WI: Marvel Comics "licenses" DC characters in 1984

I have posted this idea around six years ago, but I thought I would repost it because I recently had a couple thoughts. According to former Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter, Bill Sarnoff, Executive VP of Publishing at Warner Communications offered to license the publishing rights of DC Comics' characters to Marvel in 1984. Though Shooter had written a proposal that would publish seven titles (Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Justice League, Teen Titans, and Legion of Super-Heroes), Marvel president Jim Galton ultimately told WB that they were not interested because "the characters didn't sell."

Assuming that a random ASB changes Jim Galton's mind, what would affect the comic book, and possibly the entire entertainment industry?

The gears have been turning in my head for a while, but I have not been able to muster enough ideas to write a proper TL, but there were a couple that I wanted to share:

This article mentions that once a company reaches a 70% market share, they are in danger of being sued as monopoly. Marvel (according to shooter) had around a 69% with DC had 18%. Had this agreement gone through: Marvel would have a 87% market share if you combined it with DC's, but it is also possible that Marvel's share could go past 90% if their DC line proved successful.

That same article mentions that First Comics (a minor publisher during the 80s) sued Marvel for monopolistic practices OTL. Assuming that First files an anti-trust suit in this hypothetical scenario, how would that go? Perhaps some other smaller companies (like Comico) would join in the suit to unsure Marvel's downfall.

Another wrinkle I want to add in is Cadence Industries' liquidation that led to Marvel's sale to New World Entertainment in 1986. Assuming that a lawsuit exacerbates Cadence's demise, would that result in Marvel getting chopped up with the pieces sold off to separate buyers if the courts rule in First's favour? I would assume that DC's character's would revert back to Warner if that is the case.

Lastly I wanted to posit this as well (paging @Nivek and @RySenkari where I contribute to their TL): would the Marvel lawsuit establish a precedent for Nintendo's anti-trust suit, and possibly a harsher ruling against Big N.

That's what I have at the moment, thoughts?
 
Lastly I wanted to posit this as well (paging @Nivek and @RySenkari where I contribute to their TL): would the Marvel lawsuit establish a precedent for Nintendo's anti-trust suit, and possibly a harsher ruling against Big N
People always goes overboard that suit, at the end of the day nintendo never done anything was considered monopoly(people would want to work with other console and later work with nintendo terms if they wanted) the whole voucher refund was something to save face and mostly because end another suit about the price of cartidge(there was not price fixing, that is why we got rpg at $80+ mid 90's)

That same article mentions that First Comics (a minor publisher during the 80s) sued Marvel for monopolistic practices OTL. Assuming that First files an anti-trust suit in this hypothetical scenario, how would that go? Perhaps some other smaller companies (like Comico) would join in the suit to unsure Marvel's downfall.
See you in court, might not end as they wanted and Imagine and Mirage comics might not come that fast too(ditto dark horse too).
 
See you in court, might not end as they wanted and Imagine and Mirage comics might not come that fast too(ditto dark horse too).

According to Shooter, First's suit was garbage as they accused Marvel of flooding the market and used their influence to inflate their prices to put First of business, and there is this...

This accusation was proved baseless in discovery, as it was shown that Marvel's prices were much higher than First's, which didn't make Marvel very happy.

Interestingly, Bruce Timm (yes, THAT Bruce Timm) posted this on Shooter's blog:

Sometime in the early '90s (sorry I can't be more precise) my boss at Warner Bros. Animation, Jean McCurdy, called me into her office and casually dropped a bomb on me : "Do we have any interest in licensing the Marvel Comics characters?"

I'm guesing she considered me the in-house Superhero Expert or something, because Of my position as one of the head honchos on the animated Batman show. Anyhow, I was pretty floored! It was all kind of vague — don't remember
her exact wording, but the gist was that Marvel was hurting financially, and had sent out a feeler to see if Warners would be interested in licensing some of their characters for animation.

My reaction was two-fold: first I said "Hell yes, we're interested! Spider-man, Hulk, the F.F., all super-iconic, all ready-made for animation." Then I said that if Marvel was financially vulnerable, maybe we should think about acquiring the whole company. Jean's eyes lit up at that suggestion, as you can imagine. My on-the-spur-of-the-moment pitch was that Warners would then own and control all the top superheroes in the world. Probably wouldn't be cheap, but boy, it could sure pay off in the long run.

Long story short, nothing ever came of it. Next time I asked Jean about it she said the idea was a non-starter, anti-trust issues, etc. Dunno if she'd actually floated the idea to Upper Management or not. Like I said before, sorry I'm a bit fuzzy on the timeline — my memory is that this was after our Batman show was already on the air, so that makes it 1992 at the earliest — and it was probably after the Image guys had all left Marvel, but before Marvel was bought out by Toy Biz.

Even though the PoD is 1984 (well before the timeline Timm mentions) and Marvel Productions is still going strong, it would make for some interesting butterflies if Marvel gives WB the movie rights to their characters as part of the deal.
 
Even though the PoD is 1984 (well before the timeline Timm mentions) and Marvel Productions is still going strong, it would make for some interesting butterflies if Marvel gives WB the movie rights to their characters as part of the deal.
Ummm how that would be.... again maybe if Marvel got bankrupt will Warner just absord marvel alongside getting DC back?
 
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