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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 5:12:52 GMT -5
I was thinking of Marvel buying Angela and wondering how often something like that has happened? I'm pretty sure it's happened more than once, possibly at both publishers (I'm going to ignore the potential acquisitions that may be happening at smaller publishers for now) early on. I couldn't find a list dedicated to this at Wiki. I know at least Marvel has acquired entire publishers as well as all their IP (Crossgen, Malibu) but I don't think they've introduced anything into the main continuity, have they?
But now they've done it with Angela, who always seemed like an odd choice for Marvel to do that with. I think it was done more out of opportunism than Marvel actually wanting the character. But now some people are saying that Marvel and DC talent don't want to create any characters for the companies and lose ownership. I know new characters popped up left and right when I was a kid, and as far as I know they pretty much always have since the very beginning, but it's seemed to slow down significantly. So does this mean acquisitions may be how they bring new content in and expand the universe? Or is it possible the universe needs no more expanding, that they can cycle less popular characters in and out as need be? Or is it possible that someone at Disney will be in charge of creating characters on a salary basis? It doesn't seem like creating a character is the hard part of comics. Making the comic seems much harder.
Basically, I'm wondering how rare an occurrence Angela is, and if there's a possibility we could see something like the Ex Mutants added to the X-Men supporting cast at some point? Or Marvel/DC acquiring more contemporary characters? What happens when Millar is done with Kick Ass? What about when Kirkman is done with Invincible?
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 5:20:14 GMT -5
Well DC acquired the Quality characters, the Fawcett characters and the Charlton characters and introduced them all into the DCU.
Marvel had Spidey team up with both Red Sonja and Kull in Marvel Team-Up so both were introduced into Marvel continuity, and Kulan Gath was a character form the Hyborian Age used in both X-Men and Avengers as a villain. Marvel's Thor also played a key role in the Godwheel mini in the Ultraverse and that lead to a bunch of cross-overs with he Malibu characters, some of which affected the then continuity of the Marvel stories. The Shadow and Doc Savage both have been incorporated into Marvel and/or DC continuity at times, ad Sherlock Holmes has been introduced into DC continuity. Dracula and Frankenstein both appear in both continuities as well. So it's not anything new really.
The Angla thing though was a bit of a spite move because of the hoops Gaiman had to jump through with McFarlane to free up the rights to Marvelman/Miracle Man, so I doubt it is a harbinger of things to come, and is more of a flip the bird to ole Todd.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 5:24:12 GMT -5
Additional thought-Marvel has done it with licensed characters quite often-Rom, Micronauts that sort of thing, acquiring the rights to characters based on toys or other things and then incorporating them into the Marvel Universe.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 5:39:13 GMT -5
I'm not talking about crossovers though. Or temporary acquisitions of licenses. I mean actual character becoming the property of the company and a regular roster of the shared universe. I think those DC acquisitions are what I'm looking for. At least Captain Marvel and Plastic Man for sure. Those are great examples. But it still seems incredibly rare.
And I thought Red Sonja was an actual Marvel creation, but that wouldn't explain the fact that the license seems to jump from publisher to publisher. Who owns that license? Is it REH because the character was obviously derivative of one of his own? EDIT: Nevermind, the wiki page says who owns the IP. I don't know how Roy Thomas retained the rights but looks like that's what happened.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 5:49:38 GMT -5
Red Sonja is owned by a company that just deals with her,it's called Red Sonja Enterprises or something like that, because Sonja is part REH creation-based on his Red Sonya character who was a swordswoman but not of the Hyborian Age and adapted to fit into Conan's world as so many of REH's non Conan work was by Roy Thomas, but she is not a Howard creation purely so not under the REH estate, and not a Marvel owned character because it was based on concept they don't own, so it became it's own thing.
