The Week in Geek: August 15-21

Welcome back to another Week in Geek, where we round up all the geektastic news from around the internet. That is, around my own personal internet; these, of course, are the stories I might have written about here at The Vault if I hadn't already written about them for someone giving me money. So rather than risk having one of you actually miss one of my epic posts, I'm now repackaging them in what is not even a remotely lazy weekly format.

So what might you have missed over the past week? Glad I pretended you asked:

• August 16 -- Is 'The Expendables' Sylvester Stallone's Biggest Opening Ever? : Short answer: yes, yes it is. Of course, that's due in large part to inflation and massively increased ticket prices, otherwise First Blood 2 or Rocky IV would be the answer. Time: the great unequalizer.

• August 18 -- January Jones Cast in New 'X-Men' Movie: I know what you're thinking: huh? What now? But let's face it -- 95% of comic fans just want to know if she's going to be wearing the white leather corset or not. It doesn't even matter who is inside it. Sad but true.

• August 19 -- Seth Rogen to Get Schooled in 'Boo U.' : It's always helpful to be warned of projects like this far enough in advance to make sure you can fully avoid them.

• August 20 -- Tim Burton Reunites With 'Ed Wood' Scribes for 'Addams Family' : This actually could be cool. It's going to be a stop motion feature based on the original Addams Family cartoons rather than the watered down TV show.

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Decade in Review: Conquering Hollywood

Welcome to the latest in our occasional series looking back at the themes, events and personalities that shaped the last decade in comics. Last time we discussed the rise of the event book as the primary mover within the mainstream comic book (and specifically superhero) industry. Today we take a look at a development that has far larger cultural and fiscal ramifications for comics: the conquering of Hollywood.

Movies based on comics books are nothing new, of course; starting in the late 70's, the Superman films remained popular for over a decade. And just when that franchise was wrapping up, the Batman films kicked off. During the 90's, as the Batman line devolved into kitsch, films began mining comics for lesser known properties such as Men in Black. But while comic films were a viable part of the Hollywood strategy, they were just one minor aspect of the industry, barely more than a cultural footnote. Something was missing.

That something, as it turned out, was Marvel. Just as they revolutionized the comic industry in the early 1960's, Marvel helped lead an overhaul not just of the comic adaptation ghetto but of the movie industry in general and pop culture as a whole. Beginning with 2000's X-Men and 2002's Spider-Man, Marvel properties pushed the boundaries of what was possible with comic movies (teams, for instance, rather than just solo heroes) while also redefining the box office; the $403 million brought in by Spider-man was at the time the fifth highest gross in movie history.

Where there's that kind of money, of course, imitators will follow. And while not every comic book movie has been a critical or commercial success (see: Catwoman, Elektra, et al), studios have turned more and more to comics for both big budget superhero franchises as well as smaller budget action adaptations (Wanted, for example).

As the appeal of comic films has broadened, so too has the influence of comic fans increased. Nowhere is this better seen than with the ascension of the San Diego Comic Con, which over the past decade has evolved form a mid-sized gathering of comic fans into the premiere movie event of the year, with studios falling over each other to present bigger and splashier previews of their upcoming sci-fi films and TV shows. If osmehting is a hit at Comic Con, it's likely going to make money at the box office; and if it is a flop, then, lookout below. And with the advent of instant feedback social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, the buzz from Comic Con spreads across the globe instantaneously: two of the biggest hits of the decade, 2008's The Dark Knight and Iron Man, rode massive Comic Con buzz to box office history.

Which makes one aspect of the rise of comic movies somewhat difficult to understand: while the characters and films are more popular than ever, the comic books themselves are selling at an unprecedentedly low rate, with sales continuing to hemorrhage even as potential buyers flock to the megaplex for the latest blockbuster. For whatever reason, widespread popularity and cultural influence have not yet translated into a rise in sales, something that publishers will need to figure out sooner rather than later.

For the time, though, it now seems as though the value of comic books to the publishers lies not in the comics themselves, but rather in the potential marketing opportunities those comics create. Because of this, the popularity of comic book movies has had the strange side effect of actually devaluing the comics themselves and potentially handcuffing creators of properties in development (though this is not always the case; Marvel, for example, allowed Iron Man to be portrayed as a fascist wing-nut in the comics at the same time production on the Iron Man feature film was progressing).

But perhaps because of this dichotomy, publishers are being forced to take drastic measures to protect their new primary source of income, and again, it's Marvel leading the way. The creation of Marvel Studios was one of the biggest gambles in recent Hollywood memory, with Marvel borrowing some $500 million to produce their own films in-house, a move necessitated by the fact that under their old deals for the X-Men and Fantastic Four franchises, they were receiving only a small flat fee and a tiny percentage of earnings, while the studios raked in the money off of their properties (and yes, this can be seen as ironic considering those characters in turn were created on a work for hire basis for Marvel by creators who weren't seeing a dime from Marvel in return). But with their comics sagging, Marvel had few other options, as they needed the revenue streams their characters were generating to stay in house.

In turn, of course, the popularity of Marvel's films convinced Disney that, again, the characters (and not the actual comic books) were now iconic and popular enough to warrant a buyout. It has been widely speculated that Disney's purchase of Marvel won't affect the publishing arm and why should it: after all, in the grand scheme of things, the comics are now little more than an afterthought, a petri dish for the next actionable ideas to come from. What Disney was getting was access to those ideas -- a huge backlog of characters, concepts and properties that, if the last decade is any indicator, may well provide Hollywood with the next massive pop culture hits and worldwide blockbusters. The next big test is coming up in 2012, when The Avengers is scheduled to hit theaters. And if that experiment -- bringing a comic-style shared universe onto the big screen for the first time in movie history -- turns out to be a success, then comic movies and Marvel may just manage to change the way people think of movies and what kinds of stories can be told in film.

And if that happens, then the amazing successes of the last decade will be little more than a prologue to the real show. We hope you like comic movies, because we have a feeling you'll be getting a lot more for a long time to come.

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Presidents in Comics: The Clinton Years

Welcome back to the latest installment of our weeklong look at how American presidents have been depicted in comics. So far we've touched on Roosevelt forming the Justice Society, Nixon using the powers of entropy to bring about wold destruction and Reagan turning into a mindless snake-man. Today we're up to the 1990's and that means, of course, Bill Clinton.

