Marvel incorporating DC
 

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.

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.

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. :lol: 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.

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?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. :trazz:

Hah, yes, that's a great example.

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.

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.

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?

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.

Aren't the people peddling this the same people that said that Marvel itself was going to stop publishing completely a few years ago? Neither company is going to stop publishing anytime soon nor do I see any merger between them either.

Now that being said if it were to happen I'd like the universes kept separate and treated much like the classic DC set up were he had Earth 1 & Earth 2 etc. It's not exactly portrayed as hard in either companies continuities for characters to move from one universe to another you could easily have normal guest appearances as well as full blown crossovers.

Regarding the whole "public domain" thing, it should be pointed out that corporate lawyers have a lot more pull nowadays than they did a hundred years ago.

Mickey Mouse was technically supposed to be a public domain character by now, but he's not and he never will be. Most popular fictional characters who've since fallen into public domain were originally owned by families, usually descendants of the creators, not by corporations. Families don't have money to lobby to get the laws changed in their favor. Corporations do.

I highly, HIGHLY doubt that characters like Superman, Batman, Spider-Man and Iron Man will ever become public domain, no matter how it's "supposed" to work. Disney, for example, sues children's hospitals for putting a mural on the wall if it features their trademarked characters; they'd fight to the bitter end to keep people from ever being able to profit from their Captain America fanfiction.

Forget what's "supposed" to happen. It ain't happening. Those characters are worth way too much to Disney and WB, respectively. They'd never let them go. Laws are just words on paper.

Frankly, as anti-corporation as I am in general... that's probably a good thing. Consider all the truly awful fanfic that exists of these characters, and then consider the possibility that these people might be allowed to get PAID for it one day. That would pretty much be a disaster.

No extension on copyright, Mickey will be public domain in just 3 years. After many years thing are finally becoming public domain again since about 2 years ago, no more extentions. DC and WB stuff might take a few more years, I believe 15 years before the likes of Batman enter public domain.

This will only be the original interpretations that won't be protected, so anything not steamboat willie is still Disney, also like Tarzan while technically public domain the Burroughs Estate still has control of the trademark, so there's plenty companies can protect despite their characters becoming public domain. You don't see Disney caring for other version's of public domain characters like the Snow White or Aladdin since they aren't Disney's versions. The batman we know today is very different from the one we see in Detective Comics etc.

Also, just read up on AT&T and their plans for Warner Media, DC is not going anywhere, this whole topic is silly. They literally bought Time Warner for their properties and taunt them at every moment they can.

Yup, and there's always been "gloom and doom" in fandom about the hobby going under. ALWAYS. But the difference nowadays is that as my generation (that would be Gen X) leaves comics behind the hobby is faced with a significantly declining readership. Kids aren't buying comics the way they did in generations past. For example, go to a convention nowadays. It used to be middle aged comic book nerds, families with kids, and clusters of teenagers with their friends. Who is missing now? The clusters of teenagers. Sure, sure you might find a convention, or a store and see some examples of the younger, independent demographic, but those occurrences are nowhere in the volumes it was when I was a kid.

Also, the prolific injection of SJW themes, replacement characters via agenda (as perceived by the readership which has been abandoning the books), and endless renumbering has alienated an otherwise hardcore buyer. John Jackson Miller measures sales metrics on his ComicChron website. There, the data has illustrated a year-over-year decline in new book buying. And what's worse is that revenue is up amidst this decline in units sold. Why is revenue being up a problem, you ask? Well that means is that publishers are raising prices and creating more "boutique" products to make that money. That's not good for sustainability - instead that's a cash grab.

And so the point is that while I think the "Marvel buying DC" thing is extreme sensationalism, I also believe that the comic industry is unsustainable in it's current model. We are setup for some bankruptcies, restructuring and big, as-of-yet-unrecognizable changes in the current publishing paradigm in the immediate years.

I hate to say I told you so, but again...


Ahem...
Can you hear me NOW?

Comics nerds often accuse the publishers, editors, and writers of being 'out of touch' but when it comes to the state of the market...oooh boy

Lol, meaning?

I'm saying they're just as out of touch not to see the diminishing returns in the industry and insisting all is well.

No, there would certainly be less books, and less exposure to obscure favorite characters. I agree 100%. That's just the nature of conglomeration.

But not to the extreme that all your favorite characters are given the boot, other than a select few who get to stick around as scapegoats and pariahs.
Two very different things.

Batman, for one, would have the red carpet rolled out. Everyone in Marvel's stable would be dying to write/draw the first Marvel Batman book. There'd be no mandate to have Black Widow mention how Tony Stark has a better body or bigger brain. Bruce would be instant royalty.

But who is insisting all is well? Where?

