Marvel’s Endgame?
Maybe.
Marvel Comics hasn’t turned a profit for a long time. Even during the 1970s the primary means of profit for those companies was in merchandising and media sales. The comics themsleves became something of a loss leader. Still it was a good idea to keep the losses as low as possible and that meant telling good and engaging stories.
It wasn’t the worst business model in the world. DC got snatched up by Warner, more or less by accident as part of merger package.
Marvel stayed independent and frequently in financial difficulty until it was taken over by Ike Perlmutter and Avi Arad in the late 90s. in 2009 Marvel Entertainment merged with the Walt Disney Company. About 2014 Marvel Comics went super Woke (a term that didn’t exist at the time). A lot of us predicted with childike faith, that once Disney finally figured out what was going on, there would be purge because the SJWs were trainwrecking Marvel Comics as a business and ruining the most golden brand Disney owned.
We hadn’t known at the time that capitalism had been replaced with “Stakeholder Capitalism”. Which was newspeak for Commie Capitalism. And Marvel Comics was doing exactly what the “stakeholders” wanted it to. So long as Disney had billions to burn Marvel Comics was quite safe.
Except that Disney is now running out billions. Between the destruction of all of Disney’s major brands, the ridiculous price paid for Fox and the disaster of Disney+, Bob Iger is now having to tighten the belt across the board. And it may be Marvel Comics turn if my colleague Jon Del Arroz is correct.
From Fandom Pulse:
Marvel Studios went through a recent round of layoffs after the MCU’s underperformance, and Disney+ numbers are reaching new lows to pair with their comic book partners. It seems that Disney might be seeing redundancy in having a Hollywood apparatus for these properties and a comic publisher as well.
The job posting, listed on May 20th, is looking for a Publishing Operations Analyst. The duties of this position follow the weekly schedules of production of monthly books—much like Marvel Comics does with its regular publishing schedule.
This listing is from Marvel Studios. Not Marvel Comics, indicating that Marvel Comics is about to be rolled into the studio. Quite possibly this POA may be in charge of brand managers and the actual writing and artwork will be farmed out to independents.
Is this the end of Marvel Comics as an independent publishing line?
