’m far too slammed to come up with blog content. Which’ll explain why there was nothing yesterday (Sorry, all), but! Here’s last month’s now-no-longer-even-vaguely-relevant essay from the CE newsletter to give you something to read today.)
They’ve become known as the ten days that rocked the comic landscape! Ten days during August and September 2009 when the American comic industry as we knew it was irrevocably altered, thanks to two business decisions made by men, women and cartoon rodents who wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between Johnny Storm and the original Golden Age Human Torch even as they eagerly and avariciously listed them as two entirely distinct intellectual properties to shareholders (Clue: Only one of them would call Crystal of the Inhumans his girl, in the “Hey, buddy! Watch what you’re doing around my girl!” sense. And that’s because only one of them actually has working genitalia, because only one of them is not a stinking robot). As the comic industry reels from the realization that Hollywood didn’t really like it at all, it was just pretending to so that the comic industry would loosen up and give up all its ideas for potential hit movies, we take this opportunity to look at Marvel’s purchase by Disney and Warner Bros’ creation of DC Entertainment and explain for you all: What does it all mean?
How Mickey Mouse Took Paul Levitz’s Job But At Least He’ll Be Writing The Legion Again, So That’s Something, Right?: A Fanboy Rampage Special Report
Part 1: The Mickey Mouse Club.
August 31st, 2009: A day that will live in infamy for many, even though I just had to Google the date and was surprised that it wasn’t later. That was the day that millions of people woke up to the news that the Walt Disney Corporation was planning to purchase Marvel Entertainment in a stock and cash transaction worth 4 billion dollars, and at least half of them didn’t, as I did, assume it was some kind of elaborate scheme and then go back to sleep.
Within hours of the early-morning announcement of the buyout, Disney and Marvel held a conference call for investors, during which everyone sounded remarkably awake and happy about the deal, telling everyone that Marvel would stay exactly as it was, just like Pixar had (apart from that whole “Pixar being forced to make Toy Story 3 to keep Disney’s licensing division happy, even though no-one at the studio wanted to” thing), that Disney management understood that Marvel was already a corporate juggernaut dedicated to eradicating all of its competition by releasing so much product that other publishers would be forced off the shelves and raising prices because they were confident that fans would buy Avengers books at $3.99 even if it meant they’d have to drop a Dark Horse title or two to keep up, especially when they release continuity-important one-shots on a regular basis in addition to the monthly titles, and that, no, Mickey Mouse wasn’t really on the call, that’s just what Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada sounds like when he’s excited. But for fans who weren’t invited to the call, all that existed were questions. Questions like:
• Does this mean that notoriously family-friendly Disney is going to stop rapist and murderer Norman Osborn from running the Marvel Universe, as depicted in the very realistic and not overlong or adolescent at all Dark Reign storyline?
• Does this mean that notoriously family-friendly Disney is going to stop books like X-Force (wherein superheroes are presented as black-costumed, red-eyed murderers), Thunderbolts (wherein supervillains are presented as pretend-superhero murderers) and Dark Avengers (wherein supervillains are presented as pretend-superhero murderers but it’s different characters so it’s not the same book at all, okay? Jeez, you’re all so picky with your “Oh, look at me, it’s the same idea as this other book, Marvel are milking this admittedly-thin idea for all it’s worth in an ill-timed cynical move that reflects the just-completed Bush era much more than the more optimistic, reflective Obama era in a curious misstep for the normally more-zeitgeist aware publisher!” Like Thor and Captain America don’t both fight crime!) from being published?
• No, seriously, Marvel’s still going to be all bad-ass and crap, right? I mean, they are, right? Come on, you can tell me. Seriously, come on, man.
• Is the Thing related to Mickey Mouse now? I mean, they both have three fingers, don’t they?
No answers, however, were forthcoming. Requests made to Marvel’s publicity department went unanswered, and even the normally fact-filled (Did you know that Marvel editor Tom Brevoort is grouchy?!?) Twitter feed of Joe Quesada offered nothing but mocking commentary hinting at the underlying fear and self-hatred of a man being slowly crushed by the gears of corporate entertainment machinery built around his ample frame. Documentation stolen from the Marvel offices at this time, however, revealed that the Disney buyout was actually orchestrated by Marvel executives who not only had no idea about how to follow the success of Iron Man and Secret Invasion. One email we recovered from the kerosened shell of a Dell computer read “Please, please. We are convinced we’re going to mess it up. You guys have been doing this for years, and if you buy us then everyone will blame you not us. How many characters do you want us to have? 2000? 5000? We’ll come up with a list. Will that make it easier? Oh God, save us please.”
Little did everyone realize that, across the crud-filled streets of Manhattan, Marvel’s main competitors were about to show everyone what a small world it really is, after all.
Part 2: That’s Entertainment.
