Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: Comics, kevin feige, marvel, vv

A Slightly More Sober Look at Tonight's Marvel Executive Changes – How Will This Affect the TV and Comics?

Published Tue, 15 Oct 2019 20:00:49 -0500

I went to the theatre tonight. You can be guaranteed that once I've sat down in my seat, some comics industry-changing even will happen, and I will emerge blinking at dozens of messages asking what I think. Or telling me what I should think. But the journey home gives me a chance to sort the wheat from the chaff, weigh up the various merits of various takes and have one on one chats with people who have somewhat of a clue. I hope.

Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige has been promoted to Chief Creative Officer for all of Marvel, overseeing not only movies, television, and other media, but comics publishing as well.

Joe Quesada who previously held the role of Chief Creative Officer, is now EVP, Creative Director, reporting to Marvel President Dan Buckley. Buckley will report directly to Feige, alongside all other top-level executives across Marvel's divisions, for creative and editorial matters, while still reporting to Marvel Chairman Ike Perlmutter for sales, licensing, and other business matters

So what will the effect of this all be?

Firstly Kevin Feige may have Joe Quesada's job title, but Joe seems to still have his old job, just with a different name, EVP, Creative Director. And it's hard to imagine Kevin Feige getting himself involved in the kind of details that Quesada does. Goof luck designing those Marvel adidas sneakers, Kevin…

I am told to expect Feige to attend the next Marvel Creative Summits, but after that to probably have a representative in the meetings, reporting back. Changes to the current comics publication schedules or content are not expected to be significant, or even noticeable, Feige's likely attention to be concentrated elsewhere – but I have been instructed to look to the TV side for more immediate changes,

We may get an end to the divorce between the film and TV/comic book creative. Only Will Corona Pilgrim seemed to be able to cross the canyon for comics, writing Marvel Comics set within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Aside from those titles, the comics book side have been prevented from using the photo likenesses of actors playing the characters on their covers, for instance, which feels like it should have been an obvious get.

Maybe the comic book and TV side will have a clue as to what is coming in the movies, rather than a) watching the trailers when everyone else does and b) reading gossip sheets like this one. The changes with Disney Plus was a step for the film side getting more involved with the TV side again, and now it seems the comic books may be heading in a similar direction – and possibly avoiding the Captain Marvel embarrassment, the comics creating a new origin for Carol Danvers along the lines of where they thought the cinema version was going, only for the movie to be far closer to her original origin.

As for comics – maybe see a few more screenwriters and producers roadtesting ideas into the comic books first – but that may take some time. Until then expect many hot takes from the usual suspects.