Made for mines. From captain america and spiderman to the x. Man and the hope to play. Anyone else. Even if youve never read the comics youll likely recognize these iconic superheroes and that wells from the screen so i think youll be quite accurate to say that marvel revolutionized the superhero comic with thousands of characters isnt interweaving storylines the marvel universe is one of the most astonishing tales in more than fiction. But its it all becomes one rival for the company at the time of the millennium. It was losing sight of what you were trying to sell sell stories it was kind of like a victim of his own success. Every great story has a point where the hero is on. As nice seemingly beyond salvation models talk a star. Came when it declared bankruptcy followed by an all out war between investors that raged for years. And a lot of screaming out and threats to destroy one another everybody was just scared to death this is the inside story of how one of the worlds most beloved pop culture icons reemerge from the ruins of its comic book empire. And force its way back to the top. New york. Times of marvels headquarters and so many of its super errands. From dramatic battles a Grand Central station. To spectacular rescue some Staten Island ferry. Concert the magic of marvel for the long time fans like sean how is that his character is a set in the wheel well some. People that i knew from new york city had the feeling that they might. Catch a glimpse of a superhero battle in their underwear the post office or something for almost 80 years marvel has captivated comic fans across the globe she sings bestselling comic books costumes. Video games. And record breaking ups office hits marvel has come could the entertainment world. I thought so rewind to 3 decades earlier and marvel wasnt just buckling comic super villains it was combating bankruptcy stuff defections and tied up in a legal battle that threatens destroy the company. To find out we go back to the beginnings of a marvel universe. Such. 2 as superheroes we next day were born in new york in the late 1930 s. 2. 2 in the midst of the Great Depression marvels rival d. C. Comics created a character that became an instant hit. Superman question inspiration for a lot of kids in the depression it was a crusader for the masses superman was soon followed by muppet k. Q. Crusader. The 2 propelled d. C. Comics popularity well ahead of novelists then just a small pulp fiction publisher one is timely from earlier years marvel has at least the kind of 2nd Place Company superman and batman and d. C. Comics were were kind of the Industry Standard and marvel was. Truly a scrappy other player to cash in on the trends as jaime high just seemed to the juices on line of superheroes cartoonists jay simon and struck toby would go on to create some of models must find this characters. And says america and to the 2nd world war. Right. Time is patriotic superhero i keep a real life animes in world war 2. I. Struck a chord with soldiers and their families back home. I think that there was a way to see a victory to have an idea of what that would feel like. Imagines that hes in fortys for the golden age of comics in the United States and his american soldiers brought their comments overseas us against popularity in korea and japan has helped. Influence the development of local manga comics. But in the 1950 s. There was a growing movement against violence and go on in comic books. And it allowed. That with. Good results is in regulation that severely limited the kind of content publishers could print. Comics to ensure that you have vampires from drugs in a comic everything was just completely defanged and no fun to comics sells wanted. By the early 1960 s. Marvel was struggling just to stay in business the companys editor in chief stan lee was ready to create. But then marvels always rival d. C. Comics threw together its most popular characters into a single super group. Their mission to fight for justice and to serve all mankind. The Justice League became a surprise case and inspired stan ladens artist jack kirby to create their own team of super heroes. Raiders team a super the last of the world has ever known. Fantastic. The 1st issue broke convention with all superhero archetypes of the day unlike the stoic and sniffed flawless superman and batman. Kirbys heroes came not just with superpowers but with problems that readers could relate to. It was the beginning of characters have been a 3 dimensionality that really set marvel apart. As demi finger off edited some of marvels most famous superheroes for close to 2 decades. Marvel comics gave you a depth of characterization where. People could Work Together but not like each other or like each other but be angry at each other or quit the team as far as comic books that was fairly unprecedented. A year later marvel straight even further from comic conventions for the 1st time a teenager became a superhero. Such was marvels impact theres now an exhibit dedicated to its famous character in new york. Spiderman is as my favorite character now is very complex and yet hes very simple hes. Hes the most like a regular person peter parker was an introverted didnt have a lot of friends also asked to work 2 or 3 extra. And then has a sick relative and yet wants to excel. And he want to try to have a social life i mean its truly a very modern story right its about the kids who has more responsibilities than any kid should have especially as ability of being spiderman and great responsibility. Spiderman became the most popular