$UPER VILLAINS: The Decline and Fall of the Comic Book Industry – Part 3 of 3

Note from JayJay: The final part of a book proposal Jim wrote in 1998.

Chapter Five: “The Perelman Cometh”

During the Ronald O. Perelman era, Marvel became hugely inflated, much like the Hindenburg.

The comics themselves were mysterious to Perelmanʼs management people—including Galton and the other holdovers. They were strange, gaudy hard-to-read things churned out by odd-looking people downstairs. The managers Perelman filtered in, however, know something about marketing. Realizing that many comics were bought by collectors, they began taking, what to them, was the obvious step of turning Marvel into the Franklin Mint. “Special” issues that every collector had to have came out in a flood. How could a collector not buy several copies of the Ghost Rider issue with the glow-in-the-dark cover? How could they not buy the special hologram cover issues, the gold foil cover issues, the die-cut-embossed-variant-platinum cover issues of Spider-Man, The X-Men, et al?

As Marvelʼs emphasis shifted to marketing gimmicks, it shifted away from creative. Disgruntled creators began bailing out, or being driven out. If you can sell a book by pasting on a hologram at the printer, who cares if the story inside is any good? Who needs high-priced “star” artists?

I happened to meet new Marvel president Terry Stewart at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October of 1992. He told me how well they were doing—two great years in a row. He said he felt like heʼd won the lottery each year. “Youʼre supposed to be the great comics guru,” he said. “What should we do next?” I told him theyʼd used up all the easy shots, done every “event” marketing trick to death, and now, they were going to have to create—publish good books.

He laughed.

Chapter Five will tell the story of greedy-publishing, spectator-pandering, fad marketing driven, over bloating that was the beginning of the end for Marvel.

Chapter Six: “Turning Point”

It seemed as though from the moment Gabelli began his attempt to take over Cadence Industries, my life became a series of setbacks and frustrations. The bitter parting with Marvel, and the disappointing outcome of the auction were just the beginning—many more disasters and disappointments came along before I finally finally arrived at a moment of vindication and success that belongs on the all-time highlight reel.

Warburg Pincus, which had been interested in the Marvel sale invited me to submit a plan for a start-up—then later reneged on promised funding.

I explored buying Harvey Comics, a once-thriving then almost defunct publisher of young kidsʼ comics, like Richie Rich and Casper the Friendly Ghost. Harvey was owned by three people who hated each other. After a meeting at their offices with one of them, who insisted that we do our talking in a closet, lest the other two should overhear, I decided that this deal was more grief than I needed.

A consulting gig with Disney, which was supposed to turn into a full time job didnʼt pan out. They thought I was great—but too “controversial.”

While these dead ends were playing out, things were getting grim for me financially. Pursuing Marvel had cost, by my modest standards, a great deal of money, and I hadnʼt been able to get much freelance work due to my pariah-hood.

Finally, I was able to convince a small venture capital company, Triumph Capital, L.P., to fund a start-up comics company. With the same partners whoʼd joined me in my attempt to buy Marvel, J. Winston Fowlkes and Steve Massarsky, I launched Voyager Communications Inc., publishers of comics under the imprint VALIANT. I was confident that we could out-create and out-compete Marvel, the market leader, where creativity had been thrust into the rumble seat since Perelman and his marketing mavens had taken over.

Fowlkes was a retired Time Inc. financial officer—a wealthy man who got involved with my comic book ventures because he found the whole business fascinating, and quite a change from his relatively stodgy Time days. He was the “gray hair” of the group, the experienced financial person that gives lenders and investors comfort and confidence. Massarsky was an entertainment lawyer. Besides the obvious advantages of having a lawyer on board, he had contacts in the film and music industries that I thought might prove useful.

Triumph Capital was essentially a two-person operation—Michael Nugent, an older man, and Melanie Okun, a thirty-year old woman. Before starting Triumph, theyʼd been a successful investment banking team at Bankers Trust Capital. Triumph owned 40% of Voyager, Fowlkes, Massarsky, and I each owned 20%. Nugent, Okun, Fowlkes, Massarsky and I comprised the board.

