WI – DC & Marvel buy the farm, or, The Secret Crisis of Infinite Chapter 7

Gwendolyn Ingolfsson

In the late 1970s, the largest comic book publishers in the United States, DC and Marvel, were both in dire financial straits. It was the usual story: rising costs, falling sales, that sort of thing. DC managed to pull out of the nosedive by cancelling a large number of unprofitable titles in favour of concentrating on their core competencies (Superman, Wonder Woman, the God-damn Batman, :D etc); the success of 1978s Superman film didn't hurt much either. Marvel in the meantime decided to focus on moving more of their products into the emerging network of comic book shops and changing their distribution strategy. Getting the comic book rights to the first Star Wars film certainly didn't hurt either.

But for a while there, it was very touch and go. Any one of a number of factors could have lead to one or both of them going all Titanic on us. So...what if they had? What if both DC and Marvel comics had gone out of business by 1980? This won't do jack to Euro-comics, much less to the behemoth that is manga, but from what I understand the latter was brought over to the US via the comic book shops and if they don't exist in this time-line due to the collapse of the Big Two then who/what does the importing? Someone else? No one?

What will happen to the Intellectual Properties, i.e. the characters - do they get sold to another company (like maybe....Kodansha???) else or just fade away into obscurity? Oh! Oh, my lord. I just had a flash: Wonder Woman, written and drawn by Naoko Takeuchi. That would be, uh, really epic. Good Goddess....

Anyway. What fills the gap created by the loss of comics in the US – video games, as I suspect, or something else? And Hollywood - no Spider-man films, no Dark Knight; I guess some other flicks get green-lighted instead.

Thoughts?
 
Fearless Leader

Fearless Leader

Donor
Just because DC and Marvel kick the bucket doesn't mean that the other comic companies do...IIRC there were and continue to be, a handful of smaller comic book companies that operate in competition to DC and Marvel.

Assuming both big names go bankrupt I think you'll see what happened in OTL occur in TTL, only with different names. One of the smaller companies (or perhaps a conglomeration) will buy up the intellectual property of DC and Marvel and relaunch the most profitable franchises (Batman, Superman, Spiderman) probably employing the same people who worked on them in OTL (as they are now out of a job in TTL).

Thinking in an economical sense, there's no way that the collapse of DC and Marvel will decrease the demand for comics. The collapse of those comic book houses will only decrease the supply, leaving their competitors to make up the difference until the market reaches equilibrium. Comics will survive, albeit on a smaller scale, overall it'll be a lot like what happened in OTL just with different names.

The intellectual property posed by Batman, Superman etc. is just too valuable to be left dormant, I'd imagine one of the other up and coming comic book companies will pick them up pronto. What'll make things really interesting is how those heroes get distributed...
 

Keenir

Banned
Fearless Leader said:
Just because DC and Marvel kick the bucket doesn't mean that the other comic companies do...IIRC there were and continue to be, a handful of smaller comic book companies that operate in competition to DC and Marvel.

The intellectual property posed by Batman, Superman etc. is just too valuable to be left dormant, I'd imagine one of the other up and coming comic book companies will pick them up pronto. What'll make things really interesting is how those heroes get distributed...
Click to expand...

Dark Horse Spiderman?
 
Fenrir_Angerboda

Fenrir_Angerboda

Hmm....the Collapse of DC and Marvel may affect the Importation of Manga, and their Korean and Chinese counterparts.

also, the collapse of both may mean No Image Comics and more big name Independent comics.
 

Nicole

DC was a subsidiary of Warner Bros./Seven Arts since 1969- I imagine the company (W7 -> Kinney National -> Warner Communications -> Time Warner -> AOL Time Warner, though by that point butterflies may change mergers) would keep the rights... by this point Superman is probably iconic enough that they'll still be able to get movie or whatever use out of him, even if they have to liquidate the comic divisions...
 
Tovarich

Tovarich

Banned
Bit of a butterfly, this, but we could've ended up without 15 years of no Dr Who.

I remember Alan Moore at an '80s UKCAC saying he'd been asked to write for the show, and if he'd gone into telly rather than working for DC, the dire Colin Baker series could've been avoided.
 

alt_historian

Tovarich said:
Bit of a butterfly, this, but we could've ended up without 15 years of no Dr Who.

I remember Alan Moore at an '80s UKCAC saying he'd been asked to write for the show, and if he'd gone into telly rather than working for DC, the dire Colin Baker series could've been avoided.
Click to expand...
... that's just bizarre.

How on earth did we get so quickly from "DC and/or Marvel collapse in the late 70s" to "Dr Who continues and is dark and edgy"?

:D
 
Tovarich

Tovarich

Banned
alt_historian said:
... that's just bizarre.

How on earth did we get so quickly from "DC and/or Marvel collapse in the late 70s" to "Dr Who continues and is dark and edgy"?

:D
Click to expand...
'cos I couldn't think of anything else to write, and I've been wanting to say 'butterfly' in a post for ages:eek:
 
loneranger

loneranger

I think it would be cool to see some small but well funded comic book company to come up and buy the best of DC and Marvel, and create a new continuity so that they're all in one Canon. Just think: Avengers and Justice League combo? :D

Or, I suppose a less expensive one would be just have the company buy Ghost Rider, Spiderman, Batman, and Superman, and they'd be set for a while.
 
