Highway 62

Okay. Here we go. Imagine Marvel Comics is dead. Marvel Entertainment, for whom Marvel Comics serves as a publishing arm, has seen fit to either sell or license off its stock of characters, and really the whole of the Marvel Universe, lock stock and barrel. There are no more Marvel Comics. No Spidey indicia (oops, I’m dating myself here) at the bottom of the cover. No “Marvel Comics Presents.”

First we have to understand what that really means. Or at least what I think it means (hey, it’s only fair, as it’s my column). It might seem that Marvel Comics exists to put funnybooks in our hands every month and to tell us stories and keep us entertained as we try not to think of other things (like diapers that need to be changed or how to get supposedly ‘water-based’ paint out of new carpet).

Wrong. Not true. Incorrect.

Marvel Comics exists as a way for Marvel Entertainment to perpetuate and disperse its various intellectual properties. That’s it, plain and simple. Remember, The X-Men (new or otherwise) are chattel. Spiderman? He’s spoken for. Captain America? He’s a franchise. All those characters that we know and love are simply assets, resources to be tapped or shelved for another day (or awaiting perhaps a lucrative rebirth, such as those that Daredevil and the X-Men and any of the Ultimate titles underwent).

Yeah, the same thing applies to that other publisher, I know. Just that there’s been more talk about Marvel at this point, so I’m using them as my example.

Okay, where was I? Right. Property. As it stands right now, Marvel both holds the copyright/trademark on the characters AND it develops the material to publish AND it publishes that material. I think that could be referred to as ‘vertical integration’, but I could easily be mistaken. Marvel’s involved at every step of the way. Marvel’s editors determine the direction of the books and makes sure that the books get out to Diamond on time. This is how That Other Company does things as well.

Now, there’s been some talk recently of a number of things happening to Marvel. One of those possibilities is an outright sale of the entire company to a larger company (Sony was the popular candidate for a time, but I think that time has passed). Another of these possibilities is the sale of the publishing division, or a massive overhaul of how the publishing arm does business.

Can you say “Licensing?” Yep. There was talk that Marvel was going to license out the very thing that has made Marvel what it is. Its characters, its very universe. True, they’ve already done that for films (and what rotten luck/taste Marvel had throughout the 70s-90s in terms of its licensing, with the sole exception of the Hulk TV series). Licensing for films makes sense for Marvel, as they don’t have the method to make or market or distribute films. That’s a win-win, right? The movie companies make money on Marvel’s characters, Marvel makes money on the characters, folks enjoy the movies (or some of them, anyways). This is what it’s all about right?

Now, what happens when Marvel decides to not only license the characters for use in movies, but they decide that they don’t need to run an expensive publishing arm any longer and simply let other publishers do the work for them? Marvel licenses the rights to say, The Fantastic Four, to another publisher, who then does all the hard work of getting the books out to market and putting them in reader’s hands. Marvel takes a cut of things and gets their license fee and everything’s okay?

Well, yeah, I guess so. I mean, sure, you can make some money by clear cutting the old-growth forest and selling the timber off. I mean, those are some pretty damn big trees, right? You could pull a lot of two by fours out of something as tall as a giant redwood. Marvel could probably turn a tidy sum out of the rights to any of their big characters. Some more than others, certainly, but you get the picture. That makes some sense, right? Easy money.

Okay, but what happens when you’ve cut down and sold all the old trees? Okay, it’s not a perfect analogy, as licenses are technically renewable (so long as someone wants them, which assumes that they’re profitable) but work with me here. The forest has been cleared and you have nothing else to offer. Sure, there’s some saplings here and there, but nothing that’s going to fetch as big a sum as those century-old virgin forests.

There’s a reason for that, too. I don’t want to digress and wander through the topic of what is and isn’t an iconic character, but there’s only really a handful of them between both companies. Time is one of the largest reasons for that. They’ve had the proper time and (over) exposure necessary to turn them from characters to icons. Not an easy task, certainly. Marvel and DC both are built on their icons, their marquee characters.

What happens when they sell those off? They’re literally selling the foundation of their companies. Even licensing, to a degree, does this. Whether you regard it as an admission that the company is so far out of touch that it doesn’t even know how to market it’s own characters itself, or you see it as shortsighted greed or a good idea to keep costs down, it’s a slippery slope.

When intellectual property is what your company sells, to take yourself out of that equation seems to me to be a dangerous step to take. Sure, you might get to exercise some control over how the license is used (note the crucial anagram ‘sued’) but you also run the risk of diluting the very thing you’re selling.

Do I think that Marvel is going to turn around and do any of this? I dunno, it sure seemed kinda likely during the Perlman era. I remember it being talked about more than once as a way to pull some value out of Marvel post-crash. You’d think that Marvel is doing better than that now, that they’re looking to be more than a clearinghouse for their intellectual property. Personally, I think that Marvel’s more than that, but I can certainly imagine them being reduced to less.

For sentimental reasons, if nothing else, I’d rather not see that happen. Not unless it means something crazy like Alan Moore buying up the license to The Hulk or Grant Morrison getting DC to bankroll a revitalized Fantastic Four.

Of course, I don’t even want to consider the logistics of licensing an entire universe. It’s enough to make even Utau lose his patience, at least.

And here’s a tidbit that applies to the matter at hand, though in an unexpected way. I didn’t see this coming, but apparently the rumor that Marvel is looking at buying Artisan Entertainment is now circulating. This is certainly an interesting development, and turns the whole clear-cut thing on its head, but as I noted, it was conjecture. However, this would be the most logical way for Marvel to not only preserve its trademarks, but to maximize return on them. Why settle for licensing fees when you can have the whole enchilada?

You just have to make a movie or two, right? How hard can that be?

Anyone?

PS – You’re all reading Catwoman, right? If you aren’t, then Catwoman #20 is a great place to start. New reader friendly! You’ve no excuse. Go. Now.