Mighty Marvel Rumors (1995 edition)

Originally published December 22, 1995, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1153

The phone has been ringing off the hook at Chez David, and many of the calls are from folks who seem to be aggrandizing my “importance” in the grand comic book scheme of things beyond anything that I could imagine. (And, in the words of Han Solo, I can imagine quite a lot.)

As of this writing, the rumor mill and various computer boards are afire with word of the Rob Liefeld-Jim Lee-Marvel dance. The majority of phone calls basically fall into two categories:

• People calling to report the latest rumor.

• People calling to ask what the latest rumor is.

The tendency is for people to speak in sweeping generalizations and say that Marvel is working out a deal with Image. But that is not the case, because Image is—ultimately—six guys. And the other four (except in one or two fleeting rumors which seem extremely unreliable) simply don’t factor into the doings.

Here is the buzz that is all over the place—and I should note that I’m in gossip-columnist mode here rather than reporter mode, which is why I haven’t called various folks at the comic book companies and tried to finesse info out of them. OK, actually I have, but either they’ve been close mouthed or said they don’t know. You might say that they’re “confirmed rumors.” I can’t confirm that they’re true; I can only confirm that they’re rumors.

Rumor #1: Marvel will hire Wildstorm and Extreme Studios to take over several titles.

Rumor #2: Marvel will license Wildstorm and Extreme Studios to take over several titles.

Rumor #3: Marvel will hire Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld to take over several titles.

Some people may see no difference between #1 and #3, but there is a big difference. If the material is a product of Wildstorm and Extreme Studios, it’s as if Marvel has suddenly become a shared imprint. It elevates those studios to co-producer status with Marvel.

But if it’s just Rob and Jim (and the editorial facilities at their disposal), then, basically, it’s work-for-hire. They’d just be signing on as glorified Marvel employees.

This would be an interesting situation, and one that all sides could claim victory in. Rob and Jim would essentially be a given free rein over key characters in the Marvel Universe. And Marvel executives could jump up and down and claim that they’ve won because they’ve got Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee back working for Marvel.

But would both sides really be winners?

Let’s come back to that.

Instead, let’s discuss the characters being bandied about.

The same titles keep being mentioned over and over again. They are: Captain America, The Avengers, Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, and…

You guessed it. The Incredible Hulk.

It is, of course, the inclusion of Hulk that has got some people speculating beyond anything that the “speculators’ market” could have dreamt up. Because I was astounded to learn that some callers were of the following opinion: that the entire thing was being developed, engineered and pursued by the Image creators purely so that they could take Incredible Hulk away from me.

Good God.

Even I, egomaniac that I am, don’t have the gall to think that anyone would go to all that trouble and effort just to get me fired off a comic book. In fact, considering the grief my long-suffering editors have been getting as I get bogged down in Space Cases deadlines, it’s a miracle I haven’t gotten myself fired off anything all on my own.

Not to mention that matters are perfectly cool between Rob and me, and I’ve never had any dispute with Jim Lee.

As to exactly how this business is being approached, again, a couple of rumors are flying from a variety of sources.

The first is that they would take over all six titles, essentially acting as freelance editors/overseers, and taking a John Byrne Man of Steel route in recreating the characters from the ground up.

The second is that they would take over all the titles (with that same MOS editorial slant) except Thor and Incredible Hulk, but that those latter two titles would cease to exist. Instead Thor and Hulk would be relegated to the status of supporting characters in the other books.

This, of course, would be a fine how-do-you-do. Fans of Incredible Hulk would get to see it tossed on the scrap heap, the title canceled and—from a personal point of view—nearly a decade’s worth of stories rendered moot, as the character is handed over to others to do with as they will.

Then again, since Marvel itself rendered all my Spider-Man stories moot last year with the clone imbroglio, there’s a certain consistency to it all. Besides, why should I deserve any different treatment than Chris Claremont or Julie Schwartz?

