Marvel incorporating DC

[Andrew NDB]

No, I don't know anything but yes there's odd rumors of this or that that I don't really put any stock in.

But still. What if this happened? What if Marvel (and by Marvel that means Disney) acquired DC's characters and started putting out DC comics? Like, incorporating DC into Marvel.

What would that even look like? Like, I'd imagine there'd be some sort of new Crisis, and now Batman and Superman and WW and GL and all are merged into the Marvel universe. Whether we're talking in comics or film... how would that play out?

Like, what would the JL's relationship be with the Avengers? How does Gotham and Metropolis fit into the Marvel universe? If X-Men are being hunted by essentially government Sentinels, what does Superman do about this?

And so on, and so on.

[Sumac]

At this point, I don't really care.

DC did everything possible to ruin their own universe and media, except for animations, so I don't think it will make any difference for the rest of DCU.

[Leo656]

In a word, Terribly.

Both companies' rosters of characters are already way too large and unwieldy and the canon on both sides is already a mess. Nothing good would come of a merger of the two.

It would especially be terrible for DC fans because I don't see Marvel wanting to go out of their way to be respectful of those characters and canon. At best, we'd see them keep Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and possibly Green Lantern and incorporate them into the Marvel Universe somehow. Just about every other DC character would be locked away in a vault and never see the light of day again, except as an object of parody or derision (I can see them using Aquaman as a joke to make Namor look better, for example).

Basically, anyone who was around to see what happened when the WWF bought WCW can tell you exactly what would happen: They kept the five people they felt like they could draw money with and sh*tcanned everyone else in incredibly petty and unprofessional and demeaning fashion. And even the guys they kept were made to look weak and incompetent compared to the guys who "won the war" (The WWF guys), and they never, ever let fans forget that those guys were only successful in the first place because they started off in a "lesser" company.

So, yeah, if you're looking forward to seeing Marvel characters monologue endlessly about how Batman is just a second-rate Iron Man and that Superman is just an alien invader unworthy of anyone's trust, for example, then great, that's what we'd have to expect. I for one would puke.

I don't doubt it happening eventually, though. Disney Wins Everything. They're going to own WWE one day, too, without any doubt. I don't doubt that they're going to eventually succeed in owning everyone's childhood lock, stock and barrel; my only confusion is why anyone would want that and why nobody seems to be standing in their way.
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As to "Where would Gotham and Metropolis fit", they wouldn't. Marvel notoriously doesn't do fictional cities, and instead has everything happen in NYC because it's "More realistic", as they love to claim, even though that's total nonsense because they blow up New York every third weekend in the Marvel comics yet if you look out your window right now, there it is. Not to mention that their plotlines have always been, if anything, MORE outrageous and fantastical than DC's. Not complaining, mind you, there's nothing wrong with it, outside of the whole "We're so much more grounded than DC" thing. Marvel's whole "We're more based in reality" argument has always seemed like real piss to me and it comes off as awfully pretentious considering how it's the complete opposite of fact. Just something they say to entice gullible people into choosing their products over DCs.

But anyway, yeah, no more Gotham or Metropolis. They'll have always been from NYC, like every other Marvel character. Must be something in the water.

Also, no Justice League at all, because most of the characters would be shelved. Superman and Wonder Woman would probably be viewed with distrust by the other heroes and thus not allowed to play their Avengers reindeer games, and Batman simply wouldn't join any team period because Marvel would amp up his "angsty and paranoid loner" routine up to 12.

Again, no good would come of this, but it's probably pretty much inevitable at this point.

[ZariusTwo]

Miles and Kamala would definitely be on the Teen Titans or Young Justice rosters.

I wonder if they'd take some inspiration from Stan Lee's Just Imagine series for some of the other heroes?

[Voltron]

Being contrarian by nature, I'm forced to say this would turn out absolutely perfectly. I have no evidence to back this up, nor do I have any reasons for why I feel this way. I just like to play devil's advocate.

I hope every single DC character's new origin is that they were bitten by a radioactive something. For Wonder Woman, I'm going with Wonder Bread. She'd fight people with her gluten powers.

[CyberCubed]

Batman is certainly going to need a bigger list of the weakness of every new superhero in case they turn evil.

[oldmanwinters]

Seems like there is a real possibility that DC might stop publishing monthly comics altogether. If that happens, I suppose anything is possible for licensing.