But yeah, Question, Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Peacemaker, etc. were all acquired by DC like Captain Marvel and Plastic Man, as well as Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters and several others. It doesn't happen much anymore because most new characters are creator owned not publisher owned, but itis theoretically possible a creator could sell the rights to a character to a publisher, but why would they. Gaiman used Angela as leverage in the legal case against McFarlane ans won the rights to her, but had no use for her, so he cut the deal with Marvel as an extension of the relationship they had partnering for the legal fight against McFarlane that also was at the heart of Gaiman's Marvel work-1602 and Eternals. It was probably far more common in the past, when there were more comic publishers going under that owned the IP of characters than now where outside of Marvel/DC most characters are owned or have creator participation aspects and are less likely to be sold. But then you knw, Eastman and Laird sold the Turtles to Nickelodeon so anything is possible I guess.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 6:01:12 GMT -5
but itis theoretically possible a creator could sell the rights to a character to a publisher, but why would they. -M Big fat cash out, like TMNT, although they're unlikely to be introduced into any sort of continuity. But that's a recent major sale of IP. I can see creators wanting to cash out, not all of them. I doubt Dave Sim ever would. But Kirkman, I can imagine it. I think Kirkman takes pride in his work, but I don't think he looks at these things as his babies, and I imagine if he was tired of writing comics and the right offer came along it could happen. Especially if he wasn't getting TV and movie revenue from it. That may be a hold up though, if Kirkman can successfully market all his IP himself in more lucrative media then there would be no point in selling off. Or maybe there would be for a higher price. Eastman and Laird could have stopped publishing comics all together and just collected movie, tv, and toy royalties for TMNT, but I guess managing popular IP is a job itself. Probably a busy one if the IP is popular enough. |
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 22, 2014 6:22:29 GMT -5
Red Sonja is owned by a company that just deals with her,it's called Red Sonja Enterprises or something like that, because Sonja is part REH creation-based on his Red Sonya character who was a swordswoman but not of the Hyborian Age and adapted to fit into Conan's world as so many of REH's non Conan work was by Roy Thomas, but she is not a Howard creation purely so not under the REH estate, and not a Marvel owned character because it was based on concept they don't own, so it became it's own thing. But yeah, Question, Blue Beetle, Captain Atom, Peacemaker, etc. were all acquired by DC like Captain Marvel and Plastic Man, as well as Uncle Sam and the Freedom Fighters and several others. It doesn't happen much anymore because most new characters are creator owned not publisher owned, but itis theoretically possible a creator could sell the rights to a character to a publisher, but why would they. Gaiman used Angela as leverage in the legal case against McFarlane ans won the rights to her, but had no use for her, so he cut the deal with Marvel as an extension of the relationship they had partnering for the legal fight against McFarlane that also was at the heart of Gaiman's Marvel work-1602 and Eternals. It was probably far more common in the past, when there were more comic publishers going under that owned the IP of characters than now where outside of Marvel/DC most characters are owned or have creator participation aspects and are less likely to be sold. But then you knw, Eastman and Laird sold the Turtles to Nickelodeon so anything is possible I guess. -M Interesting, I read somewhere that Roy Thomas created Red Sonja based on a character from the REH books. Does Thomas get any money from her use? |
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Post by Icctrombone on Sept 22, 2014 6:25:09 GMT -5
There is a public domain character that Erik Larsen used for his Savage Dragon comic called Daredevil. He was part of the continuity for a while.
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Post by hondobrode on Sept 22, 2014 11:07:27 GMT -5
Marvel bought Malibu for a number of reasons, chiefly amongst them being that Paul Levitz at DC was in the process of buying them. Terry Stewart found out and feared that would push DC / Malibu to # 1 and Marvel to # 2, which it probably would have. This was 1994, when Ron Perlman was still doing crazy.
Later, in 1996, Marvel bankrupted.
Cutting costs to the bare bone, they couldn't afford to pay the exceptionally generous royalties to the Malibu creators from their original contracts. So, Marvel buried them. Now they feel they don't need the characters and don't want to pay, and sadly, are waiting for the creators to pass away, after which I'm sure they'll be incorporated into the Marvel universe.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 13:23:40 GMT -5
I've heard the reason Marvel was interested in Malibu was to get the proprietary coloring process techniques/technology Malibu had developed and were not really interested in the IP at all....
Malibu's sales were not really a threat to market share as far as I recall.