My joy and excitement about starting Voyager, not to mention having a job, was shortlived. We closed our funding deal with Triumph in November 1989. Just before Christmas, Massarsky informed me that he was sleeping with Melanie.

That worried me. Fowlkes, though, was absolutely appalled by the obvious conflict. He grew even more appalled as Massarsky spent more and more time courting Melanie and less and less time doing his job. Fowlkes finally complained to Nugent, hoping he would do something. He did. He called a board meeting, and with a three-fifths majority—himself, Okun and Massarsky—fired Fowlkes!

I was thunderstruck. Triumphʼs intention was to clawback Fowlkesʼs stock and simply terminate his contract. I took the following stand: either they had to settle with Fowlkes to his satisfaction, or Iʼd quit.

Ultimately, they agreed to a deal by which Fowlkes kept half of his stock, 10% of the company, and would be paid the entire amount due under his three-year employment contract. He was happy with the settlement, and happy to be away from Massarsky and Triumph. I agreed to stay.

I stayed because I reasoned that, though Nugent and Okun were vipers, most venture capital people are vipers; though Massarsky had proven to be a self-serving, doubledealing scumbag—he was a lawyer after all—that they needed me. I was the creative guy. The success of the venture depended upon me, therefore, they couldnʼt do anything too bad to me without cutting their own throats. Besides, all they wanted was money. If I could make Voyager successful, and I knew I could, theyʼd want to exit.

Maybe I could buy them out.

There were other reasons, too—I needed the job. Furthermore, Iʼd hired a number of my friends to work there, including several whoʼd given up other jobs, and they needed the jobs. Committing to work for me, The Great Satan, had pretty much gotten them blackballed elsewhere. Perhaps most importantly, I needed a victory. I was tired of being a pariah. This was a chance, however tainted and soured, to redeem myself.

Chapter Six tells the story of VALIANT, how we overcame incredible odds, not the least of which were my corrupt partners, to emerge as a phenomenal success. We would gain over 11% of the then-robust market and be on our way to a fiscal year with an EBIT over $18 million from publishing alone, on approximately $38 million of sales. Marvelʼs gross was higher, but its publishing profit was substantially lower. We were a force to be reckoned with, and growing stronger. Supplanting Marvel as the industry leader was a thinkable goal.

At the Diamond Comic Distributorʼs 1992 Retailer Convention, VALIANT was voted Best Publisher, and I was given the Diamond “Gemmie” lifetime achievement award. As I walked up on-stage in front of 3,000 retailers, plus representatives of every major publisher and product manufacturer for the comics market, I got a sustained standing ovation.

These same people would have thrown rotten vegetables only a year previous.

The quality and innovativeness of our creative work at VALIANT, and our success had in fact, redeemed me. How could I be a bad guy if my comics were so good? I was on top of the world. It was one of the best moments of my life.

I should have known it couldnʼt last. In the shadows, Super Villains were scheming…

Chapter Seven: “By a Friend Betrayed”

Well, Iʼd once considered Massarsky a friend…

My theory that Triumph and Massarsky couldnʼt get rid of me because I was the creative guy, upon whom success depended was accurate up to a point. The point came once Iʼd created a universe of characters that were successful, pre-tax profit was rolling in over the gunwales at a rate of $2 million a month, and the entity could be sold for an astronomical sum. That would have been June of 1992.

First, I was told that Triumph wanted us to sell a controlling interest to Allen & Company. Melanie Okunʼs brother, Glen Okun worked there, and had assembled a group of investors including Michael Ovitz, Wayne Heuzinga, David Lazarus, Herbert Allen and himself who were willing to pay $9 million for a controlling interest. With their substantial influence, the story went, the company could be built up with toy deals, film deals and distribution through the Blockbuster chain, then sold to, say, MCA Universal for megabucks.

Terms of the deal included Glen Okun replacing me as CEO. I was given a ten-year employment contract with a two year non-compete, specifying no appreciable increase in salary, no title, no duties and having 100% clawbacks of my (much diluted) stock, should I “fail to engender good morale,” or “fail to report to, of fail to obey “Massarskyʼs brother-in-law (by now, he and Melanie were married).

