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The 15th Rumour Awards 2015 – Rumour Of The Year

It's a long long time since the very first one of these. I was 28 when I decided that an annual look back at the rumours and scoops of the year would be a good thing. 15 years later, that's still to be determined. But here we go again with a self congratulatory pat on the back. Mostly.

But feel free to catch up with previous years by clicking on all these links.

So what will get the Rumour Of The Year? A story first reported by Bleeding Cool grabbed from the ether without named source that has yet to be proved – or disproved. Denied is something else, remember that Tom Brevoort denied that Marvel were to cancel the Fantastic Four last year if it was still selling, And, in fact, it put on sales….

Don't worry, we'll get to the ones we got wrong as well… we've done the ones we definitely got right.

There were the rumours of serious reshoots on the Fantastic Four movie that only got partially confirmed, but we reported major changes, including an international trip rather than just a couple of scenes in a back lot which was all that Fox would cop to, as one executive who had seen the film told us it was "a mess".

We got numbers on who stayed and who left DC Comics as it moved cross country – and how the new editorial regime caused havoc at the end of the year from staffers not used to having to make allowances for the holiday period, with late books and choppier credits. DC also ran ads for DCBS, an on-line comics supplier quoting discounts, despite previously assuring retailers that they would never do this.

When the controversy over Rafael Albequrque's Batgirl #37 cover went wild, Bleeding Cool got the word that Rafael had received notes from DC Marketing on what was originally a tamer cover to make it more distressing.

While an ex-beancounter from DC expounded on why movies and TV shows hurt comic sales rather than help.

While Ellie Pyle, ex-Marvel editor, now DC/Vertigo editor who used a Marvel-style recap page in her first edited issue of Coffin Hill, was banned by senior editorial types from ever doing that again as it was just too Marvel. DC Comics also banned anyone's plus one from their NYCC party who might possibly be a journalist.

Bleeding Cool got a lot of coverage over the change in tonality at DC Comics after what we reported as a perceived failure of the DC You mini-relaunch. There was a newly enforces austerity regime at the publisher after being down $2 million on projected sales (later further confirmed to me across the publisher) and creators were told to abandon their Batgirling and go back to meat and potatoes. And that future plans include some most #52 rebooting and retitling, and a bunch of books to go bi-weekly as well.

While there was other scandal regarding the announcement of a revamp of the Milestone publishing company at DC Comics, without mentioning, including or telling one of its founders, Michael Davis.

But there was bigger news over at Marvel. There was the story that the next Blade film is to star a female Blade, his daughter and that is why the planned comic was delayed, but there was a lot more happening.

We reported continual knocking back of X-Men and FF licenses at the publisher across the board, and found word of increased interference from the Studio into the comics. But this was just an aperitif for what was really going on. Reporting on the inside battle of the Marvel Coup became big business during the year. Describing is as a full blown civil war between the two coasts, pointing out that Disney felt that Age Of Ultron was a failure and that Marvel Studios boss Kevin Feige managed to use this as a way to usurp power from CEO Isaac Perlmutter to Disney, cutting the film side of Marvel away from the comics, TV, games, toys and more, in terms of power structure – and influence. Naming the West Coast as Feige Island as they disbanded the Marvel Creative Committee and isolated employees believed to be loyal to the East, we looked ahead to the impact of this major moment.

And it's one of those impacts that stands out as Rumour Of The Year, announcing that Marvel had internally cancelled the Inhumans movie as a result and that Kevin Feige was dropping projects that were seen as coming from the East Coast or Marvel Television. Which is also why you won't be seeing The Defenders in Infinity War Part 2 anymore. The story caused plenty of ructions. It was contradicted by the same kind of people who contradicted us over the Death Of Quicksilver story, but my own sources only hardened up with tales of memos being sent around Marvel that weekend telling people that an Inhumans movie was to be "deprioritised" at the company. And one bigger rival site told me that their biggest story at NYCC – was this story from Bleeding Cool.

True or not, it seemed to make a massive impact everywhere that weekend… and since. But will it end up as a Scoop in 2019? Or a Wrong?

Read more from the Rumour Awards here….

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