Before the X-Men movie came out, Fox (which owned TV Guide at the time and was releasing the X-Men movie) gave them a number of pages in TV Guide the week before the movie came out FOR FREE to put together a comics story. Rather than putting together a story that would introduce the characters, they had a tie-in to the regular X-Men books that was completely unreadable for anyone who hadn't read the comic for years.
Now, this was back when TV Guide still sold millions of copies every week.
The board at Marvel was FURIOUS, and add to this that there weren't all that many X-Men trades available when the movie came out, and the people in charge of such things were quickly fired from Marvel.
Mark Waid will still mention how bad that X-Men story was from time to time, calling it the greatest missed opportunity in comics history.
I also feel that he and Quesada's focus on the hated 6 issue arcs and de-emphasizing the continuity (which had become a noose around Marvel's neck...see the X-Men TV Guide story for proof) is what turned the company around. It brought back lapsed readers, created the start of a trade paperback backstock. He also did the one thing that will make me love him forever:
Restarted the Marvel Masterworks initiative by making sure they stayed in print.
As much as I think the gimmick has worn out, the 6 part story arc in good hands did make thoughtful stories that featured a lot of characterization. Just like those that followed Frank Miller and Alan Moore's dar and gritty round breaking stories, its the poor imitators that weaken a storytelling style and make us crave something else.
Joe Q said many times that all of the characters needed to-re-establish who they were in their own books before worrying about doing new major crossovers, and I believe that was the right decision at that time.
Late to the party, but I wanted to chime in that I looooooooove these spotlight episodes, and this one was no different. As Mr. Siuntres stated earlier, Jemas has to be given some of the credit for the turnaround of Marvel, at the time, if he's going to take his lumps as well.
This particular point in Marvel's history covered in this episode was incredibly exciting for me. This was when I returned to Marvel after I don't know how many years (the last regular title I got from Marvel was Peter David's Hulk, and toward the latter years of PAD's run, the Hulk tended to be the only book from Marvel I was getting). But JMS on Spider-Man, Morrison on X-Men, and Bendis on Daredevil was big frickin' news for me. I could not wait for these books to start, and I was not disappointed when they arrived. Plus, other stuff like Fantastic Four 1234 by Morrison and Jae Lee, and, eventually (I can't remember when it started), Ultimate Team-Up from Bendis and so many great artists (Matt Wagner doing a Marvel Book? John Totleben? Jim Mahfood? Terry Moore? they all worked on Ultimate Team-Up). This was a good time to be reading Marvel Comics.
I also wanted to share a Joe Q story (which I believe I shared on the previous, but that's lost now, so...)
In early 2001, some buddies and I decided we wanted to create our own comic book anthology. I can't remember the title (may have been Mouse Trap, may have been Warrior27, which I later used with the single friend who actually helped make this dream a reality four years later), but we wanted to have comic stories, prose stories, interviews, and all manner of things in our anthology. So, I decided I would contact Joe Quesada, then not a year into his tenure as E-I-C at Marvel, to see if he would agree to an interview.
Understand, I was a nobody, emailing him cold, about a self-published anthology (that never did get finished). and he said yes. So then I started putting together questions for him. And I sent them off (15, I think), and at that time you couldn't just cut and paste from Word (or whatever I was using) into hotmail and have it end up looking anything like English on the other end. This was something I didn't realize until Joe Q replied to my email that all he received was a bunch of garbled symbols. He told me to try and send it again. I did. And he answered every question I had for him. I may rail against some of the decisions and public statements Quesada's made over the years, but he earned a ton of points with me for this kindness. Here's a quote from that interview, which I included in the collected edition of Warrior27:
BECKETT: For a number of years, it has been the perception that DC Comics has been ahead of Marvel in having top-notch talent such as Neil Gaiman, Grant Morrison, Charles Vess, and others, as well as offering a wider variety of projects in genres other than the typical superhero stories that are a staple of the industry. However, this has certainly changed with many big name creators coming to work for Marvel, along with the expansion to a mature line and a creator-owned line. How has this major change for Marvel Comics come about? What is different now at Marvel that is allowing these changes to take place?
QUESADA: Well, for starters, it’s not a perception. DC did have the big guns. Granted, a lot of what they did later was inspired by early Epic, but there’s no doubt that they did it better. I think that the creative community has been waiting for Marvel to change its ways; they just had no idea how long it was going to take. We’ve changed our way of doing business creatively. It’s a simple philosophy. Hire the best creators and let them do what we hired them for!
And here's a link to the complete interview - LINK
Comments
Now, this was back when TV Guide still sold millions of copies every week.
The board at Marvel was FURIOUS, and add to this that there weren't all that many X-Men trades available when the movie came out, and the people in charge of such things were quickly fired from Marvel.
Mark Waid will still mention how bad that X-Men story was from time to time, calling it the greatest missed opportunity in comics history.
Joe Q said many times that all of the characters needed to-re-establish who they were in their own books before worrying about doing new major crossovers, and I believe that was the right decision at that time.
Late to the party, but I wanted to chime in that I looooooooove these spotlight episodes, and this one was no different. As Mr. Siuntres stated earlier, Jemas has to be given some of the credit for the turnaround of Marvel, at the time, if he's going to take his lumps as well.
This particular point in Marvel's history covered in this episode was incredibly exciting for me. This was when I returned to Marvel after I don't know how many years (the last regular title I got from Marvel was Peter David's Hulk, and toward the latter years of PAD's run, the Hulk tended to be the only book from Marvel I was getting). But JMS on Spider-Man, Morrison on X-Men, and Bendis on Daredevil was big frickin' news for me. I could not wait for these books to start, and I was not disappointed when they arrived. Plus, other stuff like Fantastic Four 1234 by Morrison and Jae Lee, and, eventually (I can't remember when it started), Ultimate Team-Up from Bendis and so many great artists (Matt Wagner doing a Marvel Book? John Totleben? Jim Mahfood? Terry Moore? they all worked on Ultimate Team-Up). This was a good time to be reading Marvel Comics.
I also wanted to share a Joe Q story (which I believe I shared on the previous, but that's lost now, so...)
In early 2001, some buddies and I decided we wanted to create our own comic book anthology. I can't remember the title (may have been Mouse Trap, may have been Warrior27, which I later used with the single friend who actually helped make this dream a reality four years later), but we wanted to have comic stories, prose stories, interviews, and all manner of things in our anthology. So, I decided I would contact Joe Quesada, then not a year into his tenure as E-I-C at Marvel, to see if he would agree to an interview.
Understand, I was a nobody, emailing him cold, about a self-published anthology (that never did get finished). and he said yes. So then I started putting together questions for him. And I sent them off (15, I think), and at that time you couldn't just cut and paste from Word (or whatever I was using) into hotmail and have it end up looking anything like English on the other end. This was something I didn't realize until Joe Q replied to my email that all he received was a bunch of garbled symbols. He told me to try and send it again. I did. And he answered every question I had for him. I may rail against some of the decisions and public statements Quesada's made over the years, but he earned a ton of points with me for this kindness. Here's a quote from that interview, which I included in the collected edition of Warrior27: And here's a link to the complete interview - LINK
chris