Will Marvel Lose its Fire?

Just today, I met Daniel Way, writer of WOLVERINE: ORIGINS and DEADPOOL for Marvel while he was doing a signing at The Laughing Ogre here in Columbus. Normally writers are pretty quiet at signings. A month ago when Jason Aaron was at the same store, he signed my books and answered a question or two of mine and that was about it. With Daniel Way, he just kept talking and talking - I got a good 25 or 30 minutes of chatter out of the guy. I'm just glad there weren't too many people waiting.

Among the things he talked about, what really piqued my interest was his discussion of a lot of the editorial and corporate practices at Marvel. One of the things he said that really worked to Marvel's advantage was their flexibility about scheduling. Apparently at DC, stories are plotted up to two years in advance and once they're plotted, they're set in stone. If anybody comes up with cool stuff they'd like to use in a story at a creative retreat or some kind of editorial meeting, well, um... too bad. No way to fit in. Way commented that at Marvel, things were fluid enough that they were willing to change the schedules in order to fit in cool ideas.

Which is the way to go, as far as I'm concerned. A policy like that has Quesada editorship (is editorship a word? I need an editor) written all over it. Joe Quesada is seriously the Bill Clinton of Marvel. He came in at a time when Marvel was in the dumps and had lots of innovative ideas for reforming the company; all of which tied back to a central thesis - "It's the storytelling, stupid!" So he put storytelling first, and voila: the books flourished, and even no-name titles with less popular characters like DAREDEVIL and CAPTAIN AMERICA topped the charts. Remember the 90's? Anything without Spider-Man or the X-Men simply didn't sell.

However, while the focus of the editors at Marvel is largely on creating cool stories, Way also mentioned that the corporate structure is in a very conservative swing. I didn't know much about how Marvel works as a business, but apparently the editors are totally swamped. The fact that the books continue to sell and be profitable doesn't make a difference - editors only continue to get more bogged down. Apparently assistant editors rotate through the company like crazy because the work is not only intensive but pays piss poorly - about 24,000 dollars a year, which doesn't seem bad until you consider that you have to live in New York for that job. Additionally, he mentioned that Marvel only hires a new editor for every three that leave.

He also commented that new ideas are becoming less and less of a prerogative for the company. He said it's no surprise that we're witnessing the third crossover in a row with popular heroes fighting popular heroes. They're not changing the established formulas, they're going with what they're confident will sell.

And with that, he smiled and said he'd kinda like to see it all come crashing down, just to see what happens.

-

This led me to some thinking - will the prosperity that Marvel has been experiencing over the last 5 or 6 years level off or decline? Let's think about the factors:

1) What Way described was typical corporate cost-cutting. That's the nature of the beast - it's how it feeds itself and how it stays alive. But - corporate structures and artistic minds don't always go hand in hand. When a company is conservative, they become more efficient, but they considerably cut down their chances of having out of the blue, surprise hits. Marvel's ideas will get recycled, while other companies might capitalize off the pique value.

2) Creators are already leaving. Sure, their stints were fun, they loved working with Quesada, but few of the top level talent took the work as a permanent job, with some exceptions (I'm looking at you Bendis).

• Matt Fraction commented that his major motivation for doing corporate work was to pay the bills that his creator owned work couldn't. You can imagine that once his name becomes big enough that his creator owned work will do better, he probably won't be as interested in working at Marvel.
• I believe Mark Millar only has one more Marvel project scheduled. After ULTIMATE AVENGERS debuts and finishes, I think he's going to do creator-owned work exclusively. Hell, all of his creator-owned books sell like hotcakes. If any creator has a book that sells half as well as WANTED did, he or she would most likely be making more than any major Marvel title will.
• It's only a matter of time before other major, critically acclaimed creators jump ship. Ed Brubaker got his second Eisner in a row for Best Writer and sales for CRIMINAL continue to increase. It's only a matter of time before he gets offers to do whatever the hell he wants, and at that point, why work at Marvel?

3) Where can Marvel get new talent? Their previous strategy was siphoning big talent off of DC, who are now almost completely dry. They can fish in the indies, but if you look at Marvel's catalog, they still just don't have many books which offer fresh starts for newer talent.

-

I could be completely wrong about this, but my bet is that FOUR YEARS from now, the company will be very different from it is today. The big name creators that are recognizable now will all be gone, Image Comics will have stolen a lot of their thunder, and crossover fatigue will have set in a lot of the comic buying audience.

Don't believe me? Let's meet here four years from now at 8 o'clock and discuss it. If I'm wrong, dessert's on me.

-

POSTSCRIPT:

I forgot to mention this and I thought it was kind of neat. When I told Daniel that I loved his story about Tombstone in TANGLED WEB, he smiled and looked and sounded really flattered.

That's one of the things I love about meeting newer, lesser-known creators - when you tell them you like their work, they sincerely sound flattered. Grant Morrison won't bat an eyelid if you mention that - not because he's a jerk (actually he's quite the opposite with fans), but just because he gets that all day from people.