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Post by michaelpaciocco on Jul 26, 2009 5:39:31 GMT -8
So...Comicon. Really, the only "news" thus far is the Marvelman/Miracleman Marvel deal...which sounds good because Marvel and Neil Gaiman are on good terms and all that. But then... www.comicbookgalaxy.com/blog/2009/07/marvelman-whats-worst-that-could-happen.htmland the only thing I can disagree with Alan on is whether DC is worse than Marvel or not. Worse to Moore? Yes, but I suspect most of that had to do with Time-Warner's upper echelons in film and TV, and is mostly academic. Worse to creators overall? Well, consider that they only started their Icon imprint something like 5 years after DC had put similar deals in some of their outer-echelong brands for things like DMZ and Kurt Busiek's Astro City (actually, that's more to do with Wildstorm and is much further out on the fringe, but anyway). So yeah, I have to side with my buddy on this one: it will end in tears. Possibly Gaiman's. |
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Post by jensaltmann on Jul 26, 2009 6:40:48 GMT -8
I've followed the discussion about this over on Bleeding Cool, and it seems that the situation is this:
Marvel have completely bought the rights to Mick Anglo's Marvelman.
That would be the stuff before Warrior. Before Alan Moore. (Who, apparently, has said something along the lines of being okay with having one print run done of his work if Mick Anglo gets the money. One print run, no further reprints. But that's hearsay.)
Now, nobody is sure what that means yet. The most likely scenario is that Marvel will reprint those old Marvelman comics Mick Anglo did. After that, everything is speculative. If the above statement by Alan Moore is true, then Marvel can and probably will also reprint Alan Moore's Warrior work, and Neil Gaiman's work, and possibly Gaiman will continue and finish what he started way back when.
If not, then I guess the following scenario is the likeliest: Marvel will reprint the old Mick Anglo Marvelman comics, and then integrate Marvelman into the MU (consdering how the rights they have acquired seem to allow them to pick up right where Anglo left off, and to completely ignore what Alan Moore and those who came after him did).
Worst case scenario: Marvelman gets drafted to be Norman Osborn's bitch in Dark Avengers, written by Brian Bendis.
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Post by jessebaker on Jul 26, 2009 9:09:21 GMT -8
Worst case scenario: Marvelman gets drafted to be Norman Osborn's bitch in Dark Avengers, written by Brian Bendis. A more likely scenerio would he Bendis using Miracleman as his deux de machina ending to Dark Reign: everyone in the Marvel Universe is proven to be impotent limp dicks when it comes to stopping Norman, until Miracleman comes along and rips Norman limb from limb to kill him/save the day. Or alternitively, Millar somehow gets first dibs on Miracleman and God helps us, gets to bastardize the Moore/Gaiman run with his own shit writing. Bonus evil shit points, if Millar convinces McFarlane to return to Marvel to DRAW his Miracleman run, just to further piss on Neil's parade as far as denying him a chance to finish his run. |
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Post by jensaltmann on Jul 26, 2009 11:02:56 GMT -8
A more likely scenerio would he Bendis using Miracleman as his deux de machina ending to Dark Reign: everyone in the Marvel Universe is proven to be impotent limp dicks when it comes to stopping Norman, until Miracleman comes along and rips Norman limb from limb to kill him/save the day. You forget that the current Marvel people consider Norman the bestest hero that evah lived. |
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Post by jessebaker on Jul 26, 2009 11:32:11 GMT -8
On the other hand, you don't think Bendis would go for the absolute in "let's make everyone impotent, to such an extent that MIRACLEMAN of all people, end up showing up out of the blue and doing what NO ONE has the 'balls' to do as far as killing Norman on the spot?" cop-out endings to Dark Reign?
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Post by paulpogue on Jul 26, 2009 13:19:16 GMT -8
Every time I read a Jesse post and think, "Nah, there's no way they'd do anything THAT stupid," I think of the Luke Cage/Spider-Man/Norman Osborn ending to the first "Pulse" arc, and I realize that yep, they'd do something THAT stupid.
(To this day, I keep thinking of that scenario -- Luke Cage brings down Norman Osborn, the ultimate Spider-Man villain, while Spider-Man impotently stands there -- as possibly the individual, single most stupid plot element Marvel has done in the last decade. And yes, I'm even counting One More Day. OMD follows its own internal logic -- it's not logic we LIKE, and it's not always logic that makes SENSE -- but at least there's a Point A to Point B taking place here. "We think Spidey is better off not married. Most comic professionals and, in our opinion, most comic readers agree with us. We will come up with a way to make Spidey not married. Behold!" And then they go out and give hundreds of interviews about how Stan and Steve would have wanted it that way. It's a rational creative choice that has been borne out in possibly the most irrational way ever. Even Civil War follows a certain amount of sense when you consider the Cap/Iron Man tension that has existed pretty much since day one. However, I have not ever seen even one creator try to make any kind of rational argument about why it was a good idea to have Luke Cage hand what appeared to be the ultimate defeat to the ultimate Spider-Villain.)