Of course, there was a president in between Reagan and Clinton, but like other one-term presidents, George H. W. Bush didn't have a huge impact on the comics scene; he didn't even manage to have that one bizarre story like Gerald Ford to etch him in the public consciousness. Perhaps his highest profile appearance was in the pages of Mike Grell's hot button issue series Green Arrow. In the pivotal arc "Blood of the Dragon", culminating in Green Arrow #24, readers discover that Green Arrow has (unknown to him) fathered a child with his occasional rival, the expert archer assassin Shado. This comes to light when Shado is blackmailed by the Yakuza to assassinate President Bush when they take her son hostage. Green Arrow, however, saves the boy, freeing Shado from her obligation; Bush, meanwhile, is also saved just in the nick of time as a back-up assassin is about to finish him using a poison pen.

Otherwise, though, it's Clinton who has the larger legacy as a comic character. This is in some ways fitting because Clinton is also the first president to be an admitted fan of comic books. Unlike Barack Obama, who appears to retain some appreciation of the medium (which we will discuss more tomorrow), Clinton got out of comics early, eventually turning his collection into a source of income when he sold it off as a teen. For some reason this story came to light during a conversation with the Russian media, but I've tracked down a YouTube clip where Clinton himself explains his comic book connections to... Calista Flockhart for some reason.



As far as his actual appearances within the comics, as with most of his predecessors, the majority were of a ceremonial nature, with presidential cameos acting as a way to ground stories in the real world while also adding weight to them. If the president is in the comic, after all, then something important must be taking place. One example of this type of use took place when President and Mrs. Clinton appeared at Superman's funeral following the character's death in Superman #75.

Like his post-Nixon predecessors, however, Clinton also was used for parodies and for a broader artistic expression than merely showing up in his normal capacity as presidential figurehead for comic events. In Supreme: The Return #1, for example, an alien warlord named Korgo lands on Earth and formally issues a challenge to Bill Clinton as head of the free world. Clinton is defeated, but Korgo ends up throwing the match to escape Hillary Clinton, preferring exile. This cutting edge commentary was written by legendary comics genius Alan Moore, for whatever that's worth.

While the use of Clinton as a character was in many way similar to the presidents that came before him, it differs in one major way: Clinton, for whatever reason, has remained a viable comic book character even after leaving office. There have been some instances of presidents being used after their term was up, of course, but these are almost entirely cases of stories being set in the past, such as the near universal use of President Roosevelt in contemporary stories set during the Golden Age.

Clinton, however, is different in that he is still being used for current roles as both an ex-president and as a broader character in general (and sometimes both). Just this past September, for example, it was announced that Marc Guggenheim was planning to add Clinton as a regular cast member in his post-apocalyptic action series Resurrection, which may be the first time that a president has actually become a regular character in his own right rather than a stunt guest star. As Guggenheim told Comic Book Resources, "I believe we're charting new territory."

Perhaps the most infamous use of Clinton post-presidency, however, was his odd appearance in Uncanny X-Men #401. In this story, which was part of a special silent month at Marvel where no words appeared in any of their titles, Wolverine confronts a mutant hooker named Stacy-X. In the course of his encounter with her, Logan stumbles across a client of hers, flopped on a bed; thanks to photos on the bedstand, it's clear that her client is none other than former President Bill Clinton.

What makes this so curious, of course, beyond the obvious lame Clinton horndog angle, is the fact that the script actually didn't have Clinton in it at all -- instead, the original politician who was going to be pilloried was actually... Rudy Giuliani? Yes, originally Marvel was going to use the then mayor of New York in what was likely intended as commentary on Giuliani's marriage-destroying affair with Judith Nathan.

So what caused the sudden change? At first glance it might look like some sort of overt political decision to switch out the Republican mayor for the former Democratic president. And there's no doubt it was political, but in a different way: the story was (likely) changed due to the events of September 11. In the aftermath, Marvel, which of course is based in downtown New York, was quite prominent in efforts to raise money for survivors and probably felt it would be in poor taste to run this kind of commentary on Giuliani, who at the time was being widely praised for his efforts. Instead, an easy and seemingly benign new target was chosen as an acceptable stand-in for this scene: President Clinton.


Tomorrow: George Bush! Barack Obama! One wins, one dies! Okay, that's not true, but one does win in the world of comics. Hmm. I wonder which one comes out on top?

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Seven Questions with FABIAN NICIEZA

Today we have the good fortune to present an interview with none other than Fabian Nicieza. Over the course of his long and storied career in comics, Fabian has written a number of popular series including New Warriors, X-Force, X-Men, Thunderbolts, Cable and Deadpool, Nightwing, Robin and Trinity. He also was the writer for the short lived Hawkeye series, which I didn't ask him about but which I wanted to give a shout out to because I thought it was really sweet. Anyway, enough with the introduction, let's get right into the interview!



1. You’re right in the thick of Battle For the Cowl over in the Batman books. What can you tell us about that story, and what other projects do you have lined up for when it ends?

Battle for the Cowl was a natural extension of the storyline that Grant had planned for Batman R.I.P. and the disappearance/seeming death of Bruce Wayne during Final Crisis. Knowing there would be an aftermath to the loss of Bruce for all the Bat-family made for a perfect opportunity to really shake-up the status quo on every single title in the Bat-verse and editors Mike Marts and Mike Siglain have taken advantage of that opportunity.

I've been lucky enough to be asked to work on some of the titles coming out during this period, which led to the new monthly Azrael title this October, as well as getting a chance to write the Batman and Detective Annuals.


2. You recently spent a year working with Kurt Busiek on the weekly series Trinity. How does collaborating with another writer differ from the usual collaboration you have with your artists and editors? And how does your approach change with a weekly book instead of a monthly book, if at all?

I enjoyed collaborating with Kurt a lot. He is so good at finding the core of every character and finding the right place in a story to utilize that understanding. I had co-written in the past, but never in anything so involved and long-term as Trinity was, and I found it a great learning experience, as well as a fun challenge from the standpoint of pacing, structure, characterization and even the schedule. I think we all rose to the challenge and did a very solid job on the title. It wasn't the greatest comic ever published, but within the context of the parameters of a 52 issue story coming out every single week, I think we did a real good job of making a fun popcorn thrill ride with lots of interesting, unexpected "little moments" as well.

And all this is despite the fact that Kurt is a Red Sox fan...



3. You’ve been under exclusive contract with DC for awhile now after a long tenure at Marvel. I’m wondering if you find writing DC characters to be significantly different than writing Marvel characters. Not necessarily in terms of editorial or the companies themselves, but do the settings, themes and characters – the milieu of the DC Universe as opposed to the MU – naturally lend themselves to a different style or story or a different kind of storytelling? Or is it basically the same game just with different toys?

