Posted in: Avengers, Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: america chavez, doctor strange 2, joe casey, marvel, nick dragotta
Joe Casey, Not Paid For America Chavez In Doctor Strange, Or Anything
Joe Casey and Nick Dragotta created the character of America Chavez for the comic book Vengeance, published by Marvel in 2011, as a new Miss America.
She was later a major part of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's Young Avengers.
The 2015 series, A-Force, by G. Willow Wilson, Marguerite Bennett and Jorge Molina, the The Ultimates by Al Ewing and Kenneth Rocafort as well as her own 2017 series, America, by Gabby Rivera.
In 2018, Chavez joined the West Coast Avengers in a series by Kelly Thompson and Stefano Caselli. She will appear in the upcoming movie Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, played by Xochitl Gomez.
Talking to the Hollywood Reporter, Joe Casey stated that he has not received any payment for America Chavez, outside of the page rates he got when working for Marvel as a writer, "The fact is Marvel owns America Chavez. That's not in dispute on any level, but there are still systemic flaws in the way that creators are neither respected nor rewarded."
He states that he did contact the publisher to request paperwork that would also cover her previous appearances in animated TV episodes and video games, that Marvel sent over a special character agreement for him to sign that included a cash offering, reportedly around $5,000 which the declined to sign, went back with a counteroffer and they remain in negotiation.
"Marvel has paid me nothing for America Chavez, not only for appearing in the Doctor Strange sequel, but in numerous animated TV episodes, for the numerous action figures they've made of her, for video games she's appeared in. They seem to be fine with that. For me, it's not about money. It's not even about the respect. I would never expect to be respected by a corporation. If I'm in a position where I can afford not to take their insult of an offer, and be able to talk about it, maybe the next guy — where that kind of money could change their life — would get a fair shot of receiving that money."
Famously, Jim Starlin has talked about how he was paid more for a tiny appearance of a minor background character in one Batman movie at DC Comics, than for every appearance of Thanos, Gamora, Starfox, Pip The Troll and Nebula in the Marvel TV and movies combined.
While Ed Brubaker has talked about being paid more from a tiny cameo that was cut from Captain America; The Winter Soldier than he was for the use of The Winter Soldier in Captain America, Avengers, Black Panther films and the TV series The Winter Soldier & The Falcon combined.