- Marvel Comics is moving its publishing division from New York City to Burbank, California, in an effort to regain market share from DC Comics.
- DC Comics has recently surpassed Marvel in market share, with DC capturing between 34 and 40 percent compared to Marvel’s 29 to 33 percent.
- The move to California is intended to create better synergy between Marvel’s publication, animation, and live-action teams, with the goal of producing higher-quality projects and improving the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
One thing that Marvel Comics fans have long joked about is the sheer number of superheroes who are based out of New York City. Spider-Man, The X-Men, The Avengers, The Fantastic Four…believe it or not, these are just a few of the characters and groups based around the iconic city. How and why did this happen? Simple: Marvel Comics has always been located in New York City, and in the formative days of the publisher, most of the writers, artists, and editors lived in that same city. Accordingly, the stories they created reflected the lived experience of walking those streets, day in and day out.
These days, however, very few comic writers live in New York City due to its notoriously high cost of living. And now, even the company itself is forsaking the city. Earlier this week, Marvel informed its employees that it would be moving its publishing division out of Midtown and to Burbank, California, which is home to both Marvel Studios and The Walt Disney Company. Along with this big change, the publisher also named Stephen Wacker as its new editor-in-chief. These major shifts at the House of Ideas have one major purpose: to help Marvel Comics beat DC and become, once more, the market share leader in comic book publishing.
DC Keeps Kicking Marvel’s Butt
If you only pay attention to superhero movies, you might wonder why Marvel would fret about beating DC. After all, the DCEU ran itself into the ground trying to compete with the MCU, which is still going strong. Now, James Gunn’s DCU is floundering: Superman was a success story last year, but Supergirl, the second film in this cinematic universe, turned out to be a critical and commercial bomb. Throw in the fact that this year’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day and Avengers: Doomsday are going to collectively make billions of dollars, and Marvel’s cinematic success is undeniable. Unfortunately, Marvel’s publishing side has been consistently losing ground to their biggest rival.
How is Marvel losing out to DC? As The Hollywood Reporter reports, Marvel “lost its position as comics market share leader for the first time this century.” In terms of numbers, ICv2 reports that DC successfully captured somewhere between 34 and 40 percent of the market share compared to Marvel’s 29 to 33 percent. This is due to multiple factors, including DC making its older works more affordable and accessible through its Compact Comics line and offering exciting new books like AbsoluteBatman. Compared to DC’s success, Marvel has recently looked like they were just publishing filler to keep readers interested between movies.
An Uncanny Team-Up
Now, however, Marvel is taking big swings to try to take back the market share from their greatest opponent. As Kevin Feige noted at a recent town hall event, moving remaining operations to the West Coast is intended to create better synergy between Marvel’s publication, animation, and live-action storytellers. This sentiment was echoed in a letter Brad Winderbaum (head of television, animation, comics, and franchise) and David Abdo (general manager, comics and franchise) sent to The Hollywood Reporter. “Bringing our comics, film, television, and other creative teams together will help us learn from one another, collaborate, and build on the strengths that make Marvel the true House of Ideas,” they wrote.
In a perfect world, this collaboration will give us more high-quality projects like X-Men ’97 (when are we getting that animated cinematic universe, Brad?!) while improving the MCU, which has been very inconsistent since Avengers: Endgame. If nothing else, giving the publishing division a new editor-in-chief will give a shot in the arm to Marvel Comics and help them provide proper competition to DC once more. This, too, is good for the long-term health of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which has become successful by adapting the best comics of yesteryear. The only way to make sure the films of the future rock is to make sure the comics of today don’t suck.
If that can happen, readers and viewers alike will proudly say “Make mine Marvel” yet again. Otherwise, the audience for this storied publisher might do their best impression of Spider-Man from Avengers: Infinity War by disappearing altogether.