You know, I haven't given that a lot of thought, since I tend to handle the assignment I have without thinking about such philosphical esoterica. To me, the meanings of a "DC hero" or a "Marvel hero" are really relics of the Silver Age in the 60's. I think through the 80's into today, everyone working on superhero comics has tried to approach their work with the Stan Lee sensibility of giving characters personalities, conflicts, foibles and weaknesses. To that extent, I think the approach to superheroes is uniform across the board. Personally, I think Marvel's universe has become a bit grimmer than DC's over the last few years. I know we have plenty of death and despair at DC, but the grimness from Marvel comes from an inherent specter of the real world being a bad place. "Government can't be trusted" or "authority = evil and coercion," while at DC the grimness seems to stem more from difficult character arcs, i.e. Superman or Batman's current status quo, or overlying "villainous threats" such as the events in Green Lantern.


4. Along those same lines, I know that as a young reader you were a fan of Avengers over on the Marvel side. What DC titles or creators were (or are) you a fan of and which DC properties might you want to work with in the future?

I was a big fan of Infantino's Batman without even knowing it back when I was young. Gil Kane's work on Robin, Dave Cockrum on Legion, Steven Englehart and Marshall Rogers on Detective, Len Wein and Dick Dillin's JLA. As for characters I'd want to write, well, I got to write my three favorite DC characters already in Nightwing/Robin, Superman and Hawkman. I've also gotten to write Ragman, who is a quirky favorite, and I'll be using him in an issue of Azrael as well. That being said, I would never say no to writing Dick Grayson in any way shape or form, whenever I'm asked, and I sure would love a crack at a monthly Hawkman title. No offense to the many very talented people who have worked on him before, but I know I would write the most interesting Hawkman book ever.


5. Recently some of the characters you were strongly associated with at Marvel have had significant and controversial changes, from the New Warriors being scapegoated and disbanded in Civil War to the revelation of Shatterstar’s relationship with Rictor. In this past instance, Rob Liefeld came out publicly against the change. Did either of these stories bother you as a creator or are these sorts of changes just part of working within a shared universe? Or both?

Honestly, I haven't read any of them, so I can't comment on the quality of the work or how appropriate they were to the core truths of the characters involved. I will say that the companies own these characters so editors and writers working on them today are expected to write stories that are just as good -- or just as bad -- or better -- or worse -- as any that came before them.


6. You’ve recently scripted some direct-to-video animated movies, including Hot Wheels World Race and The Black Belt Club. How does writing a script for this sort of project differ from preparing a comic book script? And do you have any more non-comics projects in the works?

Movie or animation scripts require a three act structure that isn't always conducive to comic book structure, so whereas comics are a series of smaller stories in service to a never-ending story, movies should be self-contained stories that have a history and a future built into the tae being told. I do a lot of non-comics work, more than comics at this point, but it's not strictly script-writing. I work with Starlight Runner Entertainment in NYC on transmedia development and content management, caretaking and producing borderline academic dissertations for corporate Intellectual Properties for companies such as Disney, Fox Feature Films, Coca Cola, Microsoft among others. I've also been working for a year on a kids sports/entertainment website and we are almost to the point where we are ready to begin active production towards a goal for a live beta test late next year.


7. Lastly, what’s one specific storytelling technique you use that you could share with new creators to help them hone their craft?

I always try to make sure that the voice you read is that of the character and not of the writer. The words they say should be what THEY believe and not necessarily what you believe, how they say it and not necessarily how you say it. You are using them to tell your story, but never forget it is their story.

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Breaking News: Disney Buys Marvel

When I woke up this morning I had no idea that a pop culture apocalypse was about to engulf two entire universes. I got up and went about my routine, checking the box scores from the late game and struggling to achieve the perfect level of toastiness on my bagel, content in the sameness of yet another day. And then, as though Superboy were punching the very walls of reality, a deluge of emails, tweets and CNN Money alerts just about split my brain in two: Disney is buying Marvel Comics.

A lot of comic fans seemed ready to do their best Gwen Stacy impersonation and dive off the nearest bridge, fearing interference from Disney in Marvel’s creative process, but as more information has become available throughout the day about the buyout this has faded a bit. While there are some legitimate concerns about how this will affect both Marvel and Disney, there are also some obvious opportunities, not just on the company side but on the creative side of things as well. As a huge fan of both Marvel and Disney, then, here’s a breakdown of the merger as I see it, with commentary and speculation broken up into three major categories: the Impact on Comics, the Impact on Movies and the Impact on Theme Parks.

Impact on Comics

The biggest question most comic readers have is, how will this affect the stories themselves? In the past, Disney was not exactly known as being hand-off in their approach to subsidiary companies, and some level of creative control (or interference, depending on your point of view) over Marvel is not an unreasonable expectation.

However, I think that’s the Disney of the past more than a reflection of their current strategy, as shown by their deal with Pixar four years ago. It’s important to note that the impetus behind the acquisition of Pixar was not to implement Disney control over Pixar but the opposite. Recognizing that Pixar had seized the mantle of creativity and innovation away from Disney, Disney decided to merge in order to bring the talent from Pixar over to re-energize Disney. They weren’t trying so sublimate or even co-opt Pixar so much as they were trying on a creative level to become Pixar. And by all accounts, the result for both companies has been very successful.

With this as an example, then, I think it’s fair to assume that like Pixar, Marvel is going to remain a separate brand with a fair amount of artistic license to do their own thing. That’s not to say, however, that Disney won’t have some influence on what Marvel decides to do. The first concern would have to be the fact that most creators aren’t Marvel employees but rather are freelancers doing contract work for Marvel. In the past, Disney has not always had the best record as an employer, and it’s possible that some creators will shy away from working for Marvel because of this. It’s also possible that creators simply will not want to work for Disney for creative reasons; under Marvel editor-ion-chief Joe Quesada, creators have had a level of freedom that was previously rare in mainstream comics, leading to more mature content. It’s possible that some of these creators will now prefer to work for independent publishers like Dark Horse and Image, or publish under the Vertigo banner at DC, rather than mess around with Disney at all. And issues over creator rights – whether creators should retain rights to characters and ideas they create while doing work-for-hire, an issue that has been contentious in comic circles for decades – may become even more important with Disney now potentially holding the rights to new properties.

Because of these issues, it’s certainly possible that while Disney may not exert any direct influence over the product being created, the mere fact of Disney owning the company could lead to some turnover in the creative teams on the comics themselves. This may not entirely be a negative, either; with Disney and Pixar animators being some of the top cartoonists in the world, it’s possible that some of these artists may begin moving over to Marvel as well, which would be nothing but positive.