[AquaParade]

They would just keep the universes separate, aside from the occasional crossover and initial milking of events they would do. No need to shoehorn Gotham into Marvel's world, when there is so much interdimensional travel at play anyway.

You'd still see plenty of obscure favorites, because most people writing comics are comic readers and fans themselves and would request their use. It's not necessarily like a living, living, breathing wrestler who requires salary, benefits, medical. You just use them when you feel like it - they're already paid for.
Also, I don't see Marvel dastardly trying to make DC's characters look bad - when they have become Marvel characters. It's not like The Flash pissed in C.B. Cebulski's cereal. I'm sure they'd be glad to absorb DC's characters, make them shine, and use them to earn money. That would be the whole point of the acquisition, so treating them like dirt doesn't make sense to me. For a more apt example look at what happened when Marvel acquired Miracle Man and Angela - they were treated well, even if the roads were bumpy.

In all, I agree that it is just too much for one publisher to handle, given that each company has is already plenty to work with. Not to mention, the competition between the two is a good thing.

I wouldn't bet even one dollar on this happening in the next couple of decades, at least, to be clear. Nothing anyone needs to worry about.

As to "Where would Gotham and Metropolis fit", they wouldn't. Marvel notoriously doesn't do fictional cities, and instead has everything happen in NYC because it's "More realistic", as they love to claim, even though that's total nonsense because they blow up New York every third weekend in the Marvel comics yet if you look out your window right now, there it is. Not to mention that their plotlines have always been, if anything, MORE outrageous and fantastical than DC's. Not complaining, mind you, there's nothing wrong with it, outside of the whole "We're so much more grounded than DC" thing. Marvel's whole "We're more based in reality" argument has always seemed like real piss to me and it comes off as awfully pretentious considering how it's the complete opposite of fact. Just something they say to entice gullible people into choosing their products over DCs.

I don't really see a point to arguing which is more realistic. It depends on which stories you are reading. Plenty of insane, out of this world ****, is happening all the time in both the Marvel and DC universe.
Marvel was never really "the world outside your window", it was just their way of hyping up that New York city setting that grounds things to a small degree. Just some marketing speak, no more deceitful than your average commercial. Plus, it is factual that Marvel and Stan Lee were the ones championing "real world problems" on superheroes, back in the day, and still to this day, which is where some of that sentiment fairly comes from. Claiming DC is less fantastical seems like an uphill battle to me, without even getting into all the crisis events. They're both immeasurably fantastical.

[CyberCubed]

Why are people talking about this again anyway? People speculated Disney buying DC for like 10 years and it never happened.

[Sumac]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Why are people talking about this again anyway? People speculated Disney buying DC for like 10 years and it never happened.

DC in a bad shape: its Chief Editor was just kicked out, comic book sells on the decline, their ANOTHER reboot does not hype people.

AT&T, current owner of Time Warner, made rather transparent threat that they won't hold on a properties, which fail to provide profit.

[AquaParade]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Why are people talking about this again anyway? People speculated Disney buying DC for like 10 years and it never happened.

It's juicy, fun to consider, and guarantees clicks.

Not happening anytime soon though.

[MikeandRaph87]

Originally Posted by AquaParade

It's juicy, fun to consider, and guarantees clicks.

Not happening anytime soon though.

This in a nutshell.

I believe that Didio spearheaded too many unpopular directions and this had the most backlash yet by creators so the direction is null and DC is retooling going forward a direction for the DC Universe.

[IMJ]

I think we all know that this isn't going to happen - even if DC went under you'll have investors in the Warner Bros family would put money into DC. They wouldn't bail it out of bankruptcy if that happened, but they would buy it and re-absorb it after it ran it's course.

But as far as the "what if?" scenario? Marvel would probably keep the universe's separate in the same manner than Marvel's New Universe and Squadron Supreme Universe were handled in the past, and then occasionally bring them together for an event. And then they'd do a "bring Superman into the Marvel U for a year" story and so on. The third scenario would be that they'd relaunch everything under a combined Universe so that it gelled.

But.... yeah.... ehhhh... not gonna happen.

[Leo656]

Running two separate universes would be far too taxing and cost way too much money for any publisher. I highly, HIGHLY doubt that marvel would keep an entire line of DC books running if they acquired the whole shebang. It just doesn't make good business sense.