-M
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Post by Deleted on Sept 22, 2014 18:29:57 GMT -5
Yeah, that's why they were bought out. But Marvel does own the IP as well now. It's possible they try to relaunch under a separate imprint, but unlikely because anything superhero outside continuity is going to suffer severely. Then again, anything within continuity seems to have a built in minimum fanbase in the low five figures. What's the cancellation cut off for Marvel? Seems high compared to top performing indies even. So I just figure if Marvel goes five or six years without introducing a new character, they've gone through as many as ten "major" events that didn't change anything, and they're trying to stir things up. Introducing characters from Malibu or Crossgen could work. Same as acquiring hot indy superheroes when the opportunity arises. If it arises of course. There's a limited number of "hot" indy superheroes, and like you said, many of their owners might not be in a hurry to sell. I didn't know there were royalties to be paid for the creators of Malibu characters though. I thought all that stuff was completely corporate owned. But Malibu did own the Ultraverse, right? Prime seems like a good candidate for Marvel. He's derivative of a popular DC character, but that never stopped either company before.
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Post by Reptisaurus! on Sept 22, 2014 19:36:15 GMT -5
Another Example: Charlton ended up continuing a lot of Fawcett titles after they stopped publishing comics, with some changes due to rights issues. (IE: Hoppy the Marvel Bunny became "Magic Bunny.")
I suspect their were more of these titles-changing-companies-for-quick-cash situations during the Golden Age, but I dunno what they were.
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Post by hondobrode on Sept 22, 2014 22:38:54 GMT -5
I've heard the reason Marvel was interested in Malibu was to get the proprietary coloring process techniques/technology Malibu had developed and were not really interested in the IP at all.... Malibu's sales were not really a threat to market share as far as I recall. -M That is the popular theory, but I read an interview with Tom Mason, one of the initial founders of Malibu, that claims Marvel was outsourcing all their coloring to Ireland. They got behind and a few editors took Malibu up on coloring it for them. They liked it and more editors started using it, but, despite the great quality of the coloring, it wasn't why they bought Malibu. One thing ink I know Marvel was looking to do, was to establish a west coast presence, and this would help with Malibu being in California. Maybe they could more easily have access to compete with Image. |
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Post by Ish Kabbible on Sept 22, 2014 22:59:29 GMT -5
I've heard the reason Marvel was interested in Malibu was to get the proprietary coloring process techniques/technology Malibu had developed and were not really interested in the IP at all.... Malibu's sales were not really a threat to market share as far as I recall. -M That is the popular theory, but I read an interview with Tom Mason, one of the initial founders of Malibu, that claims Marvel was outsourcing all their coloring to Ireland. They got behind and a few editors took Malibu up on coloring it for them. They liked it and more editors started using it, but, despite the great quality of the coloring, it wasn't why they bought Malibu. One thing ink I know Marvel was looking to do, was to establish a west coast presence, and this would help with Malibu being in California. Maybe they could more easily have access to compete with Image. I believe Hondo is correct. That coloring technique theory was used at the time of aquisition and became "official" simply because it just kept getting repeated even though no one confirmed it. The book Marvel: The Untold Story via numerous interviews claimed Marvel bought Malibu to block DC from doing it, increase their own marketplace presence,establish a West Coast office and capitalize on those character's potential merchandising revenue. |
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Post by DE Sinclair on Sept 23, 2014 10:25:14 GMT -5
That is the popular theory, but I read an interview with Tom Mason, one of the initial founders of Malibu, that claims Marvel was outsourcing all their coloring to Ireland. They got behind and a few editors took Malibu up on coloring it for them. They liked it and more editors started using it, but, despite the great quality of the coloring, it wasn't why they bought Malibu. One thing ink I know Marvel was looking to do, was to establish a west coast presence, and this would help with Malibu being in California. Maybe they could more easily have access to compete with Image. I believe Hondo is correct. That coloring technique theory was used at the time of aquisition and became "official" simply because it just kept getting repeated even though no one confirmed it. The book Marvel: The Untold Story via numerous interviews claimed Marvel bought Malibu to block DC from doing it, increase their own marketplace presence,establish a West Coast office and capitalize on those character's potential merchandising revenue. It's also possible the coloring tech theory gained traction because Marvel didn't really do anything with the characters. |
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