Putting creative issues aside for the moment, though, one of the biggest opportunities for Marvel in this deal is the potential for Disney’s unparalleled distribution and promotion systems to introduce Marvel comics to new, worldwide audiences. Not the characters, mind you, but the comics themselves. If Disney’s marketing machine gets behind Marvel, you could see a resurgence of comics on newsstands and comics could begin to be both available and heavily hyped in other venues like Disney stores, theme parks and other retail venues worldwide. This could potentially be a major game changer for the publishing side of Marvel.

However, it does have some pitfalls, as this is where Disney’s creative control really becomes an issue. Because of the more violent and graphic nature of some of Marvel’s biggest comics, Disney may have some problems promoting these books side-by-side with, for instance, their line of Princess picture books. Figuring out how to maintain Marvel as a separate creative entity while still capitalizing on Disney’s marketing power is going to be a tricky thing.

My guess is that the solution will be increased branding. Marvel has had limited success with branding different lines of comics as separate entities; the Ultimate universe has been fairly successful for a decade, and the Marvel Adventures line of books aimed at younger audiences has been fairly well received, but other brands like MAX and Marvel Knights aren’t necessarily seen as separate lines so much as Parental Advisory labels. DC, on the other hand, has had more success, with Vertigo almost considered a separate company at this point. And Disney themselves have been able to keep their more mature Touchstone and Miramax studio imprints separate from their more family friendly Disney and Pixar releases.

So I think Disney and Marvel will want to take a page from the DC playbook and aggressively brand different lines of comics. The Marvel Adventures line of all-ages books could be expanded significantly, though perhaps with a new brand name that would also allow them to incorporate kid-friendly comics based on Disney properties. Meanwhile, the mainstream Marvel Universe should, in my opinion, become the Vertigo of Marvel. Most of the content in the major Marvel books has become mature to the point of nearly needing a MAX label on it (Dark Reign: Hawkeye comes to mind) and having such a brand probably wouldn’t adversely affect current readership, as most people who are turned off by this more mature approach to these iconic characters have already quit reading the titles anyway. In sum, then, what I am proposing is basically an all-ages reboot of the Marvel Universe that Disney can aggressively promote, with the current Marvel Universe in effect becoming the Ultimate Universe.

The other issue that this idea brings up is just what Disney is planning to do with the publishing licenses for its own characters. Currently, Boom! Studios is publishing books based on Pixar characters as well as the Muppets, while Gemstone puts out comics based on the regular Disney characters. Other publishers like Papercutz also have licenses such as the Disney Fairies title that editor-in-chief Jim Salicrup mentioned in my interview with him yesterday. It seems unlikely that Disney will continue to farm out their comics when they have Marvel as an in-house publisher, especially considering Marvel has a significantly larger market share in the comic industry than any of their competitors. I don’t know how this will shake out legally, but it seems likely that Disney will eventually turn over the licenses to Marvel which should mean a much larger line of Disney comics published by Marvel. It’s possible that if this happens, the branding I mentioned above will be unnecessary and Disney will focus on selling these Disney comics through their various marketing arms, but I think that would be leaving a lot of potential growth for Marvel on the table and thus I think it’s unlikely.

Impact on Movies

Like the issue with Disney’s publishing licenses, the impact of this deal on the movie side of things is complicated by the fact that Marvel has signed away the rights to many of their largest properties to other movie companies such as Fox. This means that while film franchises such as Spider-man and X-Men may be mega-hits, they won’t be hits for Disney. In addition, the distribution rights for those films Marvel does still control are tied up with other studios as well, part of the infrastructure Marvel set up when they created their own film company.

However, from what I’ve been reading, neither of these facts are major issues on the Disney side of things. On the contrary, it appears that Disney’s interests here aren’t so much with major franchises such as Fantastic Four but more with lesser known, second tier properties. Iron Man proved that even a character that is almost completely unknown outside of comic circles can still become a massive blockbuster if it is done well by people who understand and respect the source material. Because of this, Disney is hoping to recapture this kind of success by leveraging other lesser known characters into major franchises as well.

This is very good news for comic fans for a couple of reasons. One of the major concerns many fans have with this deal in terms of the film rights is how the similar set-up between Warner Brothers Studios and DC Comics has effectively squelched DC’s ability to get movies made with their characters. Because they can’t shop their properties around (Warner Brothers has control because they are both owned by Time/Warner), DC basically is stuck with whatever decisions Warner makes, and that usually has meant obvious hits like Justice League of America and Wonder Woman get shitcanned instead of produced.

From the sounds of it, though, Disney and Marvel have quite the opposite in mind. Because Marvel has their own studios, they themselves are in control of what they make and now Disney is coming in and basically saying that they want Marvel to make even more movies, not less. And since Marvel is going to benefit from Disney’s enormous financial backing, they now will have the financial wherewithal to not only make more movies, but make them with budgets large enough to ensure they are up to snuff.

In addition, there is a positive parallel that can be drawn from the DC comparison as well. For years, DC has been more likely to keep struggling series going because they can rely on the larger Time/Warner infrastructure to absorb the losses; this allows them to keep publishing critically acclaimed stuff like Jonah Hex, in part to help set up potential film tie-ins (and in part because they recoup more in the trade market as well). If Disney does push Marvel to make more films featuring lesser known characters, it’s likely that those characters would not only get their own series in order to help promotion but also that the series, once started, would be more likely to stick around even if sales on the comic itself aren’t good. The result could be an expansion of Marvel’s line in general with a new emphasis on some of the less popular characters that currently get bumped from the schedule to make room for more proven sellers like another Wolverine or Avengers title.

Beyond feature films, of course, there are some other areas where the merger of Marvel and Disney is going to impact things. One bit that has been widely circulated is that Marvel met with Pixar head honcho John Lasseter to discuss how Pixar’s experience with Disney has gone and this discussion turned to the possibility of making some films. I don’t think it’s likely that Pixar will be making any movies based on Marvel characters (despite the fact that they have already done so in The Incredibles), but there is a strong possibility we will be getting a slew of new direct-to-video animated movies instead.

Of course, this could be bad, but on the other hand Marvel is already occasionally putting out direct-to-video cartoons anyway; this will simply ensure that they are of high quality. And if you like those cartoons, there’s a good chance you’ll be a getting a lot more of them in the future. There are some negatives, of course. The main question is what audience these movies would be produced for. There is a large, built-in audience for Disney videos, and not just people who were fans of the original Lion King and want to read the newest sequel. Some families buy Disney videos across the board regardless of the specific content because of the power of the Disney brand. Bringing Marvel into this might open up a huge new stream of revenue as well as a potentially vast new reader base, but it also would necessitate tailoring the movies to that audience rather than to the current comic book readership.

