Marvel Cancel "The Vision"

[Frontier]

Chelsea Cain isn't keeping her gob shut. I smell a bridge burning...
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/09...ean-and-quiet/

When you look at her interviews for Mockingbird, Cain was surprisingly open about the creative process and what Marvel asked her to do, so I'm not surprised to see her being pretty frank about this cancellation.

[Prof. Warren]

I wish the big two would have enough faith in me to believe I can handle out of continuity stories and they really won't confuse me.

I don't think it's really about that. I would suspect that the project wasn't meeting Marvel's expectations, for whatever reason, and they shut it down.

[Prof. Warren]

Maybe it was axed because Marvel might have plans to kill The Vision. I hope not. Killing The Vision would be akin to DC killing The Martian Manhunter.

They're not going to kill Vision.

And if they were, there'd be less reason to not publish this, if the issue was really about continuity.

[Kuwagaton]

Chelsea Cain is hilarious and made a good point made on Twitter: this really sucks for Aud Koch. I'll be giving their other work chances because it's not cool getting your work stuffed like that.

[jetengine]

Not great for the artist. Couldn't give a shit about Cain, her Mockingbird was AWFUL and her promiting her new drivel with 'ALL THE PEOPLE FROM MOCKINGBIRD' tells me to ignore the work.

[Naked Bat]

*tt* Not looking forward to the army of D&C minions who'll be crowing about this, calling it their 'victory' by denying one of their least favourite writers another series, like it's something they accomplished via internet whining.

Also sucks because I barely care what's going on with these characters in other books but definitely wanted to see Chelsea Cain take a crack at them.


(this all assuming Bleeding Cool have it right)

I'm a Dc fan,a Marvel Fan and a Tom King fan. So no, it's not a victory, I was looking forward to a sequel, since I really liked the original story. And I'm sure I'm not the only one. It's sad for Chelsea and the others.

[Batman Begins 2005]

Dammit. I love the Vision by Tom King and looked forward to this.

[JKtheMac]

This situation yet again highlights how the comic industry has no idea what work for hire actually is. Under standard Marvel operating principles these creatives won’t be paid for their work so far. That’s not work for hire.

[Drops Of Venus]

WTF? Not gonna lie, I'm holding this against Marvel. They pitched this to her 2 years ago. They had 2 freaking years to plan this book and guide the creative team through it. If there was any major change, they could've told Chelsea and Marc about it, because again, THEY HAD 2 YEARS TO DO IT! They finally decided to let them start their work on it and publish it this year... and now they're cancelling it because something came up now???? And yes, I can only think it had to be now, because they wouldn't even let the creative team begin the work on this mini if they had known beforehand this was not their plan for the characters, right? And if I'm right, then that's just even fucking worse, because that would mean they chose to deliberately dump someone's entire work because of an idea they had just now, which is just so ridiculous and disrespectful to the people who were working on it. Couldn't they let them finish their work on the book, and THEN they could do whatever it is they would do to the Visions? And if they knew what they wanted to do and the mini ended up contradicting whatever that was, couldn't have they advised the writers on some changes they could make to the story? The book was described as a direct continuation of Tom King's run, so couldn't the editors just treat this as a prequel to Champions, and advise the writers on what happened to the characters during that time, so there wouldn't be any contradictions? I feel like there were so many ways to deal with this, and they chose the worst one possible. I mean, yeah, at least they got paid, but it's not just about the money. It's a shitty way to treat your talent. Not cool, Marvel.

Hopefully Chelsea and Marc are not too pissed and will be open to work for Marvel again in a near future, 'cause I was really curious about their writing dynamic. And poor Aud Koch, robbed of her big break. I know she is a big Wiccan/Hulkling fan based on her non-official work, so now I'm advocating for her to get to draw them somewhere. Come on, Marvel, it's the least you can do for karmic balance (and my own selfish desires)!

I’m almost definitely sure that Cain was gonna kill off Vision (after a whole mini that was basically entirely about Viv anyway, according to her interviews, so that seems crappy) and have Viv take up his mantle. Obviously, Marvel refused because that plot’s Jim Zub’s job in a few months, and you can’t just retcon it in as backstory with an ending like that...

If this is the case, then Marvel editors are not doing their jobs. It was just a mini, so it's very likely she already knew how the story was ending and editorial greenlit it. If you know someone was writing a certain story in the future, you should not tell another writer that it was ok for them to do the same story. That's just common sense. Neither Zub nor Cain/Mohan are to blame for this, but the editors should've absolutely stepped in and advised either team that they had to change their plans. Letting someone work on 4/6 of a book and then cancelling it out of the blue at the last minute is just messed up.