comic book characters since superman but marvels biggest innovation was just around the corner. As more superheroes emerged they become sick interacts and crossover with each of the stories. This collective became known as the marvel universe yes. The narrative of the marvel universe is just a staggering achievement that i think is really the most complicated narrative that probably exists in history. It wasnt just a new universe that stan lee and his collaborators forward in periodic updates stanley gave ray does a glimpse into the you know what its of the marvel office. Featuring prices. Autists. And even secretaries so you had 2 levels of connection and every comic. You have not just the stories themselves but you have updates of what was going on in the office and you had a sense that you knew the people behind the stories they were like almost surrogate family members the team at marvel became as popular with fans as the superheroes they created. I think stanley is one of those figures without whom there might not be account. Book industry both creatively and a business and promotional level he reinvented what the superhero was and could be. By the 1970 s. Marvel was the number one comic book company in the world. Releasing 40 different titles every month. And selling 50000000 comics a year in more than 100 countries. Its super heroes even became stars on animated shellys. The company traditionally in 2nd place to his rival d. C. Comics was now number one is somehow retained its status as an underdog. So you have d. C. Comics the superman batman wonder woman and Everybody Knows those characters but with marvel we were like the shrugging Company Really and we have spiderman and all of these guys who have problems and so even though we were the best selling comics we were still the underdog new banks joined marvel in the mid 1900. As the underdog to the guys were for the good fight and it felt like we were all fighting the good fight about so as the Company Became increasingly successful that changed. The owners of marvel became progressively less knowledgeable and less interested in their comic books. By the 1980 s. The comic industry was booming worldwide with people hungry for heroes once considered cheat and a disposable comics have become prized items and speculators was snapping up issues in bulk to resell them to collectors for enormous profits. In the us vintage comics the cost 400. 00 in the 1970 s. Shops a full. My files and us dollars a decade later. By the early ninetys and some 1st issue comics well worth of 40000 us dollars and up to cash in the number of specialty comic book stores surged globally from a few 100 to over 10000. As rare and new comic books were flying off the shelves marvel attracted the interest of millionaire businessman ron perlman who bought the company for over 80000000. 00 u. S. Dollars in 1909. Helman woods in the movie changed the way marvel ran its business. Proving he was kind of a step above the cream glamour owner he was in the corporate raider he was somebody who had no emotional connection to the comics so you know this was marvels 1st real existence as. Kind of a piece in time once again. I can remember ron coming through the office during that 1st week. And he was he was he may not have been smoking the cigar but he was at least chewing the cigar uses this short little man who looked like he owned the world being toward through the offices by a young woman dressed as spider woman in spandex and to me thats who run pro men will always be this guy who owns the world it can make young women dress up in spandex. New bank joint models 2 years before. The company. When i started at marvel you know i was i was surrounded by the people whose comics i had grown up reading it was really amazing it was fun it was exciting everybody was thrilled to be there when the announcement came that the company was being sold. Everybody was nervous and as we saw perlman walking through the office we became more nervous. To drive growth home and fesa town to raise the price of comic books by appealing to collect since they started marketing their comics as products as collectors items and as things that were other than you know the inherent value of. Something you read we had a practice of doing special covers enhanced covers glow in the dark colors will covers how a great covers and adding a glow in the dark over cause us to take that same 32 page comic book that we sold for a 1. 15 instead make it to 95. 00. In the short term consequences of that were that we would sell 4 times as many copies of back comic double the price so 4. 00 times the comic looks portrayed on the bottom. Initially polman strategy want to dramatically over the next couple of years models revenues grew by 50 percent and its profits multiplied 6 fall. In 9091. 00 the company went public and its market value balloons to 3000000000. 