I don't see this happening...at all. There's also the rumor of AT&T either shutting DC Comics down or selling them off. If DC isn't profitable for them, I can definitely see AT&T wanting to sell them to a better company, which might be the better option. I doubt Disney would buy them, though. Can you imagine if Viacom or CBS bought them?:tlol:

If DC were to shut down, AT&T still own the rights to their characters. More then likely would continue exploring media outside comics. In their eyes, the comics have not been profitable for them.

Favorites? No DC character is anyone's "favorite" outside of the Trinity, give or take an Aquaman or Green Lantern. I love DC with all my heart and soul and I have a strong affection for just about anyone not named Snapper Carr or Damien Wayne, but I'm an extreme example of a DC fan. Most people generally can't really name more than 5 DC characters, and they jump to spin-offs like Superboy and Batgirl almost immediately if challenged to do so. Nobody even knew who Shazam/Captain Marvel was until last year, and judging by the box office I think most people probably still don't know.

As I said, IF it happened you'd definitely see the primary ones like Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman get a pretty big push. I don't think anyone doubts that. But we'd definitely be saying goodbye to your Legion of Super-Heroes, your Teen Titans, your Hawkmans and all that stuff. No money in it. DC struggles to make anyone outside of the Trinity relevant to their audience as it is; another publisher wouldn't suddenly jump at the chance to make people suddenly care about Lightning Lad, just to pluck a random name. If people don't care after 50 years, they're not gonna.

Basically, any character who never kept a solo book past 20 issues would be swept into the ether, guaranteed. And no teams whatsoever because Marvel has too many of those already. Sure, in theory they could trim off a few X-books to make room for something like Titans, but... c'mon. :lol:

So why do people assume they'd sell DC particularly? What about Warner Brothers or Time Warner as a whole? That would include Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo, The Flintstones, Jetsons, all the Hanna Barbera stuff....hell even Cartoon Network as a whole. They'd get every major cartoon of the last 50 years.

Because they're idiots who don't understand business or the fact that AT&T bought Time Warner to have all these characters and they're extensively being used in their marketing and future plans.

My Dad once bought a snowblower. It sat in the garage for about 3 years. He didn’t really like it, never really saw the value. He eventually sold it to the family down the street, the kids all made money in the winter ploughing driveways. They paid less than market value, with the promise of doing his driveway for free. He got to sleep in when it snowed, and used the cash to take a trip to Maui.

Dc is going buh bye.

Most likely because those other IP's aren't hemorrhaging publication money and haven't failed repeatedly on film. What DC does have going for it is other multimedia. Games, animation.

DC as we knew it, anyway. I wish I cared. This is all their fault.

Yeah, but just barely. Look at IDW, its failing. DC, failing. Animation squeaks by, made without any bells or whistles, on a shoestring budget.

Everybody talks like they know the numbers. No, they know how they feel about a childhood hero, but they don’t see the larger picture. The sales are 30k to 40k for most middle tier books, with the bulk of issues selling less than 15k.
Cost of printing is 4-7 thousand dollars for 20k books. Books retail for 3-4$ only 40% is gross profit. From that, you have to pay the team. Artist demand anywhere from 120- 300 a page. Colorists are on top of that. Cover art, editor, writer, plus anybody else in the office. The coffee in the corner, the lights, tech support... its a whole thing.

Do the Math. If this recipe doesn’t pay off in useful new IP, it has virtually no real value to its owners. What percentage is 30k readers in a country of 350 million?

AT&T is not a non profit.

BOP has COST them an insane amount. The damage goes far deeper than just a lack if ticket sales. The pre sales of licenses for anyone creating product around this film, are out money. Heaps of product will never see recoupment.
Thats not only egg on their face, thats a loss of confidence in the product, on the heels of BVS, suicide squad, justice league, green lantern, the list is long.

WB no longer knows how to make use of these icons, has instead virtually destroyed them.

Theres no longer a valid argument to invest in the fruit of a poisoned tree.

- Plenty of people have favorite DC characters.

- nothing wrong with having an affinity towards Superboy or Batgirl. They've been explored and included in the pantheon for a while now. Not my personal favorites, but they are cool characters. My favorite DC characters to read about do tend to fall outside of the Trinity as well - Batman, Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol, Constantine, Joker, Dr. Fate, Deadman, Catwoman, plus all the Verigo stuff, which is in essence, a bit of an offshoot but still under the DC label.


- you said that we should prepare to see our beloved DC characters lambasted and put down by Marvel characters. I disagreed. Batman for instance, would be a Marvel king.
I don't see Marvel acting petty towards any of these characters or making "jobbers" out of them. Sounds sort of silly to me, tbh.

These are fair points, regarding the "egg in their face" but it ignores all the success they've had, which is even more recent than most of the failures. Hitting 1 billion with a "nobody" like Aquaman, than pushing past 1 billion with an R-rated movie for the first time in history, with Joker. The praise for Wonder Woman, and even Shazaam, despite it's relatively low box-office. I know you are trying to get a point across, but that isn't showing the full picture. There should be quite a bit of confidence in these properties right now at WB.