Chelsea Cain isn't keeping her gob shut. I smell a bridge burning...
https://www.bleedingcool.com/2018/09...ean-and-quiet/

I'm glad she spoke up. Cancelling a book before it even hits the shelves and NOT telling your customers about it is just... no. We had the right to know.

If the rumors of this being in progress for two years are true, and only four issues were completed in two years, then it's probably better it was changed to a mini since there's no way this thing would come out on any kind of a monthly basis.

Still a bit of a shame, though. The previews looked pretty good.

I'm not sure it took them 2 years to come up with 4 issues. I was under the impression that they had a general idea of how the book was going to look like for 2 years, since that's when it was pitched, but the official work on the book hadn't begun until recently, when they felt they were ready to publish it.

[Colt Cape]

*tt* Not looking forward to the army of D&C minions who'll be crowing about this, calling it their 'victory' by denying one of their least favourite writers another series, like it's something they accomplished via internet whining.

Also sucks because I barely care what's going on with these characters in other books but definitely wanted to see Chelsea Cain take a crack at them.


(this all assuming Bleeding Cool have it right)

Not a D&C minion like you'd say buuuuut....
I really don't like Chelsea Kane as a writer, so I'm happy that Vision is safe for now.

[JKtheMac]

Not a D&C minion like you'd say buuuuut....
I really don't like Chelsea Kane as a writer, so I'm happy that Vision is safe for now.

And that totally misses the point don’t you think? This is about the way creatives are still being treated appallingly by the industry because the industry’s working practices are rooted in the fifties. If a publisher in the book trade asked a writer to create something they would be given an advance and contractual obligations on both sides would apply. In comics everything is skewed towards the publisher in a manner that seriously needs someone to challenge them in court, but everytime anybody does this they are paid off and sent on their way to protect the status quo.

It is interesting someone mentioned bridge burning. For a creator are they supposed to suck it up and hope one day Marvel will hire them again? They would have no guarantee that the same wouldn’t happen again. Better to walk away in positions like this. That bridge looks hazardous.

[Prof. Warren]

WTF? Not gonna lie, I'm holding this against Marvel. They pitched this to her 2 years ago. They had 2 freaking years to plan this book and guide the creative team through it. If there was any major change, they could've told Chelsea and Marc about it, because again, THEY HAD 2 YEARS TO DO IT! They finally decided to let them start their work on it and publish it this year... and now they're cancelling it because something came up now????

This project started under a different editorial regime. This was initiated by Alonso, surely.

Current Marvel might have let the project continue its development but were unhappy with the results.

I expect they would have tried to work through whatever difficulties they were having but at a certain point realized that the problems were insurmountable.

This situation yet again highlights how the comic industry has no idea what work for hire actually is. Under standard Marvel operating principles these creatives won’t be paid for their work so far. That’s not work for hire.

It seems like they were paid for their work, at least if Bleeding Cool's report is accurate.

[AHRNIHAL]

This is nothing new.

[Mike_Murdock]

Chelsea Cain is hilarious and made a good point made on Twitter: this really sucks for Aud Koch. I'll be giving their other work chances because it's not cool getting your work stuffed like that.

It sucks a little bit. She still got paid for her work. Hopefully she'll get more work in the future.

This project started under a different editorial regime. This was initiated by Alonso, surely.

Current Marvel might have let the project continue its development but were unhappy with the results.

I expect they would have tried to work through whatever difficulties they were having but at a certain point realized that the problems were insurmountable.

Didn't they announce the book a month ago? How were things fine then but screwed now?

[Prof. Warren]

Didn't they announce the book a month ago? How were things fine then but screwed now?

Apparently that will remain a mystery.

Obviously something happened. Maybe early on there was the hope that the issues with the book could be ironed out but they just couldn't be.

Maybe there was personal conflicts. I don't know. It's all speculation on our end.

But I do think that continuity wasn't an issue. If Marvel was truly happy with how it was coming along, they would have had it completed and just kept it in their back pocket to publish at a fitting time. They wouldn't say "ok, stop working on it for now but maybe we'll have you come back to finish it later." No, they would have had the creative team just push through and finish it and then decide later when to put it out.

The fact that they're scrapping it outright says that there was some major issue.