00 us dollars. We all thought that was hilarious because were just a bunch of guys running around the Office Shooting each other with plastic guns at night but the mood at marvel changed significantly after the initial Public Offering with shareholders now expecting bigger returns the pressure at marvel intensified. Marvel goes public thats one profits have to be of every quarter marvel started just. Increasing production at a crazy rate in 1905 marvel have been publishing 40 titles a month by 993 they did more than doubled that number. But printing so many comics and specialty covers started to dilute the marvel brand theres all different gimmicks some of them very nice gimmicks but gimmicks arguments adventure they do they run a bit thin. Hellmans Marketing Team also began to dictate the contents of the comics. Artists and writers were told to engineer more crossover stories that featured its best selling superheroes to display a comic book stores like this one in new york. We knew that there were people there were ravenous wolverine and punisher and always spiderman collectors and all you got to do is put those characters into or a low selling comic and suddenly you some more copies because people wanted to maintain their complete spiderman collection of the complete wolverine collection. But at some point the guy who collects every appearance of wolverine can no longer afford to collect every appearance of movement at some point you chase the guy away by trying to take too much of his money. The plots also figured into one another so readers had to buy all related issues if they wanted to make sense of them as production increased the quality and contents of the comics began to suffer. And this started to alienate the companys cool audience. Bounce if marvel was losing readers why was it still seeing a Record Number of sales every month. The problem was the distribution system. Unlike traditional newsstands specialty comic book shops cant return unsold copies for a refund. If the issues dont sell retailers show to the cost. So marvel couldnt tell how many comics the shops were actually somethings of customers. And this was about to become a big problem. Bookstore manager jeff as discovered shops that have both a huge oversupply of comic books for speculate as. I have seen in other stores d i worked out in basement long boxes of beasts of millions of books there spawn the one box one box to box 3 parts for as because dollars and bought so much of this manufactured trike and sold that thats going to everybodys going to want 50 of those and it just wasnt the case and then i mean a lot of stores are hurting. The news got a little bank he went to the comic book stores to find out what was going on. Or when you had those conversations with comic Book Store Owners about what they were selling or what they were sitting on thats when they started getting very dark conversations very bleak. And it gave me the sense that something was going on here that we used to record. Loose and field representatives out to survey comic Stores Across the country their findings was shocking. Every time marvel sold its special editions and subsequent issues or a 20 percent decline in sales. We just were getting tired of expensive and gimmicky comics that were mainly marketed to collectors and speculators. Who sent an urgent memo to marvel senior management. And im sure a c c 6000000 other people showing that we were literally chasing away our long term readers of long term customers by doing these enhanced covers and the reaction to that memo was site which. 2 marvel continued to publish enhanced covers and also began to include Trading Cards to encourage more collectors. Alienating even more of their readers. Meanwhile comic book shops unable to cope with unsold stock started to close down. So it just seemed absolutely absurd to me you know now i understand what they were doing they were in it for the long haul they wanted to make as much money as they could make right now right here and damn the consequences the im the people who suffered the results of their decision we got what we needed out of them. We dont need them anymore i didnt want to be a part of that strip and i didnt want to be a part of what i saw airs be coming down for. Omar. The insatiable drive for profits at marvel was also beginning to westin with its creative team. By this. Time Founding Editor in chief stanley that means to california to pursue hollywood deals for the company. And the new editors left in charge one being allowed to do their jobs. The editors job was to set direction for the comic and suddenly there was this this Marketing Division that was setting direction and the editors were not happy they feel like they should have more say in what the stories are at some point that created a conflict and certainly demoralize the people. Working in editorial and that the devil is sort of being painted you have this the static feeling for the characters you also know youre in the business and that that constant tug of war and you had all these editors slamming their heads up against the wall to make their comics that they were responsible for spike in sales get really sad and and there was more infighting and people were just unhappy they were having fun. And then in 1992 the inevitable happens. In a mass exodus marvels top talents left to join rivals and to form their own publishing houses. By alienating writers and artists who had developed stories who had popularized the characters marvel ended up setting themselves up for failure. As comic book readers followed their favorite artists of the new labels marvels market share dropped from 45 to 30 percent. Meanwhile the special and collectible comics cut over saturated the markets. If you print tens of thousands of a particular kind of comic immediately it cant be worth as much so its it was kind of like a victim of his own success in 1903 when spec. Later isnt collectors realize that the value of comics have been inflated the comic industry implied it. Publish a sales plummeted by 70 percent. And 9 out of 10 comic book stores in america close their doors. The Comics Division a turn once made up 90 percent of marvel sales was now a 3rd of its business in a desperate attempt to spur growth. Power managed gone on an acquisition spree. From Trading Cards manufacturers to stick a companys and a toy retailer how montrose marvel stats up to 600000000 u. S. Dollars all the while moving it further and further away from its core comic books. By 995 the company was in crisis it reported a full she 8000000 dollar loss the 1st time since permanent bought the company that they havent turned a profit. Its stock value collapsed shares once where 35. 