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Post by K-Box on Jul 26, 2009 14:37:24 GMT -8
Yeah, I'm actually gonna defend Jesse here, because Marvel's MO over the past few years, especially on Bendis-written projects, has been, "And then, at the end, when all the other heroes are standing around with their thumbs up their asses, another character that we've never even seen in this story, up to this point, comes in and saves the day, usually with one punch, while all the other characters continue to be impotent and useless." It's how every single Bendis-written Avengers story has gone, from "Disassembled" forward, and it's how The Pulse went too. And since we're now to the point where LITERALLY the entire Marvel Universe has been proven to be powerless to stop Norman Osborn, it makes perfect sense that Marvelman's FIRST appearance in the MU would be as the man who defeated Norman, WITH NO EXPLANATIONS GIVEN.
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Post by michaelpaciocco on Jul 26, 2009 15:55:46 GMT -8
And unless Moore gets that in iron-clad legalese, no way they would stop at just one. and Gaiman will probably get his greenlight for his stuff done, but under what banner? Icon would be the most likely, and so Marvel will claw on to that.
Well, that could explain who was behind the door in "The Cabal"
I consider this equally likely to "Marvelman is the figure behind the door."
Or alternitively, Millar somehow gets first dibs on Miracleman and God helps us, gets to bastardize the Moore/Gaiman run with his own shit writing. Bonus evil shit points, if Millar convinces McFarlane to return to Marvel to DRAW his Miracleman run, just to further piss on Neil's parade as far as denying him a chance to finish his run.
Oh, I could see this happening EASILY. Yeah, never doubt Marvel's ability to bite the hand that feeds it.
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Post by paulpogue on Jul 26, 2009 16:41:28 GMT -8
Well, that could explain who was behind the door in "The Cabal" Oh. My. Fucking. GOD. Right up until this point -- until this very SECOND -- I honestly had relegated the "Miracleman shows up and saves the Marvel U." scenario into the realm of crazed fantasy -- the kind of thing Jesse would dream up that I wouldn't put past Bendis if he thought he could get away with it, but that I would never in a million years think would actually SEE PRINT. (You know, kind of like how I once felt about, say, Spider-Man making a deal with the Devil.) But now ... even though I know you meant it facetiously ... now that we add the Man Behind The Door into the equation, the whole frakking mess actually reaches into the level of ACTUAL PLAUSIBILITY. (Among other things, and assuming Marvel was planning this late last year but didn't intend to unveil it until SDCC, it also explains why they had no intention of revealing the secret until November -- when even the solicitations would be well past SDCC.) It's not highly likely, mind you, but enough that I feel compelled to actually place the odds of "Miracleman behind the door" at 2 percent. Good god. Joe Quesada has Miracleman. A day ago I was thinking of this as awesomely good news -- I even compared it to the Joe Q of 1999. I viewed the guy who posted the incredibly cynical speculation as being a bit of a wet blanket. But 1999 was many, many fuckups ago. Including one fuckup of such astonishingly huge proportion it alienated Alan Moore for good, when they could have salvaged it with a single line of indicia. 1999 was when they were still publishing a Gerber Howard the Duck, rather than a HtD Civil War tie-in by not-Gerber. These are the people who have Miracleman. Not any of the Miracleman stories anyone cares about, but certainly the rights to use a guy in a blue and yellow suit with superduperpowers and an alter ego named Mike Moran. I haven't really thought of it this way until now. They could put him in an issue of Avengers TOMORROW. And the only thing really keeping them from doing any of this is whatever level of goodwill they care to keep with Neil Gaiman -- who, for all we know, doesn't give a whit whether MM joins the Avengers so long as he can wrap up Silver/Dark Age in his own way. My god. |
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Post by michaelpaciocco on Jul 26, 2009 17:55:44 GMT -8
I was being brutally honest about "who was behind the door" speculation. I would not put it past Marvel AT ALL.
I'm sorry, but one thing about spending time working with and writing for Alan David Doane - it rapidly killed off any faith or goodwill you can have for the upper echelons of Marvel or DC.
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Post by paulpogue on Jul 26, 2009 19:48:11 GMT -8
Hell, just a look at Steve Gerber's biography will pretty well answer THAT. And Doane pretty much hit it on the head with "If you don't know how badly Alan Moore has been screwed over by the Big Two, you haven't been paying attention."
