Dave's Fanboy Sermon

Recently Joe Quesada was named Editor-In-Chief at Marvel Comics. There is an old Chinese curse about living in interesting times. Joe Quesada is certainly inheriting Marvel during some very interesting times. It is no secret that Marvel has not exactly been the juggernaut leader of the comic world that it was a decade or two ago. Once, where Marvel went, the rest of the comic industry sluggishly followed. Now the rest of the industry watches Marvel spin helplessly around and wonder if they still have it in them to pull out of their creative and financial nosedive.

You can almost divide the history of Marvel into three distinct periods. Under Stan Lee's helm they were the mavericks of the comic world. Assembling a creative team that included Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko, John Buscema and many, many others, Lee carefully guided the Marvel Universe to the top of the comic heap. Many would end this period when Kirby defected to DC in the early 70's, but it really has to last until Lee eventually eased out of the role of Editor-In-Chief. The era of Marvel as creative mavericks was followed by Marvel as the pinacle of marketing savvy. No longer the vibrant creative vehicle that they once were, Marvel stayed on top by successfully marketing their characters to the maximum. This was the years of Jim Shooter and "Secret Wars". Marvel was the undesputed king of comic publishing. Then came the third and most recent period, which began when Marvel was bought by Ron Pearlman. Marvel characters were now public owned cash generators, to be used and exploited. Pearlman is gone now, but his legacy remains strong at Marvel as it continues to be run without any sense of creative direction. It is this Marvel that Quesada inherits. Interesting times indeed.

Quesada is the first artist to assend to Marvels highest editorial position. Carman Infantino was Editor-In-Chief at DC during the 60's (interestingly, a time when Marvel was laying the groundwork to overtake DC's stranglehold as the comic industrys top publisher). Quesada has worked for most of the major publishers as an artist at one time or another, and has lately been spearheading the Marvel Knights imprint. This is where it gets interesting. The Marvel Knights comics have been the few things that Marvel has published with any "heat" about them. Kevin Smith writing Daredevil, Garth Ennis writing Punisher, Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee on Inhumans - these are the books that had comic fans excited. Unfortunately, these are also the books that had comic fans frustrated as they often missed deadlines. Quesada has recently defended his deadline record, saying that Daredevil was the only book that actually shipped late. Smoke job aside, however, most of his books had problems with timeliness.

We all hope that he is not in over his head. I'm rooting for him as much as anyone, as I make my living selling comic books. Making Marvels ship seaworthy again is a formidible task and Quesada really should only be given mixed reviews for his Marvel Knights run. Working in a small corner of the Marvel Universe is going to prove painfully easy compared to directing the entirety of their titles. Attracting creators who can make the books exciting again, get them out punctually and win back legions of lost fans is not a job that I envy. Quesada is a friendly, enthusiastic guy. So far he has had a knack for attracting some high profile creative people to his books. Now the whole industry will be watching closely to see if he can work the same magic on the Marvel Universe as a whole.

His first two moves are interesting and even bold. First, Chris Clairmont was fired from the writing chores on the two core X-Men titles. It is no secret within the industry that Clairmont was basically a scapegoat for lackluster sales during the aftermath of the successful X-Men movie. Clairmont really couldn't be held accountable for this, as movies seldom, if ever, have any real affect on comic sales. The official reason for Clairmonts removal was the convoluted storylines which were confusing old and new fans. If they didn't want convoluted, confusing storylines, why hire Clairmont in the first place, as that has always been his primary writing style. Whatever the reason, removing Clairmont from the X-Men books was a bold and risky move. He is popular with fans. Even though they might not be actually plunking down their money to read the books, they get a fuzzy feeling just knowing that Clairmont is there in the writing credits. Ultimately, the name of the game is sales, and the book is selling a fraction of what it did a few years ago, so you have to give Marvel credit for making an unpopular move to try and fix the books. Grant Morrison has been pegged to write at least one of the two X-books. Morrison is a hot writer, but is also known for writing confusing plots, so we will just have to see if the move pays off in new readers.

Then, in a bigger coup, Quesada announced that J. Michael Straczynski to write Amazing Spider-Man. As Marvels flagship character, Spider-Man had pretty much represented where the company was going: Nowhere. Straczynski has many fans outside the comic industry as the creator of Babylon 5 and has proven adept at comic writing with his Rising Stars and Midnite Nation series's.If he can be persuaded to remain with the book for a long enough time to be more than a "pinch hitter" the results could be tremendous. Which brings us to Quesada's real challange.

Marvel has been on tenuous financial footing since declaring bankruptcy a couple of years back. A series of accountants have sat in the Marvel offices and watched (and many would say interfere) every move that was made. They are $250 million in debt and recent financial reports have Marvel losing as much as $10 million a month. The primary losses for Marvel come from its toy interest, as the toy market could actually be worse off than the comic industry. Nonetheless, Marvel is reportedly in danger of running out of operating cash within a matter of months. They are counting on the Spider-Man movie to generate revenue, but it is now scheduled to be released in May of 2002. Marvels tangled financial mess is much greater than its comic publishing revenues. It is in this environment that Quesada has to get creators to remain on books, turn them in on time and get paid. It may be the toughest job in the industry right now (well...except for running a comic shop, but that's another column entirely). Let's hope that Quesadas enthusiasm is matched by some uncanny business and organizational skills. The rest of the industry may no longer be slavishly following, but the Marvel ship still has enough weight to pull a large chunk of the comic world down with it should it fail to float. Like Robert DeNiro said in Brazil: "We're all in this together."

Illustration by Gerald Kelley