How did marvel choose what licensed book went into the marvel universe

[Buried Alien]

Yeah, they wanted to show that these licenses were there's and no-one else's. DC did something similar with He-Man. Of course this became a legal nightmare when they lost those licences.

Well, other than one memorable team-up with Superman, the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE mythos didn't get too deeply entrenched into the DC Universe, so it wasn't a notable loss.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[ed2962]

marvel should produce more licensed titles. This has been mostly ignored for some time now, with rare exception.

It seems like that's really IDW's thing right now.

[Buried Alien]

It seems like that's really IDW's thing right now.

It's different when Marvel does it, however, precisely because of Marvel's former proclivity to mix and match its licensed properties with its own native Marvel Universe in such an organic and natural fashion. This is something that relative newcomers such as IDW can't do to the same extent. Other than Marvel, only DC could pull this off, but DC has never had the same proclivity (at least in comics; it has done so in animation, a la the SCOOBY DOO/BATMAN TV crossovers of the 1970s).

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[son_ofgolem]

Marvel did a Battle Star Galactica .in the late 70s it would of been neat if they tied it in to marvel continuity,

[Kaijudo]

Shogun warriors, rom, micronouts, doc savage, sledgehammer, conan, soloman kaine, john carter, dr fu Manchu, meteor man and even blasted alf are canon with the marvel universe while Indiana jones, star wars, gijoe, starriors, robotix, thundercats, hook, chuck Norris and others are not.

I don't know if Sledge Hammer, Meteor Man, or ALF were actually in canon so much as Marvel used their characters to help juice sales on a flagging licensed title's book. I mean, Micronauts, Rom, Conan, and the Godzilla book were all addressed in one form or another after those series had ended and Marvel had lost their license (i.e. Bug's continued presence in books, a de-armored Rom showing up at Rick Jones's wedding, a transformed Godzilla fighting the West Coast Avengers). But I think you'd be hard-pressed to get anyone to admit/acknowledge the existence of ALF or the others in a mainstream Marvel Universe book.

[Gaastra]

Well I read alf had a handbook profile plus he had a cameo on tv in infinity gauntlet and took part in the evolotionary war. The alf annual was even listed with the other books of that crossover on the checklist marvel had. Alf in the last half of his comic looked more like howard the duck with malmack versions of marvel heroes like X-Men making it look more like he was from a alternate earth then another planet. It's a spoof comic so I don't think marvel cared if it was canon or not plus alf broke the fourth wall a lot in it.

[IMG][/IMG]

Meteor man is canon and Spider-Man and the new warriors was in in it plus it was tied to the night thrasher mini.

[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]

[Gaastra]

Sledgehammer was hinted at but could be canon or not. It leaves it up to the reader. Like howard the duck it makes fun of the marvel universe a bit.

[IMG][/IMG]
[IMG][/IMG]

[Gaastra]

Well, other than one memorable team-up with Superman, the MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE mythos didn't get too deeply entrenched into the DC Universe, so it wasn't a notable loss.

Marvel did two he-man comics also by the way. (ongoing and movie comic) They even had he-man cross over with flash gorden/ defenders of the earth!

[Lonewolf36]

ALF got a Handbook entry in the final issue of his series mentioning his meeting with the High Evolutionary. Also in the High Evolutionary entry in the main Handbook series ALF's race gets a mention.

[Alpha to Omega]

I always assumed it was decided by what each licensing agreement actually said. So the properties where the license allowed Marvel to retain the rights to some of the characters and concepts they created were placed firmly in the MU (ROM, Micronauts, Conan) while properties that had licensing agreements that the IP owner ownership got set in there own universe (Star Wars, Transformers, G.I. Joe).

Marvel of course found ways around some of that with having Circuit Breaker appear in Secret Wars 2 and Death's Head debut in a one-page story before appearing in Transformers letting them retain ownership of them.

[MRP]

A lot depended if Marvel had the license only to adapt stories from the property or the license to produce new stories using the property. In the case of the former (things like Dragonslayer, Krull, the Bond film For Your Eyes Only, etc. Marvel only had the license to produce an adaptation of the film*, so they couldn't do anything else with the property. The Battlestar comic someone mentioned started as adaptations of the TV show episodes and only at the tail end of the series were new stories produced. However, nn the case of the later situation, where Marvel was producing new stories, it depended on the terms of the license. Lucasfilm gave Marvel the rights to produce new stories for Star wars in '76/'77 after they adapted the film, but had final approval of all stories, so any story had to be sent to Lucasfilm for approval and they did no allow any cross-pollination of IP. Same with the Indiana Jones stuff with Lucasfilm, it started with an adaptation of Raiders, then Lucasfilm greenlit the Further Adventures series but like Star Wars, retained final approval and did not allow any crossing of IP. Other licensors had different terms and some did not have the strict approval terms that Lucasfilm did or were more willing to allow cross-pollination. Others simply contracted with Marvel for Marvel to develop their IP and provided a series bible based on marketing (as with Rom) or just names and character designs based on toys (like Micronauts) and let Marvel produce stories as they saw fit. Some allowed for Marvel characters to be used (like Shogun Warriors) others did not (like G.I. Joe). So it wasn't so much what Marvel decided, it was what they were able to get in negotiations with the licensors. There probably was a standard deal that Marvel started negotiations out offering, but licensors who had more leverage due to competition for the license or popularity of the product were able to negotiate different deals from their position of strength. It had a lot more to do with terms of contracts and dollars and cents than it did with compatibility or nature of the content of the characters in the license.

-M

*these kind of adaptations were much more popular before the advent of the home video market, as they sold better in days when people only saw the movies in the theatres or if they made it to network television. They were a way for kids to take their favorite movies home and re-experience them, so there were a lot of these adaptations out there and neither Marvel nor the studios were looking for anything more than an adaptation to produce additional revenue in the short term. Once VHS and cable TV hit and became ubiquitous, these kinds of adaptations became less popular and less common.