This is the essence of the fear most comic fans have: that they are going to be phased out in favor of a different (and much larger) new readership. I don’t think that’s going to happen entirely, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were true to a degree and the most likely place for this to occur isn’t in the comics themselves but in the direct-to-video market. If that were to take off enough to start influencing the comics, then there might be an issue, but if so it would be several years down the road.

Impact on Theme Parks

Of course, many people’s immediate reaction upon seeing this news was “what’s going to happen with Universal Studios?” As part of their Islands of Adventure theme park, Universal has a Marvel Island, including Spider-man and Hulk rides among others.

Now, chances are that, like the film and licensing deals, Marvel has some sort of long term contract with Universal that allows them to use these characters. Unlike those relationships, however, I suspect that the marriage between Marvel and Universal is going to come to a swift end when (and if) this acquisition from Marvel goes through. It’s true that Disney will probably want to get the characters over to their park as soon as possible, but I think the main impetus is going to come from the Universal side. After all, why would Universal want to be giving free publicity to its main rival?

Because of this, my guess is that the two sides are going to quickly come to some sort of mutual arrangement in the form of a buyout or something and that Marvel Island will soon be a relic of the past. Now, it’s possible that Universal will hold on to Marvel Island to try and stick it to Disney – I wouldn’t put it past either side in the theme park war – but my gut tells me that one way or another, Marvel’s relationship with Universal will come to an end as soon as this deal is finalized.

So, where are those Marvel characters going to end up? My guess is at the theme park that used to be Disney/MGM Studios. MGM and Disney recently ended their relationship, meaning the park and attractions have been and are being altered to remove the MGM aspect of things. With superhero movies being such major business these days, it makes perfect sense for Marvel Entertainment to step into this gap and provide some of the content for the park. A re-imagined Disney/Marvel Studios would allow them to hype their brand while also bringing in Marvel characters to wander the park and new Marvel themed rides, all within the larger existing structure of the popular Disney Studios theme park.

If this does happen, the ripples will also be felt overseas at the other Disney theme parks. For example, there is a Disney Studios theme park right next to Disneyland Paris, and giving this park a new Marvel twist would make sense as superheroes are now one of the main bits of American culture being sent out to international film audiences. It also opens the doorway for Disney’s merchandising arm to get a foothold in new marketplaces in terms of selling and promoting Marvel characters. Disney theme parks are among the most effective tools Disney has to publicize their characters to foreign audiences who may not be familiar with The Little Mermaid but who are very familiar with Disney World and Disneyland; adding Marvel to the theme park mix will introduce a huge new demographic to the idea of Marvel characters, which in turn means more fans, more viewers, more readers and, of course, more money for everyone.

Conclusion

From my point of view as both a Disney and Marvel fan, I think this deal makes sense for both sides. While there are some legitimate concerns about how the merger will affect the creative side of Marvel and some tricky legal questions about how to regain control of certain properties, overall I think the upside significantly outweighs the downside. Having access to Marvel characters helps renew the Disney brand and, like their deal with Pixar, could invigorate the company as new ideas and new creative talent joins the company. Likewise, having the huge marketing and financial might of Disney behind them could allow Marvel to expand their publishing and film concerns while exposing their product to a nearly infinitely larger audience than is currently reading their books. It may not result in the same Marvel we currently have, but it could result in a bigger and ultimately better Marvel and, who knows, maybe even help revive the failing comic industry as a whole.

And just the possibility of that happening is enough for me to give this deal a big thumbs up.

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What If: Marvel's Great Licensing Experiment

Previously in the licensed worlds of Marvel Comics: Rom, Spaceknight evolved from a failed toy to an acclaimed centerpiece of Marvel continuity that became both the best team-up book ever and the primary force behind one of Marvel’s first mega events. That was yesterday. Today we’re going to take a look at some of the other crossovers between Marvel superheroes and their licensed properties as we continue to explore one of the stranger chapters in Marvel history, when toys, cartoon characters and superheroes all mingled together in one fantastic world.

[Note: this is not, by any means, a comprehensive list, it's just a cross-section of interesting examples. I'm not Sean McQuaid here, folks.]

You may recall that during my discussion of Rom yesterday, I described that series as being the only licensed book to be fully integrated into the Marvel Universe. However, that’s not technically true. There was one other long running licensed comic that was also firmly placed in Marvel continuity – it was just so small that I overlooked it. So let’s start off our crossover overview with a look at these tiny sci-fi heroes: the Micronauts.

The X-Men and the Micronauts

During the late 70’s, it became clear to Marvel that X-Men was turning into a massive hit property, so they quickly did the logical thing: they pimped the sweet hell out of them. Within a period of five or six years, the X-Men managed to team up with other superheroes (see: X-Men and Alpha Flight), other companies (see: X-Men and the New Teen Titans), angry magazine mascots (see: Obnoxio the Clown vs. The X-Men) , random civic potlucks (see: X-Men at the State Fair of Texas) and, of course, homemade comics from young fans (see: Kitty Pryde Meets Scott Harris Under the Bleachers #1-245). So from a marketing standpoint it only made sense for Marvel to throw the X-Men together with their hit toy property, Micronauts.

The surprising thing here is that, unlike most of these team-ups, this one got its own series. The X-Men and the Micronauts lasted four issues and told the tale of, well, microscopic astronauts appearing on Earth and the X-Men shrinking themselves down to tiny size. I mean, what else was it going to be about? We’ve already seen from the way Rom storylines affected Uncanny X-Men that Chris Claremont and Micronauts writer Bill Mantlo are comfortable working together, but to be honest this series is just kind of meh. It also has the unfortunate side effect of reminding everyone that the Micronauts are, you know, subatomically tiny, which makes it harder for me personally to take uber villain Baron Karza very seriously.

One side note of interest: like Rom’s supporting cast, Marvel owns the rights to characters it created during the duration of Micronauts. Because of that, some Micronauts, like Bug (who is currently appearing in Guardians of the Galaxy), are still part of the Marvel Universe, while those that were based on the toy line (like Acroyear) are not. Weird.

Fantastic Four and the Shogun Warriors

Hey, remember Shogun Warriors? They were giant robot toys from Japan that were imported to America to try to capture some of our big capitalist toy market. In a lot of ways they were like prototypes for the Transformers – they sort of fit together and came apart to form giant robots, but not exactly, and like the Transformers, they turned to Marvel to try and help develop some sort of actual reasons for kids to buy this stuff (though the anime compilation show Force Five did a much better job of this). Heck, there was even a Shogun Warriors villain named Megatron back before Marvel got around to naming the main Transformers baddie the same thing.