Again, WWF promised they'd run WCW as a completely separate company with its own management and infrastructure, simply being owned by the same corporation, and that it would only cross-over with the WWF brand very rarely for special events. In about 5 minutes they realized that would cost way too much money and be way too much hassle, so they scrapped it and erased the WCW brand entirely. To this day, people ask them to bring it back as a separate company, the way they did with ECW for a while, but they're very open about the fact that there's no money in doing so (and that the ECW "revival" was a giant failure) and it would be a giant hassle, thus it will never, ever happen.

Obviously it's a different business, but it is still the entertainment business, and the point remains that it's a ton of work for no real payoff to run separate brands which do the same exact thing under one corporate umbrella. It's much easier (and cheaper) to simply fold everything into one brand, cherry-pick the stuff that actually makes money, and trim off the rest.

DC themselves actually used to try and keep the Captain Marvel/Fawcett stuff as a separate line back in the 70s and 80s, but they stopped it because it was more trouble than it was worth; they simply shelved the character(s) for a few years until they had Crisis as a convenient way to fold him into the "real" DCU. If running ONE character as its own separate brand within the DC infrastructure was too much of a headache, I can't see any company running two "separate-but-equal" lines of a few hundred characters each. Even Marvel's been having problems in the print division, themselves. Who's to say they'd even WANT to run two separate brands?

I don't know, man. I've seen way too many of these kinds of things go down in the entertainment business, and it always ends the same: The bigger fish swallows the little fish, they don't co-exist. I guess we'll have to wait and see, but as always, I'm cynical in all things, simply because I've seen too much go down to ever be otherwise.

[Andrew NDB]

Originally Posted by Leo656

Again, WWF promised they'd run WCW as a completely separate company with its own management and infrastructure, simply being owned by the same corporation, and that it would only cross-over with the WWF brand very rarely for special events. In about 5 minutes they realized that would cost way too much money and be way too much hassle, so they scrapped it and erased the WCW brand entirely.

Hah, yes, that's a great example.

[Leo656]

I mean, they were very upfront about it. Maybe they did intend to do so - rumor at the time was that it was going to be his son Shane's "training period" to get used to running the family business so he could take over for Vince one day, long before it became apparent that Paul and Steph were going to get that job - but once they actually sat down and started putting everything on paper, they were like, "Y'know... this really doesn't make any sense."

Plus, WCW was a "damaged" brand and rebuilding fan confidence was going to be its own chore in itself. If DC were acquired by Marvel, it would be a similar situation. "We've been telling you fans for years that those guys were crummy C-Listers and not worth your time... BUT, now that WE own them, it's gonna be different, we promise!" That was one of the biggest reasons they shut WCW down; they'd been telling everyone for years that WCW sucked and those guys were scrubs. Re-educating people in the audience costs money and time that could be better served elsewhere.

It also suggests a level of altruism that I don't think exists within any corporation, to try and build-up a former competitor. The winning company always just scorches the earth and moves on unimpeded. Who's to say this would go any different?

Sure, they COULD in theory do lots of things, but to me it would be highly illogical.

[neatoman]

You know, Marvel is probably not going to "incorporate DC" but a lot of DC's big characters don't have that long before they fall into public domain.

By 2037 the following characters will have entered the public domain:

• Batman
• Superman
• Robin
• Lex Luthor
• The Joker
• Catwoman
• Wonder Woman
• Lois Lane
• Ultra-Humanite
• Jim Gordon
• Jay Garrick
• Doctor Fate
• Aquaman
• Captain Marvel
• Captain Marvel Jr
• Doctor Sivana
• Basil Karlo
• Penguin
• Green Arrow
• Scarecrow
• Doctor Death
• Spectre
• Alan Scott
• Hawkman

And some of these will enter public domain before 2037, it's just the point when all of them will have.

At that point nothing would stop Marvel from using them.

[CyberCubed]

Yes, 2037, just right around the corner. Some of us might be dead by then.

[neatoman]

Originally Posted by CyberCubed

Yes, 2037, just right around the corner. Some of us might be dead by then.

In the grand scheme of how long these characters have stuck around, it is a short time. Anyway, are you worried you'll have less than 17 years to live?

[sdp]

AT&T owns DC, they aren't selling it to their rival Disney. In fact AT&T is super happy with its DC brand, just check any of the investor calls and quarterly reports.