-In terms of tangible changes to actual comics produced, I suspect this is actually bigger news than Disney’s acquisition of Marvel, at least in the short term. I wonder how many DC editors are updating their resumes this afternoon…
-Bugs Bunny could totally kick Mickey Mouse’s ass. Just saying.
-Rob Liefeld isn’t young enough to be taking cheap shots about Paul Levitz’s age.
-Number of times Diane Nelson’s connection to Harry Potter is mentioned in the press release: 3. I’ve got to give them marks for restraint on that one.
-DC Entertainment will release roughly 90 comics a month, at least 5 of which aren’t going to be written by Geoff Johns.
-As one of his final acts as DC publisher, Paul Levitz screws Christopher Bird by returning to write the Legion of Superheroes. I’d find that really exciting if I was still fourteen; as it is, I just hope he’s happy. Levitz, that is. Bird’s funnier when he’s pissed off. Sorry Boss, but it’s true.
-Sorry, Joe Quesada. You had your chance in the spotlight and you waited too long. Nobody cares about Marvel and Disney now, that is soooo last week.
-A few years back, an acquaintance of mine predicted we’d see a day when DC and Marvel would stop publishing and instead license their characters out to be published by others. This is still a ways off, but I can actually envision a time when Dynamite Entertainment’s SPIDER-MAN comic vies with Todd McFarlane Productions’ BATMAN for top spot in the sales charts.
-Does anyone happen to have a spoon handy? After that last thing I feel an overwhelming urge to gouge my eyes out.
Foley
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I’m sure this is news to no one, but Quesada comes off as a real asshole in that interview.
I wonder if this means further restructuring of DC, including the removal/demotion/moving of Dan Dildio?
As much as I’d like to believe that WB taking an active interest in DC will result in fewer gory disembowlings of C-list heroes and villains and at least 80% less rape as a plot device, I wouldn’t hold out hope.
Whether it’s really the case or not, this announcement kind of reads to me like WB execs have been hearing Disney talking about what a great opportunity the Marvel acquisition is and thinking, “Wait a minute, they paid four billion dollars for a COMIC BOOK PUBLISHER? Hold on a second, don’t we already OWN one of those?”
“I wonder if this means further restructuring of DC, including the removal/demotion/moving of Dan Dildio?”
We can only hope and dream…
I really don’t see how this is bigger news than Disney’s acquisition of Marvel. ‘Corporate restructure’ isn’t even an interesting story, and it has even less impact on fans. In fact, if this story weren’t so hot on the heels of the Disney acquisition, I don’t think it would be getting much attention at all. Heck, the news that Diane Nelson was taking over at the top was known over a week ago and nobody really cared about it then. DC is living in a Disney-Marvel world now, and it’s really pissing off the DC fans.
Andrew W: Interesting…the people I’ve encountered who seem most upset by the Disney/Marvel thing are pretty much all Marvel fans who live in mortal terror of a time when their favourite superhero characters and teams don’t have the word “Dark” tagged on the front of them.
I’d say it’s bigger news short-term simply because something is actually noticeably happening in the immediate present. Levitz stepping down is pretty big news for comics industry wonks, as evidenced by the testimonials from Evanier, Wolfman, Berger, etc. The Marvel Disney story, while it made a lot of headlines and got fans of various stripes in an uproar of one stripe or another, is kind of a non-story at the moment. I’m faintly hopeful that there’ll be some drama when it comes time for the board to vote or shareholders to bring suits against Marvel or an antitrust investigation gets underway. For the moment, it really does feel like sound and fury to me, while having the guy who’s widely credited with saying “No action movies with female leads” taking a more direct role in DC matters–and being able to do so more or less unilaterally whenever the notion strikes him–carries a certain weight with me. But mileages vary.
Justin: While the timing of the announcement seems calculated to pull some wind out of the Marvel/Disney sales, by all accounts the changes have been in the works for some time. As Andrew W. points out, Diane Nelson’s new role has been the subject of online speculation and rumour for at least a couple weeks.
Yeah, I’d read the Nelson thing earlier as well, come to think of it; it’s just a timing thing, I’m sure, that makes this seem like a reaction.
[…] Rich Johnston, Tom Spurgeon, Johanna Draper Carlson, Mark Evanier, John Jackson Miller, Christopher Bird, Valerie D’Orazio, Rick Marshall, Christopher Butcher and Kevin Church. As noted above, the […]
“A few years back, an acquaintance of mine predicted we’d see a day when DC and Marvel would stop publishing and instead license their characters out to be published by others. This is still a ways off, but I can actually envision a time when Dynamite Entertainment’s SPIDER-MAN comic vies with Todd McFarlane Productions’ BATMAN for top spot in the sales charts.”
Didn’t Marvel already do this with Heroes Reborn and Marvel Knights? They basically hired people from other companies to handle their characters for a little while.