Unfortunately, the comic was a giant flop, so Marvel decided to pull out the stops and bring in the Fantastic Four for issues #19-20 as a last ditch effort to jump start the series. Written by Doug Moench, the stories are sadly (but not surprisingly) lame as all hell, featuring a classic Hero Misunderstanding Battle between the FF and Combatra when the Shogun guys head to the Baxter Building to warn Reed Richards that their arch enemy, a glowing space cookie named the Primal One, was aiming to snuff him.

One interesting thing does take place here: Moench, as writer of the Fantastic Four, has an epilogue in FF #226 that ties up loose ends for the series. So the three readers in the world that wondered what happened after Shogun Warriors ended, now you know where to look.

Spider-man and the Transformers

Now, here’s a comic that will make continuity buffs explode in a ball of fire and blood. During the original 4-issue Transformers mini-series (which was, of course, expanded to an ongoing title thanks to high sales), none other than the Amazing Spider-man showed up to help the Autobots out of a jam. Specifically, he was trying to help save that annoying Witwicky brat from, I dunno, getting drunk in a Walgreens and smashing his hand or something.

The point is, this crossover is treated as though it’s perfectly reasonable by everyone in the comic, even though it makes no sense for Spider-man to be in the Transformers world and even less sense for anything the Transformers are doing to be in the Marvel Universe (though, that would have been kind of awesome). I, however, have developed the perfect explanation for this, which I mentioned earlier this week. It goes like this: who cares! All that matters here is that Spider-man is hanging out with Optimus Prime; and when something completely unbelievable and awesome happens, asking how it could possibly be happening is beside the point and, I might add, a big turn off to the ladies (trust me). Just enjoy your, uh, web-slinging and leave the questions of continuity for lesser minds.

Spider-man and Red Sonja

Speaking of which. Marvel Team-Up #79 and Chris Clarmeont bring us a tale of magic, mystery and, well, complete fanwanking. Basically, ancient evil wizard Kulan Gath gets brought to the present though an evil amulet. Who can stop his nefarious powers? Well, how about Mary Jane Watson?

As far as I can tell, the main purpose for this comic to exist is to get Mary Jane into that ridiculous chainmail bikini of Red Sonja’s. In other words, it’s a grand and noble purpose. Through magic, Red Sonja somehow inhabits Mary Jane’s body and she then teams up with Spider-man to take down Kulan Gath. The only down side to this plot line is that, thanks to Mephisto, this has probably been retconned to say that it was Aunt May taken over by Red Sonja instead.

The best part of this story is that, in typical Claremont fashion, Gath would go on to appear again in many other comics, including one of my favorite stories ever, Uncanny X-Men #190-191 where he transforms Manhattan into Hyboria and faces off against swords and sorcery versions of the Avengers and X-Men. It might not be chainmail bikini awesome, but it’s pretty effing awesome!

The Human Fly and Ghost Rider

Human Fly is one of the odder entries on this list (which is saying something) due to the fact that the Human Fly wasn’t a toy or a pulp character: he was an actual guy. I don’t know exactly how the deal between the real Human Fly (a stuntman named Rick Rojatt) and Marvel worked, but basically in the comics he was exactly what he was in real life: a crazy stuntman who wore red longjohns and a Mexican wrestling mask.

The truly terrifying thing about his run-in with Ghost Rider in issue #2 is how much it must have scared young readers. After all, Marvel stressed that Human Fly was a real guy, and you could see Human Fly on TV and in the papers. So if he was meeting up with Ghost Rider, didn’t that mean that, ipso facto, Ghost Rider must also be a real person? A horrifying demon from hell itself who could show up at any moment and fix you with a penance stare to make yo pay for cheating on that phonics test?

I’m guessing this comic caused more eight-year-olds to crap themselves as they discovered the downside of logic than any other educational tool ever.

Thing and Doc Savage

Doc Savage is one of those old pulp characters that seems to have been infinitely more appealing to the writers at Marvel Comics than the readers. During the late 60’s and early 70’s there was a resurgence of interest in the pulp stories and heroes of the 1930’s. Marvel had already scored a huge success with its licensing of Conan, so it probably made sense (to Roy Thomas, anyway) to give Doc Savage a try. Despite repeated efforts, though, including both a comic book and a large format black and white magazine, Doc never really caught on.

He did stick around long enough for this team-up with the Thing in Marvel Two-in-One #21, however. This story is actually kind of cool. The Thing and Doc Savage end up on parallel investigations, each in their own era, dealing with two generations of people from the same family who are obsessed with some weird magic device. In the end, this device brings Doc and Thing together and merges the bad guys into one giant baddy named Black Sun, who they then defeat. No word on whether this was an inspiration for Soundgarden or not.

As a side note, DC now apparently has the rights to Doc Savage, as they recently announced they are doing a whole pulp universe inhabited by people without super powers like Doc Savage, the Shadow and the Spirit and… I dunno, whoever. I’m not sure they’re going to be any more successful than Marvel was trying to make Doc Savage popular today, but it sounds interesting, anyway.

Spider-man and King Kull

Yes, in Marvel Team-Up #112, Spider-man teams up with King Kull! If you think this is awesome, well, congrats. That means you might be the only person in the universe who cares about King Kull. Yes, I get it, Robert E. Howard is great. Really, everything he ever did was genius. Hell, I eat Bran Mak Morn cereal for breakfast, okay? But I still don’t understand what audience was clamoring for this team-up.

The plot contrivance this time around is that Spider-man has been poisoned by… poison… and the only place to get the antidote from is the distant past. So Dr. Strange sends Spider-man’s astral form back in time to locate some antidote and, of course, he teams up with King Kull as part of it. I guess as far as plot devices go, this works as well as any. After all, Marvel Team-Up’s usual plot involves Spidey randomly stumbling across something while he swings past on a nearby flagpole, so anything that isn’t complete coincidence is a step up. But really. King Kull?

Thor vs. Conan


Finally, we have the granddaddy of Marvel licensed characters, Conan. When Marvel got the rights to Conan back in 1970, I’m guessing they had no idea the comic would turn into a mega-blockbuster that they would publish in multiple comics and magazines for decades to come. Interestingly, though, while they seemed to have no problem throwing the rest of their licensed properties into the MU, including (as we have seen) other Robert E. Howard characters like Red Sonja and King Kull, they seemed hesitant to do the same with Conan.