With the comic industry still reeling from the idea that famously portrayed underdog Marvel Entertainment – what with their position as comic industry leader left almost untouched in more than a decade, their incredibly successful movie studio and licensing deals that would keep them solvent for many years to come even if everything else tanked – was now part of the Corporate Monolith of the entertainment industry, and the repercussions that came from that news – What if Disney started looking at the the possibility that the market couldn’t really support five monthly Avengers titles longterm? How can Marvel employees continue to claim that DC can afford to fund new formats and new ideas because of their corporate backing when Marvel has more backing? Whither all those “AOL Comics” jokes now, Joe? – September 9th 2009 changed everything once again.
The changes at DC Comics were, in truth, twofold, and at this point, it’s difficult to guess which one will end up being more important in the long term. In simple terms, what had happened was this: When Warner Bros. executives saw the news of the Disney/Marvel buyout, they freaked out. How could they get their hands on these kinds of headlines, they asked themselves – and preferably for less money than 4 billion dollars. Were there more of these “comic book publishers”? The relief was quite literally barely perceptible on the faces of the WB Source Wall when an excited accountant explained that Warner Bros. actually already owned one – and that it was the one that published Batman!
Plans were quickly put in place to announce this stunning development to the world with as much fuss as possible. Possible branding ideas were thrown around marketing departments like sweat-filled hackey sacks: “SUCK IT DISNEY: Warners Was There First” was deemed a mite too aggressive, while “Warners Has Owned DC Comics For Years: Who Knew?” considered a little too likely to make WB management look like doddering old fools who would constantly try and make live action movies out of Scooby Doo without realizing that it really, really, gets a little bit creepy watching a CGI animated dog eat a sandwich when you really think about it. Eventually, someone hit upon the idea of building an entire licensing division around DC Comics and announcing that, thereby managing to boast about the ownership of DC Comics in “stealth” mode. Thus, DC Entertainment was born.
Here’s how you can tell that WB’s announcement on September 9th was rushed: There’s actually a part of the official press release that said “We have no idea what’s going on, give us a few months.” Don’t believe me? Here it is:
DC Comics will celebrate its 75th anniversary in 2010 (NEW FUN COMICS #1, the first DC comic, began publishing in 1935), at which time more explicit details regarding DC Entertainment’s corporate and management structure, film and content release slate, creative roster and business objectives will be unveiled at a multi-faceted anniversary celebration and press conference in the first quarter of the year.
If ever anything demonstrated that changes were afoot at the normally-so-prepared-they’ll-announce-Justice League: Cry for Justice-more-than-a-year-before-it-debuts publisher, it’s that level of confusion… Well, that and the loss of publisher and president Paul Levitz.
Part 3: The Man Who Sold The World.
Ignore the moustache and quiet demeanor; as befits someone who works in the comic industry, Paul Levitz’ outer shell is but a secret identity for a man who’s saved the industry more times than you’ll ever know. For decades the conscience of DC Comics – and, on many occasions, the industry in general – Levitz has also been responsible for some of the biggest, and most positive, changes in the industry in general in recent memory, amongst them creator ownership and renumeration and careful nurturing of the bookstore market. Oh, and not destroying the Direct Market in the 1990s, but you should ask Brian to explain that one himself.
The creation of DC Entertainment came at the same time as Levitz stepping down as publisher and president of DC Comics. Rumors have flown as to how connected the two events were: Was Levitz fired? Did he quit, repulsed at the idea of the proud comic company he had led for years being turned into an idea machine for the craven movie industry and countless other Smallvilles? Was he forced, at gunpoint, to sign a pre-written resignation letter by WB executives eager for him to appear to step aside voluntarily, allowing them to appoint their own stooge to the position, giving them control over the publisher in a bloodless coup that would go unnoticed by everyone? Obviously, that last one is ridiculous; they only do that kind of thing over at Fox. All that is known is that, at this important time in DC Comics’ evolution, the company is without the one man who probably told Dan Didio “Dan, that’s a really bad idea” more than anyone else and lived to tell the tale.
Part 4: Where Do We Go From Here?
So where do we go from here? In only ten days, the two publishers responsible for about 80% of the direct market have become swallowed by Hollywood and, assurances for the safety of the publishing part of the companies aside, pretty much everything else is unknown for now.
Luckily, these events happened only days before the sealing of a local time capsule, so I slipped a short message inside before the close, asking time travelers from the future to pop back and tell us what became of the comic industry in years to come. Sure enough, Rokk Krinn soon appeared in his time bubble and told me all I needed to know. In the interests of preserving the time line, I sadly can’t share his message in its entirety, but I will tell you this: Jack Kirby was more of a visionary than any of us thought. Start preparing your loincloths, people… and don’t be too nervous when tigers start growing humanesque bodies and taking over society. It’s just what’s meant to happen.
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