They needed my consent, I went through what is known as a “cramdown,” for a week.

Ultimately, I wouldnʼt agree to this nightmare scenario. I knew that wouldnʼt stop them, but I thought it better to force them to get rid of me now, as opposed to letting them do so at their convenience later.

I was summoned to a board meeting at 9:00 AM one morning near the end of June and summarily fired. I was told not to go to the office. Two armed guards were there to deny me entrance.

Meanwhile, at Voyagerʼs Seventh Avenue office, my secretary, and several of the people most loyal to me were being fired as well. They were escorted out and their personal items were dumped on the sidewalk outside.

My assistant, Bob Layton, my sales manager John Hartz and our best artist, Barry Windsor-Smith stayed, their loyalty purchased for several million dollars in stock each.

The spin control to consumers and the comics community in general was easy. Massarsky and company simply dredged up the old Marvel slime—Iʼd been a megalomaniac, I tried to kill a really great deal with Allen & Company because Iʼd lose some power, and besides, other people actually did all the creating—I just stole credit for their work, etc., etc. It was an easy sell, since us leopards canʼt really ever change our spots. I was a pariah again overnight.

Since I could no longer prevent it, Massarsky, Okun, and Nugent went through with the Allen & Company deal. Roughly a year later, Voyager was sold to Acclaim Entertainment for $65 million. Enrique Senior at Allen & Company later told me, when I met him at a meeting with Savoy Pictures, on whose board he served, theyʼd had serious discussions with other parties at much higher prices, but those parties had backed away because the creative guy—me—was gone. Even the price Acclaim paid, he thought, was too much.

He turned out to be right. My “hot air balloon theory” kept Voyager prosperous for a while after I was gone, but sales eventually began to fall, then collapsed. A few weeks ago (April 1998), Acclaim Comics, nee Voyager, went under.

Chapter Seven tells the tale of one of the nastiest examples of financial predation Iʼve ever heard of. Forbes Magazine found it appalling enough to publish a feature article about my experience entitled “How Not to Start a Company: What Do You do When Your Partner Tells You Heʼs Sleeping with the Venture Capitalist who Backed Your Business?”

Chapter Eight: “Man on a Rampage”

After Massarsky, his wife and her partner got rid of me, first they sued me, then they forced an arbitration in an attempt to recapture my shares. They had the best lawyers that the vast sums of money Iʼd made them could buy, plus they were willing to lie under oath and falsify documents. I had the best lawyer no money could buy and truth on my side.

Hereʼs a maxim for you: the best lawyers win. Ask O.J. My arbitration award for the 25% of Voyager I owned was about enough to pay my legal costs. Truth doesnʼt seem to count for much. The arbitrator himself caught their side in lies and contradictions several times, but, in the end decided to value the company on the day I was fired—which would be like valuing the Jim Hensonʼs company on the day before the Muppets TV show aired—and to use the Allen & Company “offer” (made by Massarskyʼs brotherin-law) as the value. They later sold voyager for $65 million.

Welcome to America.

I knew, though, that I could do it again. I set out to raise money. Again.The success of Voyager made it fairly easy, despite the fact that Massarsky and company had reprised the Shooter-is-a-monster legend. I had half a dozen offers to fund my new company. Over Patricof and others, I chose The River Group, which also owned a trading card company, figuring that the synergies between comics and cards would be useful. This time I insisted upon and got majority and control. In February of 1993, I founded Enlightened Entertainment Partners, L.P., capitalized at $4.5 million, which would publish comics under the appropriate imprint DEFIANT.

The first property I created was “Plasm,” a sci-fi world where everything, and I mean everything including the world itself, was alive.

Within a month, I presented the Plasm concept to Jill Barad and her boys toysʼ staff at Mattel, and walked away with a three million dollar guarantee against royalties deal for an action figure line. They anticipated $10-50 million in sales the first year.

Pre-launch publicity for the comics, a trading card set being produced by my partners and the toys began.

