Broken Frontier

Marvel has been around since the 1960s and has spent a good bit of that time sitting pretty firmly at the top of the comics’ publishing heap. Since the debut of the Fantastic Four, and shortly after that Spider-Man and X-Men, Marvel made a name for itself by doing things a little differently. These heroes were far more human with all the hang-ups, foibles and challenges that being ‘human’ comes with. There seemed an edge that some of the DC heroes just didn’t have at the time.

No doubt about it, Marvel shook the industry. With conflicted characters like Spider-Man who only learned responsibility after his uncle died because of his inaction, or Bruce Banner who was also the monstrous Hulk, or the feuding of comics’ first family Fantastic, or the slightly veiled commentary on racism from the merry band of mutants, Marvel had an ‘edge’ that other comics just seemed to be missing.

The result is Marvel entrenched itself in the North American comics market and has maintained its strong position pretty much ever since. Since then, some of the elements of the style Marvel introduced have long since been adapted into other comics’ publishers, leading to more sophisticated lines of books overall, and a definite ‘human’ element to every major comic character now being published.

Since then, obviously, Marvel has grown in multiple ways. Their line of books expanded, their library of characters, or properties, likewise exploded with growth, and they even made some headway elsewhere. Several of their popular books made the leap to animation, such as the 1967 classic Spider-Man cartoon, whose theme song still echoes in many of our heads (Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can…spins a web…etc.). Perhaps the biggest other medium break through, was the debut of The Incredible Hulk, in November 1977. A successful, action-drama starring a comic book character and it was well received!

Marvel chugged along. They debuted their Epic Comics line, which had some really top-notch titles, but apparently could not support itself because it was phased out after losing its good books, and kind of bowed out without much grace. They also certainly continued with good series and good characters over the years. However, Marvel seemed to periodically want to shake everything up again… but did not have much luck trying.

The two really big initiatives from Marvel, The New Universe under Jim Shooter, and 2099 under Tom Defalco premiered with lots of pomp and circumstance and pretty quickly slid into the shadows behind the curtains. Then there was the endless talk of movie projects that never were…

While Marvel kept on, it seemed they had lost their ability to shake the comics world or really get the attention of the wider entertainment market.

Well, those days finally seem behind them.

In 1998, Blade hit the big screen in a big way. It was a huge success at the box office and changed things significantly in two ways. It once more convinced everyone, from producers to fans, that first, comics can make good movies—even better, they make great franchises. It also showed everyone that comics were not exclusively about long-underwear types. Blade was a vampire movie with kick! But it was also a comic movie.

Then X-Men, and Spider-Man also hit the big screen and each was even more successful than its predecessor. Marvel quickly became a brand in Hollywood, and now the list of Marvel movies isn’t stopping.

As a matter of fact, a quick glance at Marvel’s earnings will show that most of the money Marvel seems to make these days is not from comics at all, but from their library of characters and properties through licensing. The fact of the matter is, in a struggling market, Marvel has had enough business savvy to know they cannot be successful with just comics. Ultimately, they are going to have to continue to expand their presence elsewhere.

But Marvel wasn’t content to just make new strides in licensing. Nope, they have consistently shown that their first love and commitment is still comics, and they still intend to shake up the comics world itself some more!

Marvel finally got another universe off the ground, it was just another Marvel universe…The Ultimate line debuted and with it, another Marvel era. In a lot of ways, the Ultimate line is doing what the original Marvel books did in the 60’s, adding an edge and a fresh new perspective that is pushing the envelope of comics. Thanks in large part to talents like Brian Michael Bendis, Mark Millar and top notch art, the original Ultimate books were cutting edge comics in every sense of the word.

With perhaps less fanfare and hoopla, but still a major thing, Marvel debuted Marvel Age, a line of books aimed at younger readers. While it may not be as cutting edge style wise, these titles are great because it is a concerted attempt from a major publisher to make material friendly to kids and introduce a new generation to comics. This has been something sadly and unfortunately missing from comics for years. On one hand, it seems like a ‘duh’ thing to do, but no one was. So for that, Marvel gets a feather in their cap.

Then, Marvel announced that their books, which were definitely a strong presence in the direct market, and a growing presence in the book market, along with every other publisher, would now also hit the general market. Marvel broke the barrier that many have long said would never happen: they got back into convenience stores, namely 7-11!

It’s risky, but it’s a major initiative and push based from the simple fact that comics shrinking direct market, primarily is incestuous, meaning every comic is competing for only existing readers. This is the first major attempt to get the average Joe who’s never read a comic to pick one up along with the milk and bread.

Then last week, Marvel got blurbs on USA Today one day, and the Wall Street Journal the next. The special military comic Marvel is doing and sending out 1,000,000 copies free to armed forces personnel is a true testimony of support for our young men and women who are putting their lives on the line in so many ways. It’s something that needs to happen more. Hats off to Marvel for doing this!

Finally, Marvel now has announced they are developing their own in-house studio linked to Paramount. While it’s too early to see if this will work or not, my guess is it’s going to once more re-write the face of a comics publisher. Marvel’s got some talented movie people, who have been very involved in all their projects heading this up, and they have a kickoff fund that will make for decent budgeted movies up front. Once the first one hits, rumored to be Captain America, odds are it will just explode all over!

So, congrats to Marvel! While at the top, many, many people take pot shots, make critical comments and give them a rough time (yeah, even me once in a while), and yes, from time to time they continue to stick their corporate foot in their corporate mouth,  but these days, they seem quite intent on continually earning that top spot. So, keep this kind of innovation, expansion, diversification, and outreach going, and you can still Make Mine Marvel!

BITS:
Kandora Publishing has definitely seemed to fall into a silent limbo, dropping completely out of the press and shipping books late. It’s disappointing to say the least. It’s also been disappointing to Ken Choi and all of the other folks at Kandora who I think did make a real effort at making it work and felt a bit helpless as it became a bit too much. They’ll be making an official announcement very soon I’m told.

As for Savage World and Monarch of Manhattan, they are going to be delayed, and they will not be published by Kandora, but they WILL be hitting the stands this year! As soon as the ink dries on contracts, I’ll be announcing the new publisher!