00 in 1903 that sunk to just 2. 00. Each. As a result marvel announced a company wide comes. 40 percent of its workforce was necco. After almost 2 decades of a company edited down a finger off made the difficult decision to leave. I was heartbroken to leave marvel things had changed there in such a way that it was very unpleasant for me on a day to day basis but you know ive worked 18 years it was where i growing up you know id say i had at the end of a romantic relationship with the death of the loved one living marvel was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me. By 996 marvel reported a staggering loss of over 400. 1000000 u. S. Dollars the company desperately needed cash to keep running and so pay back its debts. Butts in a disagreement with shareholders over the companys future poland declared bankruptcy. As majority owner it gave him the power to reorganize marvel without their consent. But in doing so perlman dragged the companys reputation through the mud in a series of very public court battles. Surrounded by the small during ruin of its comic book empire marvel was in its darkest hour and the future looks bleak. And a lot of screaming out our phones and threats to destroy it were another there is something that was so absurd in grotesque about these cold hearted men suing each other to have custody of something that emotionally a lot of College Readers thought belonged to that in 1998 after a 2 year battle it was finally over. From coleman sued for diversity over 500000000. 00 u. S. Dollars from marvel to his other businesses. Was ousted from the company. But marvel was still broke surviving on a 200000000. 00 loan that had to be repaid soon or. It now needed a super hero of his own to save the day. In 1909 the Company Brought in peter cuneo known as the turnaround king he successfully guided 6 businesses through tough times including Cosmetics Company clairol and Security Hardware group black and decker. Bouts cuneo to rescue marvel was a huge whiskey in you nothing about the comic book industry it was not a particularly a comic book fair i wasnt a nurse at all in a comic book or a little comical community sad to learn that. But a crash course is all. Junia would have time for. The companys stock could fall into a dismal 0. 96 a share. Was marvel in disarray and investors impatient for results the pressure on cuneo was intense turns are not for everybody really in fact you have to be a little nuts to do what i do really its not normal my experience has been that things are always worse than you thought they were and theyll be sleepless nights with barely 3000000. 00 in the bank the 1st thing that kept cuneo up at nights was how to get marvel the cash it desperately needed. For 26000000. 00 u. S. Dollars marvel sold its sticker and trading Card Companies a mere fraction of the 400000000. 00 pounds on it spent on them. While cuneo searched for ways to settle the companys remaining debts he also had to start reviving marvels lifeline. Its comic books. They have to get their readers back the years of gimmicks had left their stories in a sorry state. To reinvigorate them he would have to convince some of the creatives who had left marvel to return. A lot of the creative people particularly comic book industry felt that they had been mistreated frankly by the company obviously wanted to get the best back and so thats what i was doing was basically courting people the creative people in most business are the ones that actually make you money. And so the people working in the creative jobs have to feel wanted needed and rewarded. Immediately instigated a complete change of atmosphere he gave his artist the freedom to walk. He also tasks for my us sports executive and comic fan bill janus with reviving marvels superhero comics. At the time the company was publishing 60 monthly titles that were filled with convoluted plots threating back to the 960 s. He recognized i think it is very difficult to get new readers into the comic book industry because if you want to get. Emotionally attached to a character or set of characters lets say spiderman you had to come in at issue 475. 00 so you had 40 years of storytelling. So bill recognized that we had to start telling the stories of our major characters all over again from there our agent and he started a new series of comic books that did that. Also gave the series an upgrade to the new millennium. Park and they came a tech geek with an instant shipment of the. The 1st issue of the ultimate spiderman became an instant tains. By the way to thousands marvel had reclaimed is a lead in the comic industrys market share. Meanwhile cuneo and his team mates thought of another way to translate the companys cash problems and pay back its loans. They would focus on models most valuable asset its unique library of comic book characters. We need a business that would generate a lot of cash and this is why we adapted as a Business Model a licensing model in licensing it does not require us to put up much capital. Marvel began licensing out his characters for toys clothes School