Then, Marvel sued us for trademark infringement. It seemed they had a character called “Plasmer” registered in the U.K. “with intent to use” by their British publishing division. We tried to settle. At their lawyersʼ behest, we changed our name to “Warriors of Plasm,” and thought it done with. But, they never returned the signed agreement, let us launch our first product, a trading card set and sued us, despite our agreement.

Similarities in comics names are common. DC has “Wonder Woman,” “Power Girl” and “Hellblazer.” Marvel has “Wonder Man,” “Power Man” and “Hellrazor.” One has a “Guardians of the Galaxy” and one has a “Guardians of the Universe,” but I forget which is which and who has what. Which is the point.

The judge, Michael B. Mukasy (who also tied the World Trade Center bomber case) got the point, and found in our favor—emphatically. His opinion was practically a scathing denunciation of Marvel. Defending ourselves took six months and cost us $300,000, however, and the Mattel deal, which was put on hold pending the outcome of the suite, and canceled once weʼd missed out launch window. Talk about a Pyrhic victory.

Bleeding us and wasting our time was Marvelʼs real goal. After all, the last company Iʼd started had taken ten or so points of market share out of their hide. What better way to squelch my new venture then to burden it with expensive litigation. It worked. We were crippled coming out of the gate.

Our first comic book issue was published in August 1993. That month is notable in another way, too—itʼs the month the Great Collapse of the Industry started.

The industry had been enjoying a boom driven by speculators and collectors for several years. Following Marvelʼs lead, virtually every company was producing “collectible,” special issues with wild abandon. DC published the “Death of Superman” issue, which collectors bought by the case, certain that it would skyrocket in value. Fourteen million copies were sold, Marvel published a new X-Men issue #1—collectors love #1 issues—and sold eight million copies. It got so that virtually every issue from every company (except mine) was a “special,” with a birth, death, wedding, costume change, team break-up, team re-formation, hologram, foil cover, premium insert or other trumped-up event that collectors might think noteworthy enough to buy extras.

The boom was false prosperity. For some reason in August of ʻ93, the collectors all got wise at once to the fact that if 14 million copies of an issue have been squirreled away by collectors its greatest value is as bird cage liner—and it will never be worth big money until 13,999,999 birds have dumped on it.

Chapter Eight tells the sad story of DEFIANT, thwarted at every turn. In a collapsing market where nearly a hundred of the six thousand or so comics retailers extant were going under every week, where nearly every comics titleʼs sales were falling precipitously,

DEFIANT couldnʼt survive.

We had two last chances. I got a call from Bob Shea and Michael Lynn of New Line Cinema, who wanted to buy an interest in DEFIANT for its characters, and as a development engine. They were willing to make an investment which would have been, I think, enough to see us through the worst of the collapse and perhaps position us to lead a turnaround in the market. I wanted to maintain my ownership, but got them together with my financing partners. A deal was put on the table that would let New Line step into The River Groupʼs shoes as my backers, tripling their investment in about a year, and still leaving them with 10% of the company.

They turned it down! I tried to point out to them that the Good Ship DEFIANT was sinking… Enter Savoy Pictures. I got a call from Victor Kaufman who expressed the same interest as Lynn and Shea had. They made The River Group an even better offer.

Strangely enough, Allen & Company was deeply involved with Savoy, and I found myself negotiating with Enrique Senior of Allen & Company, who was on Savoyʼs board, and would be on DEFIANTʼs board if the deal went through. Enrique had been involved with the VALIANT deal, seemed to know exactly what had been done to me, and was okay with that. He had an “itʼs just business” attitude about it—and the deal currently under consideration—that was both chilling and fascinating. Though he was professional, dispassionate and utterly uninterested in the human side of these occurrences— as opposed to the numbers—I think that in some small way he thought it suitable that I, a “creative guy,” who had been burned badly on one deal would benefit from another. However, four months later, The River Group was still haggling over $80,000 for their legal costs, holding up our $11 million deal. Savoy gave up on them.

DEFIANT ran out of money and closed its doors at the end of August 1995.