Instead, Conan’s out of continuity adventures were clearly labeled as such by appearing in the pages of What If?, which brings us this classic tale: Thor vs. Conan. If I had seen this as a kid I would have been so excited I probably would have given birth to a Roc right in the comic store. In this tale, we learn what we probably all suspected anyway – Thor really likes being in Hyboria. He kind of likes it more than the rgular MU, actually, and he gets to do all sorts of rad MMO stuff including meeting Crom himself.

In fact, the only problem with this comic is that it’s so cool it makes you wish they just sent Thor back to hang out with Conan all the time instead of, you know, stranding him in Oklahoma. But as far as team-ups between Marvel superheroes and licensed properties, this story is right at the top of the heap.

Tomorrow: Wait, didn’t someone say something about Godzilla? Don’t worry, folks. They said it couldn’t be done! They said it shouldn’t be done! They said it wouldn’t be done! They even said it pudding be done, but that was probably trying a little too hard! Yes, tomorrow we take a look at the epic to end all epics: Godzilla vs. the Mighty Avengers! See you then.

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The Marvel Universe according to ROM: Spaceknight!

Today we continue our look at Marvel's licensed books with an examination of what is without a doubt one of the more curious comics in Marvel’s long history -- Rom: Spaceknight. The history behind Rom is nearly as weird as the story in the comic itself. Created by two inventors as one of the first electronic action figures during the late 1970’s, Rom was purchased by Parker Brothers, who were so intrigued by the idea that they branched out of their usual board game niche to try taking a stab at the toy market. They managed to get Rom on the cover of Time Magazine, but it was soon clear that the toy was a flop and it was quickly discontinued.

Strangely enough, however, the comic book that Parker Brothers had licensed Marvel to create as part of their promotional push ended up being vastly more successful than the toy itself, one of the few times that a licensed comic managed to overshadow the item it was licensed from. This unprecedented success can be attributed to two sources: all 75 issues were written by the legendary Bill Mantlo, and Rom was the only licensed character to be fully integrated as part of the mainstream Marvel Universe.

During the first few issues of the series, while the toy was still being produced, there’s not a lot of overt references to Marvel. Other than a very brief cameo from Dr. Strange in Rom #5, for the most part Mantlo was content telling the story of Rom’s landing on Earth and his dealings with the human supporting cast that quickly glommed onto him. As the run continued, a few other characters from Marvel began sneaking into the book – such as an appearance in Rom #13 by garish douchebag Jack of Hearts and an attack by Fantastic Four villain The Mad Thinker – but the first 15 issues or so are a fairly self-contained arc, telling a nice if unspectacular science fiction story.

But then something interesting happened. By this point the toy was a failure, yet the comic was still selling well enough to keep going, assuming a new narrative impetus could be found. The basic premise – Rom hunting the shape shifting wraith who were infiltrating Earth to conquer it – could be sustained ad infinitum, but there had to be some hook to get new readers to check out the book in the first place now that the tie in from the toy was gone. Luckily, Mantlo stumbled upon just the thing: guest stars out the ass.

Power Man, Iron Fist and... the Hybrid!

Since Rom was already established as being in the Marvel Universe, after all, why not really blow the doors off? Since the wraith menace was supposedly big enough to endanger the entire planet, it only made sense that other heroes would be involved, so starting with #17 Rom became essentially the newest team up book in Marvel’s stable. That issue kicked off a two-part storyline featuring the X-Men (fresh off the loss of Jean Grey) helping Rom battle a mutant/wraith halfling called Hybrid and it opened the floodgate of Marvel characters to come.

The next issue brought the Space Phantom into the mix, which makes sense considering limbo featured prominently in Rom’s backstory, and in issue #21 Grade Z superhero Torpedo joined Rom’s regular cast as a sometime rival and sometime ally. By this point the crossovers were coming so fast that Rom couldn’t contain them all, and #23, featuring Power Man and Iron Fist, ended up crossing over into that title as well, leading to thousands of present day readers wondering why their Essential Power Man and Iron Fist skips an entire issue (answer: because Marvel no longer has the license to Rom, they can’t reprint any of his appearances).

It’s too bad, because this crossover is sweet. Since Rom is constantly blasting wraiths out of existence – and since they are shapeshifters who usually are in human form at the time – Rom is frequently mistaken for some sort of mass murderer by Earth authorities. In this story, J. Jonah Jameson helps spark a panic by publishing accounts of Rom killing people, which leads to a manhunt by a wide array of Marvel heroes including Spider-man, Daredevil, Moon Knight and Captain America. Power Man and Iron Fist end up helping Rom break into the Baxter Building in order to hijack a rocket so Rom can return to his home planet of Galador. Eventually, the Fantastic Four show up and give him his jet. Of course, this whole thing could have been avoided if superheroes knew how to use a telephone, but it’s still a pretty cool story.

It also leads right into the next epic, which features Nova and the New Champions and eventually a multi-issue confrontation with Galactus himself. Rom becomes Galactus’s new herald and leads him to the wraith homeworld, hoping to end the wraith menace once and for all – or at least get rid of Galactus. And indeed, Galactus is unable to consume the planet because of its dark magic energy, so he ends up turning tail and fleeing. Wow, that has to suck if you’re Galactus. So much for your oversized rep, big man.

Rom returns to Earth in #28 to help clean up the messes Torpedo has been making, but who cares about Torpedo, right? So I’m not going to recap that. Instead, we’ll jump ahead a couple issues to one of the more interesting chapters in Rom’s forgotten history – a battle with the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants in Rom #31-32 that features Rogue in one of her few appearances as a supervillain.

Rogue and the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants

This is, in fact, Rogue’s second appearance. Sort of. I say sort of because this story came out the same month as Uncanny X-Men #158 and seems to take place at the same time and roughly the same place; one story is at the Pentagon and the other is at a prison that is also set in Virginia. If you read them both, it’s kind of hard to reconcile the stories as they seem to be mutually exclusive, so we’re going to use this bit of logic to solve the question: we’re going to ignore it. Who cares!

What’s interesting is that this story is extremely important to the development of Rogue. After Rogue and Mystique break the rest of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants out of jail, they run straight into Rom, who proceeds to pummel them hardcore. He quickly whacks Avalanche, Pyro and Blob, so the female members of the team come up with a new plan: run like hell. Unfortunately they run right into the lair of the disgusting mutant wraith known as Hybrid.

