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Fighting Over The Toys
2009-10-05 17:57:42

Spent a bit too much of my time today dealing with a tempest-in-a-teapot involving multiple creators all wanting to use the same characters, and the inevitable personality clashes that resulted. We like to pass the characters around relatively freely, and have them turn up in all sorts of interesting places. But that does mean that we sometimes run into conflicts, where writer A wants to use a character that writer B has just killed off, or put in the hospital, or changed into a slug. Conversely, you sometimes get one writer who wants to do a storyline revealing that character A is a hard-line right-winger, while another writer just finished up a tale in which that same character is a left-leaning lefty.

So we've got some guidelines about how this all works out. Principle among them is that each character has a home title or a home office, through which their appearances should all be coordinated, so as to minimize conflicts. At a level above that are the Executive Editors, Axel Alonso and myself, keeping a broader eye on the various goings-on in our divisions. And above that is Joe Q as EIC and Dan Buckley as Publisher. Book and office assignments can change, however, as the titles we're publishing change or the direction we're planning or hoping to take certain characters in changes. To use an example close to home, once upon a time, in order to have Wolverine guest star in AVENGERS, I would have had to run every script past the X-office. But since Wolverine is now a regular fixture in NEW AVENGERS, that criteria is lessened, provided that I'm keeping up with the major events in the X-titles as regards Wolverine, and don't do anything to massively conflict with them. And because of the success of NEW AVENGERS, it would take a larger consensus to pull him out of the series permanently-it's no longer something that the X-editor could do unilaterally. It's the same thing with the Kingpin, who started life as a Spider-Man villain, and then transitioned into being more important to Daredevil's world. (None of today's faux-drama had anything to do with these two examples, by the way.)

The writers and the editors have different responsibilities when it comes to the characters. This isn't as absolute as I'm about to make it sound, but as a broad guideline it breaks up this way: the writer's first loyalty is to the story he or she is trying to tell. It's a short-term viewpoint, even if you're talking about a writer who may remain on a given title for years. The editor's first loyalty, on the other hand, is to the book (or the property, if you choose to view it that way.) This will inevitably lead to occasions where a given creator won't be able to do precisely what they'd like to do with a character in a given situation-kill them, turn them into an axe murderer, give them a sex-change operation-regardless of how good that final story might be. On the other hand, the guidelines aren't absolute-there are times when killing a given character seems exciting, when making somebody an axe murderer opens up new storytelling possibilities, and giving somebody a sex change brings new energy or insight or attention to a moribund character. So there's never any harm in making your play and stating your case. Whenever possible, we'd rather say yes than say no. Especially since nothing kills the long-term quicker than a character or a book going stale, so there's always a need for new, fresh, exciting approaches to shake things up. We just can't always do all of them all at the same time.

More later,

Tom B

PS: on another note entirely, the first round of competition in the Make-Your-Own-Motion-Comic competition closed today over at Aniboom.com/marvel, and a bunch of the entries are really something to see. But don't take my word for it--click the link and take a look for yourself!

Cool look behind the editor's desk.

I Believoort!

Posted by kyle-latino on 2009-10-05 22:22:04

I wonder if it was about some of the recent Spider-Man villains getting revamped (Gauntlet)?

Probably somebody trying to bribe Tom into letting him job out Rhino or Electro.

Posted by Dr. Chaos on 2009-10-06 00:02:14

"Spent a bit too much of my time today dealing with a tempest-in-a-teapot involving multiple creators all wanting to use the same characters, and the inevitable personality clashes that resulted."
****
"....there's always a need for new, fresh, exciting approaches to shake things up. We just can't always do all of them all at the same time."

Very interesting. What seems to be different about the situation described here from the examples given above (Wolverine, Kingpin) is that in those cases, at least at this point, it's pretty clear where any major changes to character have to happen (Wolverine in the X-books, Kingpin in DD). But given the situation Tom describes, where two or more creators are bickering over a character... it would seem less clear cut. Surely, for example (although Tom already said it didn't involve his examples), if Bendis wanted to make a major change to Wolverine, he would realize that the X-books have first call and back off if they were against it. So that suggests that whichever characters this involved, their domain is less clear cut at the moment, which would give more than one creator the feeling that they should be able to decide on major changes.