Chapter Nine: “The Web of the Snyder,” or “Along Came a Snyder”

I was starting to suspect that I sucked at picking partners. Massarsky, Triumph, and The River Group all belong on the tenth level of Hell as far as Iʼm concerned.

Finally, though, I found a good one—television and film producer Lorne Michaels. My association with Michaels was good—the fact that it led to an association with Dick Snyder was not.

Michaelsʼ interest in comics was similar to Lynnʼs, Sheaʼs, and Kaumanʼs. Michaels and the president of his Broadway Video Entertainment, Eric Ellenbogen, saw the comic book business as a development platform for television and film properties. After DEFIANT closed, Ellenbogen hired several of my former creative employees, and eventually hired me as well to undertake development of a licensed property they controlled. He was sufficiently impressed with our efforts to offer to fund another comic company start up for me, and so Broadway Comics was born.

Ellenbogen was aware of the sorry state of the comics market in early 1995, but wasnʼt concerned about our selling huge numbers of comics. His intent was that we create and develop useable properties; that we attract great talent and become “Idea Central.” All he asked was that we not lose too much money until television and movie exploitation started paying the bills.

Things went along pretty well for a while—until Lorne Michaelsʼ company sold Broadway Video Entertainment, including us, to Golden Books Family Entertainment, which was run by Dick Snyder of Simon and Shuster fame.

It was the second time I experienced a cramdown. Among the terms of the fifty-fifty partnership I had with BVE were provisions that, in the event of a sale, entitled me to opt to buy BVE out, to approve certain conditions or the sale, or in some circumstances, to refuse to go along. Iʼve never talked to Lorne Michaels about this, and Iʼd like to think that he didnʼt know how his lieutenants went about it. It was ugly.

Broadway Video, Inc., BVEʼs parent company was run by president John Engleman. Engleman apparently decided that rather than risk complications from me, heʼd deliberately keep me in the dark about the deal until the last minute—a violation of our agreement—an attempt to arrange things so that I had no choice but to play ball.

Chapter Nine tells the tale of Englemanʼs evil, and how, to keep my people from being summarily tossed out on the street, (for several it would have been the second time), I had to go along.

It also tells of what happened to my battered little band of creative crazies once we were in the web of the Snyder.

Chapter Ten: “When Titans Clash”

In 1992, when I told then-Marvel president Terry Stewart that marketing gimmicks would eventually fail, and that eventually theyʼd have to get back to the business of creating new things, new ideas and better entertainment, he laughed.

A year later, with the blush quickly fading from the marketing-gimmicks dandelion, they tried creating something. The trouble was that, during their Franklin Mint period, theyʼd pretty much lost or driven away their creative heavyweights.

What the remaining flyweights came up with was “Marvel 2099”—a group of new titles set a century in the future featuring “future versions” of the standard Marvel characters. Maybe if the concept had been very well executed, it might have been more than derivative trash, but the concept was merely, well…executed.

Among the other big ideas the downstairs dregs came up with was a Spider-Man storyline wherein it was revealed that it hasnʼt really been Spider-Man having all those adventures for the last couple off hundred issues, it was a clone. The real Spider-Man had been off somewhere afflicted by amnesia.

Fans didnʼt like this idea at all. Eventually, the writers were ordered to write their way out of the storyline and Marvel actually apologized for it—but not before publishing more than a yearʼs worth of the lamest, most convoluted, tedious stories imaginable.

Almost unbelievably, down the hall, another editor launched a storyline for Iron Man based on the idea that several hundred issues ago heʼd been replaced by a “Life Model Decoy,” that is, an android duplicate.

The joke around the industry was that Marvel, which had called itself “The House of Ideas” since the early sixties had become “The House of Idea.”

It seemed that no thought was too stupid for Marvel. Anything that crossed the alleged mind of an editor might find its way into print. No one was, or is to this day, running the asylum. No one is there to reject bad ideas or encourage good ones.

The trouble was that no one upstairs at Marvel, no one with any real power, read or understood

the comics. Since I was drummed out, there has been no one who is both an upstairs executive and a downstairs creative person. A great divide exists…

Terry Stewart once told me that he know some of his editorial people were good and some werenʼt, but neither he nor his publishing executives were capable of sorting them out.