Come to think of it, I think we can pretty precisely date Tom Brevoort's shift from "Marvel's only sane editor" to "Ultimate company man" to his DwyerGate debacle with Doane.
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Post by jessebaker on Jul 26, 2009 21:21:45 GMT -8
Well, that could explain who was behind the door in "The Cabal" Oh. My. Fucking. GOD. Right up until this point -- until this very SECOND -- I honestly had relegated the "Miracleman shows up and saves the Marvel U." scenario into the realm of crazed fantasy -- the kind of thing Jesse would dream up that I wouldn't put past Bendis if he thought he could get away with it, but that I would never in a million years think would actually SEE PRINT. (You know, kind of like how I once felt about, say, Spider-Man making a deal with the Devil.) But now ... even though I know you meant it facetiously ... now that we add the Man Behind The Door into the equation, the whole frakking mess actually reaches into the level of ACTUAL PLAUSIBILITY. (Among other things, and assuming Marvel was planning this late last year but didn't intend to unveil it until SDCC, it also explains why they had no intention of revealing the secret until November -- when even the solicitations would be well past SDCC.) It's not highly likely, mind you, but enough that I feel compelled to actually place the odds of "Miracleman behind the door" at 2 percent. Good god. Joe Quesada has Miracleman. A day ago I was thinking of this as awesomely good news -- I even compared it to the Joe Q of 1999. I viewed the guy who posted the incredibly cynical speculation as being a bit of a wet blanket. But 1999 was many, many fuckups ago. Including one fuckup of such astonishingly huge proportion it alienated Alan Moore for good, when they could have salvaged it with a single line of indicia. 1999 was when they were still publishing a Gerber Howard the Duck, rather than a HtD Civil War tie-in by not-Gerber. These are the people who have Miracleman. Not any of the Miracleman stories anyone cares about, but certainly the rights to use a guy in a blue and yellow suit with superduperpowers and an alter ego named Mike Moran. I haven't really thought of it this way until now. They could put him in an issue of Avengers TOMORROW. And the only thing really keeping them from doing any of this is whatever level of goodwill they care to keep with Neil Gaiman -- who, for all we know, doesn't give a whit whether MM joins the Avengers so long as he can wrap up Silver/Dark Age in his own way. My god. If we are going to include THAT side to the debate, then I'll go THIS route: KID MIRACLEMAN is behind the door and is Norman Osborn's "secret weapon". Which leads to another biggie. Can they or can't they refer to the Moore stories or storylines until the deals for the stuff are finalized? That might render Kid Miracleman off-limits if Marvel can't do a "evil Kid Miracleman" storyline. |
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Post by paulpogue on Jul 26, 2009 21:39:59 GMT -8
My impression from the information released thus far is that their deal is with Mick Anglo only, and doesn't include any rights to the Moore/Gaiman material. Yet.
What they have right now is pretty much the names, the uniforms, the Captain Marvel powers, and the secret identities. They could get away with a hell of a lot of inference -- such as MM being considerably more mature and introspective than the 1960s version -- but having Kid Miracleman show up as a murderous lunatic is probably just asking for a lawsuit.
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Post by jessebaker on Jul 27, 2009 0:12:00 GMT -8
Which is even sadder, given that when everything is put into context, NO ONE gives a fuck about Miracleman himself. Kid Miracleman always was the big draw of the Alan Moore run, right down to the fact that whenever someone MENTIONS the Alan Moore Miracleman series, the first (and often ONLY THING) that pops into the minds of people is "Kid Miraclman slaughtering everyone in London".
So quite frankly, Marvel would actually be best serve NEVER showing Miracleman and only write material involving Kid Miracleman. They could even pull a full-on Joss Whedon to get around the Alan Moore/Neil Gaiman (who was building up towards redeeming Kid Miracleman IIRC) issue via ripping off the plot to "Angel" for the character. Kid Miracleman ala Whedon's "Angel", defending the innocent and the helpless while atoning for past crime that are never outright mentioned.
Or alternatively, they could make TWO pairs of both characters. Marvelman/Kid Marvelman and Miracleman/Kid Miracleman with the former being the real version 616 versions who are clean slates and have nothing to do with the Moore/Gaiman versions and the later being fictionalized versions of the characters who's stories are those of Moore and Gaiman.
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Post by michaelpaciocco on Jul 27, 2009 6:15:37 GMT -8
Perhaps, but I don't tend to think Marvel is afraid of any kind of litigation at this point from anyone short of the US Government or God Almighty. And they could do a lot without making it a legal problem, and even if it became one, they'd be smart enough to find a way to either A) win or B) poison the well so badly that any other would be effectively be worse than Marvel winning.
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