One character that comes to mind here is Norman Osborn; while he is best-known as a Spider-Man villain, at the moment, he is more caught up in the Avengers world than anything else. I could easily see the Spidey braintrust objecting to what Bendis might have planned coming in Dark Reign. And since Tom oversees the Avengers franchise, and under Bendis, it is reaching in a major way into so many corners of the Marvel universe, my guess is this conflict is related to that in some way. It'd be interesting to know who Bendis has a "personality clash" with, though. Probably someone with a strong personality and a strong opinion on the direction of comics. Mark Waid?

It's also interesting to consider how these "clashes" could spring up; a personality clash implies some form of direct contact, which could happen at a summit, but we don't know of any recently. I had thought that most creators coordinate through their editors rather than directly, but perhaps there are occasional emails chains where multiple people are CC'd in order to make coordination easier? A clash could happen in those circumstances. Interesting to ponder.

Posted by CylverSaber on 2009-10-06 08:17:10

New Reader
I can't believe I've been unaware of this for so long. I feel shame yet excited for the next post.

Posted by Xsuit on 2009-10-06 12:44:43

Don't Break the Toys
"On the other hand, the guidelines aren't absolute-there are times when killing a given character seems exciting, when making somebody an axe murderer opens up new storytelling possibilities. . ."

I'm sorry to say that the sentence comes across as an attempt at a blanket exception to the well-known "Don't break the toys" policy. Characters who are killed or changed into axe murderers aren't usable, unless a writer retcons the death or transformation out of existence, or tries some other artificial method of restoring the given character to normal. Are you going to argue that Vision I and the Scarlet Witch are strong, vibrant characters? There were ways of reaching the same endpoints that "Avengers Disassembled" and HOUSE OF M did without breaking characters in the process.

The "Don't break the toys" policy can be taken to extremes, as John Byrne did by insisting on returning characters to basics, but the reasonable middle isn't hard to discern: Write about full-fledged characters, not caricatures or skeletons. Doing that simply requires that the writers and editors have basic skill sets.

SRS

Posted by Steven R. Stahl on 2009-10-06 14:29:33

It's ironic that you would mention John Byrne, since many would argue he was the first one to "break" the Vision and the Scarlet Witch.

Posted by CylverSaber on 2009-10-07 02:45:08

Refurbished Toys
"It's ironic that you would mention John Byrne, since many would argue he was the first one to "break" the Vision and the Scarlet Witch."

That was his approach to undoing other writers' development of characters. Strip away what he thought was bad ("back to basics"), then write about the cores of the characters. He had Immortus manipulate Wanda, so the "mad" Wanda was artificial; he preferred the robotic Vision to the synthetic human Vision. If the editor at the time, Howard Mackie, had prevented Byrne from making those changes,would he have written the series? I doubt he would have wanted to use the "classic" versions of the characters. His approach to writing was as mechanical and uncreative as filling in blanks on a template.

Creative writers look at the characters, their themes and characteristics, and craft plots that enable the characters to express themselves and grow, which doesn't require drastic changes. Such writers don't break the toys. They refurbish them.

SRS

Posted by Steven R. Stahl on 2009-10-07 10:38:39

Thanks fo rthis. Always interesting read when it's behind the scene stuff.

Posted by coconutphone on 2009-10-10 11:37:13

Matthew 'Logan' Rico
Hi, I'm new in this blog thingy, but i gotta say it that I'm with the "don't break the toys" policy,
I gotta hit it on Captain America Reborn, I know....no one will replace Stev Rogers but, he was gunshotted after he surrenders during the Civil War....and beyond that, in Thor, vol. 3 # 11, the Norsgod of Thunder summons and speaks to Steve Rogers' ghost...so, what happenned? how will the writers from Capt. America Reborn will ever repare the....dunno how to call it.... blooper? bad joke?
I mean....that's a lot of contradiction there....
Anyways, I hope someone will enjoyed this and argue about this as I do. I enfathized, it ain't bad bringing back Steve Rogers 'cause he was unicque, but, they gave him an end point of no retunr and the Thor 11th issue clarifies it.
See ya bubs.

Posted by Wolf21120 on 2009-10-18 11:17:16

just read a bit of it
have you thought of haveing Wolverine kicked out of the Avengers.
i mean friendship series are all nice and you could always reslove the expulsion some years down the road.

Posted by Sentinelxy on 2009-10-23 12:24:56

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