Sales started to plummet in August of 1993, and have kept falling ever since. The comics market and the trading card market are closely related, so it wasnʼt just the comics collapsing. Marvelʼs Fleer and Skybox units fell as well.

A source close to Perelman told me that Perelman knew heʼd built a house of cards with acquisitions like Panini, Skybox and Fleer, but intended to sell Marvel to Sony or another entertainment giant while it was at its peak. The collapse came too soon and too suddenly, though. I think the wretched failure of their creative effort—the word “effort” seems wrong somehow—was what triggered the avalanche.

At first, Marvel management blamed their collapsing sales on their distributors, and bought the third largest comics distributor, Heroes World Comics and Cards, in order to get control into their hands, and out of the hands of “incompetents.”

What a disaster! Within three years, Heroes World was defunct, one of its principals, wanted for embezzling, was a fugitive, and Marvel was begging for distribution.

The shrinking market had left only one distributor alive, Diamond Comic Distributors, Inc., which is partially owned by DC Comics. Given a choice of one, Marvel signed up. They still donʼt get it at Marvel. Iʼve spoken to top Marvel execs who, to this day blame the collapse of the comics on competition from video games, inexplicable “cycles,” that govern such things, or platitudes like “kids donʼt read anymore.” As if anyone could read some of that drivel…

They donʼt understand that the comic book business is a relationship marketing business. It has more in common with the single malt Scotch business than with other publishing or the collectibleʼs business—and the first step toward building the relationship with the audience—the all important, very personal love between a fan and, say, the XMen—is good creative work.

As Marvel foundered, Carl Icahn and other holders of Marvel bonds including High River L.P. and Westgate International L.P. began to move to usurp Perelmanʼs control of Marvel.

The first major shot fired in the war was when Marvel declared bankruptcy, entering Chapter 11 on December 27, 1996, “in order to complete… reorganization without bondholder consent.”

The financial and courtroom battles between Perelmanʼs forces and Icahnʼs forces over the rotting remains of Marvel was well chronicled in the press. I have a virtually complete set of clippings from the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Crainʼs, Barrons and other publications buttressed with information I garnered from a friend on Icahnʼs board, and several meetings with Scott Sassa, Bill Bevins and other sources close to the fighting. 

What isnʼt covered in those articles is the collateral damage from the fighting, the stories of the people in and around the business whose lives and livelihoods have been damaged.

A lot of them are people close to me. From the biggest retailers in the country, who are watching twenty-plus years of their efforts to build their business crumble to dust as Marvel takes the industry down with it, to artists, writers and production people who donʼt quite understand whatʼs going on, but wish it would stop.

Chapter Ten, which will be the longest and meatiest chapter (probably divided into several sections), tells their stories as well as the story of the war of fortunes.

In early Marvel Comics, when Stan Lee and artist Jack Kirby would depict titans like the Hulk and the Avengers clashing, the battle would always wind up in an “abandoned warehouse district” where “miraculously” no one was hurt by the sweeping devastation they caused. Perelman and Icahnʼs clash, however, has harmed plenty of innocent victims.

Appropriately, Chapter Eleven: “Their Darkest Hour”

Every week or so I hear from George Roussos, a staff colorist at Marvel. George is pushing eighty with a bulldozer, and has been in comics all his life. Heʼs seen it all. He canʼt believe what heʼs seeing now. Itʼs sad to watch something once great, once vibrant and alive die—especially if youʼre inside it at the time.

While Marvel languished in bankruptcy for nearly a year, Judge Hellen Balick kept hoping that Icahn, Perelman and the principals of Toy Biz, Inc. could work things out. Toy Biz is a company partially owned by Marvel and much embroiled in the dispute.

Finally, in August of 1997, Judge Balick retired, and the case fell into the hands of Judge Roderik McElvie, who wasted no time appointing a Trustee, ex-judge John Gibbons. Gibbons set out expeditiously to settle the Marvel mess by selling it all or in pieces to the highest bidder. A “document room” was set up at his law firm, Gibbons, Del Deo, Dolan, Griffinger & Vecchione.