Fenrir_Angerboda

Fenrir_Angerboda

randomideaguy said:
I think it would be cool to see some small but well funded comic book company to come up and buy the best of DC and Marvel, and create a new continuity so that they're all in one Canon.
Click to expand...

That would be kinda cool.
Buy Doom Patrol and X-men!

then we could have Nile Caulder, leading a team consisting of Wolverine, Robotman, Changeling/Beast Boy, Storm, cyclops, Crazy jane, Shadowcat, and Negitive man battling the Brotherhood of Evil lead by Magneto, The Brain, toad, The talking homosexual gorilla (don't ask), Animal-vegitable-mineral man and more.
 

Dan Reilly The Great

Banned
Perhaps this might just kill manga's in the US as well as comics alltogether. If marvel and DC go under, you might lose enough mainstream appeal for comics to effectively kill comics as a viable media outlet in the US. Sure you had small publishers like Charlton, but they did not have the marquee franchises that DC and Marvel had. Harvey comics was too kidsy and would be stuck in that nitch. Comics as we know them probably wouldn't exist today. On the upside we probably wouldn't have a whole crapload of crappy film adaptations to deal with either.
 

Wanderlust

By this point, there was still a huge UK comics sector... It could conceivably dominate the gap left by the termination of DC and Marvel, except that British comics focus (or are coming to focus) on satire, anti-heroes and black humour. While this perfectly fits the mood of Grimdark 70s/80s (maybe even 90s/2000s) Britain, I'm not sure if this applies to the US yet.
 
PhilKearny

PhilKearny

Perhaps comics diee in the UD. People become more interested in physical activity and have fewer violent fantasies. They become healthier and less violent. No health care crisis. :D
 
Fenrir_Angerboda

Fenrir_Angerboda

PhilKearny said:
Perhaps comics diee in the UD. People become more interested in physical activity and have fewer violent fantasies. They become healthier and less violent. No health care crisis. :D
Click to expand...

oh, of course, because all Comic book readers are over weight nerds with violent fantasys.

Where's the face palm.....

Dan Reilly The Great said:
Perhaps this might just kill manga's in the US as well as comics alltogether.
Click to expand...

It would certianly damage the intrest.

but unlike comics, Manga has the wide range to appeal to almost anyone.
shonen for the boys, Shojo for the girls, josei for women, and I forgot what they called the one for men (not Hentai).

then again with no real target audiance, it would be a hard sell.
 

William Blake

Gwendolyn Ingolfsson said:
I
What will happen to the Intellectual Properties, i.e. the characters - do they get sold to another company (like maybe....Kodansha???) else or just fade away into obscurity? Oh! Oh, my lord. I just had a flash: Wonder Woman, written and drawn by Naoko Takeuchi. That would be, uh, really epic. Good Goddess....

Anyway. What fills the gap created by the loss of comics in the US – video games, as I suspect, or something else? And Hollywood - no Spider-man films, no Dark Knight; I guess some other flicks get green-lighted instead.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...
Maybe Disney would buy Marvel back then in the 1980's...
And the Disney of the 1980's was very unlike that of 2009. I'd say Spidey and iron man would have to undergo some deep transformations - But in return maybe there would still be a flick for each one. But very unlike OTL. Just imagine....
 

Gwendolyn Ingolfsson

Fearless Leader said:
Just because DC and Marvel kick the bucket doesn't mean that the other comic companies do...IIRC there were and continue to be, a handful of smaller comic book companies that operate in competition to DC and Marvel.

Assuming both big names go bankrupt I think you'll see what happened in OTL occur in TTL, only with different names. One of the smaller companies (or perhaps a conglomeration) will buy up the intellectual property of DC and Marvel and relaunch the most profitable franchises (Batman, Superman, Spiderman) probably employing the same people who worked on them in OTL (as they are now out of a job in TTL).
Click to expand...

I don't think that it would happen this way.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what you seem to be saying is that if DC and Marvel had gone under some smaller companies would simply have bought out their IP and things would have just continued on as before. I don't think so.

Even back then there were a lot of people who were heartily sick of the whole superhero thing, and many would have concluded that Marvel & DC's over-reliance on that particular genre is what lead to their demise (much like how people today are blaming GM's addiction to petrol-guzzling SUVs on their bankruptcy). I have a strong suspicion that in the wake of the collapse, the surviving American comic book firms would have had a very strong incentive to go in a different direction. After all, why repeat a failed formula? One that had just killed not one but two of your largest competitors?

I believe that the American comic book industry today - assuming it still existed at all - would look extremely different and have a much more diverse selection. After all, manga isn't all just magical girls, now is it?
 
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Gwendolyn Ingolfsson

Dan Reilly The Great said:
Comics as we know them probably wouldn't exist today. On the upside we probably wouldn't have a whole crapload of crappy film adaptations to deal with either.
Click to expand...

I rather suspect that might be the case. In the TL I'm proposing, DC and Marvel implode right at the time small independent titles like Cerebus the Aardvark were barely getting off of the ground, while firms such as Dark Horse, never mind Image, hadn't even started yet. When the Big Two go under, what happens to the distribution system? Can the small independents publish enough titles to keep the existing one afloat, or failing that, hack a new one together? One wonders.
 
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