Hybrid and Mystique, though, soon realize they both hate the X-Men and Rom, so they agree to team up and Mystique and Rogue set a trap for Rom. This essentially has no effect, because Rom is pretty badass, but it does lead to a key exchange between Rom and Rogue. During Rogue’s attack, Rom questions her motives:

Rom: “Why do you do this, child? Unlike Mystique, I sense no evil in you.”

Rogue then kisses Rom in an attempt to steal the power from his human side. However, this fails completely because the only part of Rom that is human is his soul. Instead of draining his power, then, she ends up connecting directly to his soul, leaving both stunned and suddenly giving Rogue a new outlook on things, as shown by these captions:

“What is there Rogue can say? She attempted to absorb Rom’s power, only to discover that that portion of humanity grafted to the cold spaceknight armor possessed no power… but only a kind of decency which Rogue, in her young life, has never known.

“She finds that she likes it.”

At this point, Hybrid reappears and starts crushing Rom big time. Mystique decides this is a good time to run away, especially considering Destiny has realized that Hybrid’s plan is to enslave mutant women and use them as breeding slaves for his own pleasure (um… yeah). Rogue, however, refuses to abandon Rom and, ignoring Mystique’s commands, she jumps into the fight to help save Rom.

In the end, just as Hybrid is about to overpower and slay Rom, Rogue grabs Hybrid and drains some of his power at great cost to herself since he’s a disgusting alien sex convict. Rom is able to destroy Hybrid once again thanks to Rogue’s help. The Brotherhood then leaves, with both Rom and Rogue wondering if they will ever meet again, each secretly hoping they will, for they have sensed in each other a kindred spirit.

It’s interesting that this takes place at the same time as X-Men #158, where Rogue is still hardcore, trying to kill Carol Danvers again and thrashing the X-Men. My assumption is that Mantlo was aware of Claremont’s long term plans for Rogue and this influenced his depiction of her, but I’m not sure. Whatever was going on behind the scenes, though, this encounter seems to be a major turning point for Rogue as she begins to question Mystique and instead embrace her heroic side.

ROM: Endgame

Most of the crossovers that immediately followed, of course, didn’t have nearly as much impact on the Marvel Universe as that story, but they are still fun to read. Namor the Sub-Mariner makes an appearance in Rom #34-35, followed by one of the more unlikely team-ups you’re going to ever see in Rom #38-39 featuring Shang Chi, the Master of Kung Fu. And following that is a Dr. Strange appearance in Rom #41 that also features the Living Tribunal, The In-Betweener and some Lovecraft knock-off called The Dweller on the Threshold, all rendered in probably the best art Sal Buscema has ever done.

During this era, the guest stars are so numerous it’s hard to do more than list them without making this essay a 50 part series, but Ronan the Accuser shows up in #44, followed by the Soviet Super Solders (or whatever the hell they were called at the time) in #45-56, a return by Hybrid to fight the New Mutants in Rom Annual #3 and the long awaited throwdown between shapeshifting aholes: the Skrulls versus the Wraiths in Rom #50.

This story seemed to really kick the series into overdrive. The Wraith menace became revealed to the world at large, leading to cooperation between Rom and the government and an all-out war between humanity and wraithkind. As a result, the series had a brief period where the guest stars lessened as the stories became more focused, but this was offset by having one of Marvel’s oldest characters become a members of Rom’s regular supporting cast: Rick Jones.

Joining the cast in #54, Rick begins to pitch in with Rom’s efforts to end the wraithwar, and other Marvel stalwarts such as Dr. Strange and Nick Fury soon join the fight. Alpha Flight shows up For #56-57, followed by Ant-Man in #58-59. Throughout these issues, the war heats up and Henry Peter Gyrich begins appearing as a liaison, which leads to one of the other major contributions Rom made to Marvel continuity: the introduction of Forge and the subsequent loss of Storm’s powers.

This doesn’t take place in Rom itself, of course, happening in the pages of X-Men, but the story is that the government gets a hold of Rom’s neutralizer long enough to study it. The only person who can make sense of it is Forge, thanks to his mutant powers, so he quickly comes up with his own version – a version which strips mutant powers and ends up being used on Storm instead of Rogue. And that story leads into a major arc in X-Men which includes a two-part wraith attack in the pages of Uncanny X-Men itself, in #187-188.

This is part of the huge company-wide crossover that took place at the time with Rom as the epicenter. It’s interesting because this can be seen as one of Marvel’s earlier company-wide mega events, early enough that there’s no branding going on. Less than a year later, Secret Wars II would take place and the era of the mega-crossover would truly begin, with each comic involved getting its own blurb to tie things together from a commercial standpoint. But before this, Marvel experimented these prototype, unmarked crossovers, and this story in Rom is one of the first and biggest. As the wraithwar engulfed Earth, Wraiths began showing up in major storylines in many Marvel books, including Avengers #244-245 among others.

It’s no surprise, then, that the last issues of the wraithwar in Rom feature essentially the entire Marvel Universe. As the wraiths summon their homeworld in an attempt to merge it with Earth, Rom marshals of all Earth’s heroes to battle in a last ditch attempt. And I do mean all of them; the Avengers, the West Coast Avengers, the Defenders, the X-Men, Beta Ray Bill, the Soviet Super Soldiers, even all the random foreign heroes from Contest of Champions like Shamrock show up. And it's all presented by the truly unlikely art team of Steve Ditko on pencils and P. Craig Russell on inks.

With the menace of the Wraiths finally ended, Rom finished the series by returning to Galador in some great issues that tied up all the loose ends of the series, leaving Rom as one of those rarities in mainstream comics: a complete and finite story. But the guest appearances weren’t quite over; as part of the subplot clean up, Rom #72 featured probably the best Secret Wars II tie-in of them all, where Rick Jones temporarily becomes the Hulk in order to save his friends; and in Rom Annual #4, that purple punching bag Gladiator makes an appearance as well.

All in all, Rom ends up as more than an oddity in the annals of Marvel. Thanks to the fact that it tells one complete story over its 75 issue run, it’s probably the best team-up book ever published, because all of the stories take place in a larger context and structure that lends a greater meaning to the stories. Marvel Team-Up, Marvel Two-In-One, DC Comics Presents, Brave and the Bold – all of these seemed to rely mostly on random chance to set up meetings between unlikely characters. Rom used plot and narrative flow to do the same.

Not bad for a comic based on a failed toy and a character who, while not even owned by the publisher, had a greater impact on Marvel Comics than most of the titles they developed themselves.


Tomorrow: We take a look at some of the other random crossovers between licensed characters and Marvel superheroes. It’s not always pretty, but it’s always interesting. See you then.

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