And, of course, there will be the hard core Image fans, rubbing their hands and gleefully shouting, “Payback! Payback!” Which makes perfect sense. Write a few columns criticizing a comic book line, pummel a guy in a debate—naturally, that’s sufficient offense to warrant losing a job.

It’s all nonsense. The main reason I’ve stayed on Hulk for as long as I have is that Bobbie Chase has stayed with it, as well. Indeed, there were times when pressure was put on her to give the title to someone else, but she refused to let it stray from her hands. And, if it had gone to an editor with whom I felt I couldn’t work, that would have been the end of my tenure.

For that matter, it might very well have not been up to me. There are countless instances of a comic book’s switching editorial hands, and the first thing an editor does is fire the existing creative team and bring on someone else. So if this deal does go through, it’s no different than if the title had gone to another editor. A transition would be made, and the fans would have to live with it.

The fans…

How will they react, I wonder?

That’s the really tough question. And, as with all really tough questions, there’s no easy answer.

Well, actually there is if you’re thinking from the point of view of Marvel money men. Because when they’re thinking of fan reaction, what they’re really pondering (much like Pinky in Pinky and the Brain) is: Will the sales go up?

And there’s an easy answer to that: Yes, they will. There’s no doubt in my mind. The curiosity factor alone will send sales through the roof. And to the Marvel bean counters, who wouldn’t know a story arc from Noah’s ark—who think that Ditko is a company run by a guy named Dit, and that Kirby is a little guy from a video game, and Lee—wait, Lee’s the guy who’s taking over some of the books, right?—to these individuals, that’s all that’s important.

I noted earlier that if this is a work-for-hire situation, both Liefeld and Lee, and Marvel, can claim they have the better end of the deal.

Who truly does?

Again, that’s obvious. (You know, maybe these questions weren’t as hard as I thought.)

Liefeld and Lee may have detractors who dredge up the old charge of “selling out” if they return to the work-for-hire environment of Marvel. Except, clearly neither of them has been opposed to the concept of work-for-hire, since both of them run companies that actively practice it. And on the other hand, they can point out that they’re returning to Marvel under terms that Marvel has never doled out to any freelancers (at least, not to any significant degree).

Essentially, they’d be freelance editors, running the show with titles that include Marvel’s oldest currently published character (Captain America) and the comic book that started it all (Fantastic Four). And if they do have the latitude to reshape the characters in their own way, from the ground up, then to all intents and purposes they’re being given license to take a wrecking ball to the “House of Ideas” and erect a new structure called the “Condo of Concepts.”

That’s a hëll of a lot of crowing rights.

Turn it around and let’s look at Marvel’s angle on their own triumph by luring Rob, Jim and whoever else back into the fold.

Well, they’ll make money.

And then, of course, they can boast about making money.

And—joy of joys—they’ll make money.

What can they boast about besides making money?

They can boast that they have sent the following message to the marketplace:

We give up.

We do not trust our current line-up of editors to come up with new and exciting marketing ideas or publishing plans to turn around our sales.

We do not trust our current line-up of writers to produce stories of sufficient interest to draw in enough readership to make the stockholders happy.

We do not trust our current line-up of artists to become sufficiently hot that they will get readers fired up and excited.

In short, the slow erosion of Marvel’s sales which we transformed into a full-fledged landslide upon taking over our own distribution and essentially destroying the direct market—a move which solidified marketplace opinion against Marvel, led to splintering, exclusivity, the financial failure of retailers and distributors throughout the country and an anti-Marvel sentiment unprecedented in the company’s history—this landslide cannot be abated by the people we currently have producing comic books for us.

And so we have decided to give a public vote of no-confidence to these people and instead farm the books out to some other folks—folks who left because they felt we’d treated them shabbily—and now we’re asking them to come back and save our butts.

Good job, Marvel. That’s something you can really brag about.

But hey, at least sales will go up.

And ultimately, that’s all that’s important.

(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)