Supplies and video games. But to generate more revenue the companys characters needed to appeal to a much wider market not just Hardcore Comic fans so marvel turned to hollywood movies were just always just out of reach for stanley. Although he had been trying to get them made for decades. Im out here hoping to put the use and other properties into movies and Television Shows unfortunately for marvels famous editor in chief previous licensing deals with studios have been anything but successful. Partly due to the limits of technology. And partly because marvel had no Creative Control over the movies. Films like howard the duck in 1986 and my friend happiness an Animal Kingdom backing a critical and financial disaster as. Cuneo and his team decided that marvel would from now on tightly control how their movies were made they would commission the scripts hire good quality directors and find the right accounts for the characters themselves and then partner with large Hollywood Studios to produce and distribute the movies. And marvel was finally moving in a new direction toward dealing in intellect. Instead of selling products. We had to look at our characters as talent and we had to treat them as if they were living people but we had also run them like brands spiderman as a brand models hope was this a successful film with transformers other businesses. If someone goes to your movies theyre probably going to buy toys for their kids someone plays you video games are going to go and movies kids like the toys youre going to buy back to School Products from and on and on and on ladies and gentlemen we are now seeing the beginnings of another stage of human evolution. X. Men was released in the year 2000 to critical acclaim and grossed over 290000000. 00 u. S. Dollars while white x. Men one proves something very important to marvel and i think the rest of the Entertainment Industry and that is that you could have a big success financially if you made a good film even if the general public did not know the characters 99 percent never heard of the x. Men before they started seeing trailers and we had people lining up around the block when the film was opening. Suddenly superheroes what with all the rage and think budget other patients like spiderman. On the hulk and devil also became massive hits. Marvels movies like x. Men had been a smashing success but the company wasnt getting the full profits from its partnership with Hollywood Studios. When sonys 2 spiderman films made a combined 3000000000. 00 worldwide marvel only received 6000000. 00 from selling the characterize. The new management came up with a radical idea. Should produce its own films and keep 100 percent of the profits. It was a bonus plan. Not everyone agreed it was a good one. Marvel had never produced a film before and a flop in hollywood could cost them millions. The idea of us taking some financial risk and films was not initially particularly popular with some of our investors. But i think the people me outside didnt understand it as we had been apprenticing and 12 films we had learned how to make it. In 2005 the companys board gave Marvel Studios the green knight to finance its films marvel struck a risky deal with Wealth Management firm Merrill Lynch it offered up its hand of its most prized kerrick says including captain america thaw and iron man as collateral for a massive 520000000. 00 cash reservoir to make 10 movies bounce if Marvel Studios failed all of their super heroes would belong to the bank. As Marvel Studios went into production for its fast film and man it decided to take an even thinker risk and break with hollywood convention. Hollywood has a tendency when theyre worried about a film to chaos very well known and often highly paid actors and actresses because they will quote guarantee the box office we didnt believe in insurance and we thought that the characters were so strong the Company Really view these characters as the stars. They found theyd tell me stark in Robert Downey jr about at the time he was best known for his past problems with addiction rather than his acting talent the choice was seen as a big gamble. Hed had some ups and downs in his life and his career up so there was certainly some natural questioning about doubt well is is there a cast. Well the people running Marvel Studios showed marvel board Robert Downey jr screen test. In this edition in 2006 Robert Downey jr is reading for one of the 1st scenes in iron man working out whats going through the called my time dont ask dont tell to much of a about ago hes on script for the 1st couple of minutes and then he just goes off as robert can do and he right in front of us became tony stark done youre still Buckingham Palace where we go but out of break out the psyops there it is theres a smile its ok yet so its natural just less muscles to smile and. I am man of course became a massive success largely juta downey genius onil to docs take on tony stark to fetter the fear of respect i say is it too much to ask for book it ranks number one of the box office and grossed over 580000000. 00 on a budget of 140000000. 00 a good look even i. Think youll be home and rolling in on moms purse credit scene novel set up and also only the next movie of the avengers a whole new world of overlapping character as nick fury director she. Has talked about the of injury. The marvel cinematic universe was born. Realizing the huge potential in marvels library of superheroes disney kutch is the company for a full 1000000000 u. S. Dollars in 2009. With disneys global reach the top catapulted a whole galaxy of marvel Stock Characters to a new level. To date its movies have grossed over 12000000000. 