With the help of investment bankers from McFarland Dewey & Co., I put together a management team including former top-tier ABC/Cap Cities execs Bruce Maggin and Brian Healy, and gained the interest of Perry Capital Investments, Inc.

We went to the Gibbons, Del Deo law offices in Newark in late January of 1998 to examine the possibilities. There werenʼt any. Marvel is so inextricably tied to Toy Biz by an outrageous license for all toy categories, for all Marvel properties, in perpetuity, with no royalty, that it really isnʼt worth much—except to Toy Biz, which has an offer pending.

We left disappointed—then came up with the idea of buying both Toy Biz and Marvel, which would render moot the license, and also effectively end the snowstorm of lawsuits flying between Toy Biz and Marvel—a nasty passel of contingent liabilities.

For that we needed a toy company partner on our team, someone who could effectively run Toy Biz, and to whom Toy Biz and the Marvel license would be an asset. I called CEO Jill Barad at Mattel. Her president of Corporate Operations, Ned Mansour called me back. Yes, they were interested. We arranged a meeting.

That proved to be a dead end, for the time being at least. After a cursory look at the situation Mattel backed away.

We learned, however, that should Toy Biz succeed in acquiring Marvel, one of the conditions required to gain the secured creditorsʼ approval of their offer was that the combined entity be offered for sale immediately after the acquisition closed. The creditors who would own over 40% of “Newco,” as part of the deal, wanted at least an attempt to be made to turn their stake into cash.

So, why not wait, let Toy Biz suffer through uniting the two companies, and perhaps make a bid for Newco?

Weʼre in wait-and-see mode.

Meanwhile, Icahn and his group turned up again with another offer of $475 million in cash. Meanwhile, theyʼre also suing to assert control they say they should have over Toy Bizʼs board, under terms of Marvelʼs deal with Toy Biz. Toy Biz is firing back, and the whole mess drags on and on, and every day the industry dies a little more.

Chapter Eleven tells why breaking up is so very hard to do when Super Villains are involved.

Epilogue: “The Final Chapter?

Is it all over for the industry, no matter what the outcome of the greatest Super Villain mine-is-bigger-than-yours contest in many a moon? Many people seem to think so.

Total industry volume continues to shrink month by month, comics retailers are going under daily and no oneʼs making money. There is a critical mass level—a level below which too few stores are selling too few copies to sustain themselves, and justify publication of the remaining comics titles (down from around seven hundred a month to slightly over two hundred a month). The fact is that the industry is already below critical mass level.

People are hanging in there, staying this crazy business because they love it. Therein, lies the hope. Theyʼre clinging by their fingernails, hoping that Marvel will be resurrected and lead a new wave of growth, or that something will happen to turn things around. As long as they believe itʼs possible, it in fact is.

The last time the industry nearly tanked, in 1978, we fought our way out of oblivion with a combination of intensified creativity and a revolution in distribution.

Marketing comics over the world wide web seems to be emerging as the new distribution—but distribution is useless without a good product to sell.

Whoever finally captures Marvel has the chance to resurrect the industry by cleaning house, bringing in talent and once again, producing a quality product. People still love comics. Ink and paper are not dead (though Iʼve been hearing about their imminent demise since the sixties). Itʼs still a powerful medium, and it still has a place.

Many people have suggested that the long-awaited Jim Cameron Spider-Man movies, if it ever comes, may re-ignite interest in comics. Yes, but again, only if the comics are good. The Batman movies didnʼt do much on a sustained basis to sell the Batman comics, because the comics were and are pathetic.

Itʼs going to take excellent creative, and since no one else is stepping into the industry leaderʼs role, I think itʼs going to take Marvel to make it happen.

Itʼs time for heroics. Will the Super Villains succeed in crushing the life out of this hapless industry? Or will it get one last chance?

Weʼll know soon. Thereʼs not much time for more cliffhangers—weʼre turning to the final page, right now.