00 u. S. Dollars worldwide making. At the biggest film franchise in history. You think you can see. Marvels remarkable turnaround was in large part helped spice budgeting popularity in asia. As time progresses is proving that asia is very important to companies that marvel movies for example like man which was one of my was relatively unknown characters that did very well in china a few movie grossed somewhere around 140000000 worldwide and of that one sir was contributed to the chinese market. The loss of marvels business its comic books is in decline. In the heyday publishers could sell a 1000000 copies per issue. These days selling 40000. 00 is considered a success. Now a new battle is brewing in the comic book industry. Marvel is looking to expand its business in asia and that means its barely serious mistake on the ensuring the populace starry eyed gals of manga. But it wont be that easy. Monga is a form of comics that originates from japan is very different to sink holes in the fact that a lot of the characters are very young the start is very unique and the story types of very different to western comics as well among generally speaking in asia its much more popular than a western drama. Manga dominates almost every major city in the region. It has more than 50 percent of the market share in taiwan and hong kong while western comics take less than 11 percent here. To compete marvel knows it has to build a stronger emotional connection to asian readers. To securely us regional events like the singapore comic convention. Model. Most exciting event of the year of hollywood cakes and movie buffs like. Singapore ian illustrator and avid marvel fan gary chu comes here every year. In a way this is so british and of people with like minded obvious like by the interest. Of the interest in american superheroes has grown the carriages on display here dont really reflects marvels new target audience marvels always at asian characters but you know if youve been told theyve always been a little bit stared to they were created by writers based mainly in the west and it was a japanese character is based on an injoke or a samurai or a geisha who was a chinese character was always on food. C. B. Suppose skee is marvels man in the east responsible for bringing the marvel universe to asia and divisive versa hes here scouting for local artists to incorporate deeper asian influences in the comics were looking for now so bring a little more authenticity to it since our fanbase is going global we want people to feel like that well this outside their window so that the characters are authentic lesion from the actual cities and that the writers were hiring the artists were hiring a rare piece of their lives to those characters to make them feel you know just really real to the readers. Monfils new characters are now gradually starting to reflects the diverse readers the Company Wants to connect with and for the 1st time in the history. Of muslim superhero hes headlining happened in comic books this fall just muslim books on america i think its great because right no theyre getting fans to understand that hey theres a bigger Bigger Picture here this more people theres a lot of other different ethnicities living together. Gary chu cause his big break here 4 years ago when he met marvels talent scout c. B. Supposed to our super nose but it looked at my hopefully oh you felt cool and we were just going to. After so it was also the 1st couple i drool form lovel. Force excellent special i was really happy with their love that i couldnt wait for it to be printed. The day gary continues to work as a freelance artist for marvel. As a last trade i reach a level where ive delivered this exportable. To me that is very sad for those films and licensing deals remain marvels Main Business it continues to develop its comics for a more global audience based on the strong station of storytelling stanley and his collaborators began in the 1960 s. I think any good story appears to anyone anywhere and usually its a case of someone being going to knock or having a problem somewhere theyve been given great power and what it is they do without all the us a pretty universal kind of one story marvel has a wealth of characters that have never been explored in any shape or form. That should they get not right they will be here for many many many years to come. Climate neutrality the 25th. Energy pioneers aka pairing for. The green deal is attracting real money from. The sandy hook by c o 2 is just one way the climate killer can even be recycled and replace crude oil. Made in germany. 9 minutes on t. W. Beethoven is for me. Is for. Beethoven is for. Beethoven. And beethoven is for. Beethoven is for embryonic. Beethoven 2020. The 50th anniversary here on d w. Is this human race destroying itself. We are ruining the basic elements of our system that were using too much water and were too late to get a longer life playing. Going to go lower supplies will last for ever play but they wont play when the marines focused starts march 20th on w. The float. Plane. Load place. This is d w news live from berlin and the corona virus is spreading across europe but how are Different Countries tackling the outbreak will look at whether germanys approach is appropriate or whether some critics are right to call for more aggressive containment measures. Also coming. Closer. Im seeing you so much going to thank you for joining us german chancellor