Malibu comics Ultraverse

[Darthfury78]

Keeping the Ultraverse away from DC probably was 90% of the reason Marvel bought it in the first place. That said, I'm iffy whether or not there's a line going around the block of people wanting to buy it. If the rumors about the contracts are even half as bad as marvel implies that they are, it might not be worth anyone's time.

Just look at what DC Comics done to Wildstorm. Jim Lee made the worst mistake of his career by selling the company off to DC instead of riding out the comics slump. The company had Gen 13 animated series in development. Imagine how far Wildstorm would be today if Jim Lee not sold the company to DC Comics? It's like Todd MacFarlane selling Spawn to Marvel Comics, who would kill off the character, never to see the light of day again. Just look at what Marvel has done to Angela, a Spawn created character. Macfarlane should have bought out Neil Gaiman's stake in the characters he created for Spawn. Instead, Macfarlane tried to lowball Gaiman stating that he was under contract when he introduced Medieval Spawn and Angela.

[Darthfury78]

Or try to come to some kind of new agreement with them.

Why did Marvel even bought the Ultraverse in the first place? The company doesn't fit into Marvel's plans at all. The original owners should negotiate with Disney about buying back the company from Marvel .

[XPac]

Just look at what DC Comics done to Wildstorm. Jim Lee made the worst mistake of his career by selling the company off to DC instead of riding out the comics slump. The company had Gen 13 animated series in development. Imagine how far Wildstorm would be today if Jim Lee not sold the company to DC Comics? It's like Todd MacFarlane selling Spawn to Marvel Comics, who would kill off the character, never to see the light of day again. Just look at what Marvel has done to Angela, a Spawn created character. Macfarlane should have bought out Neil Gaiman's stake in the characters he created for Spawn. Instead, Macfarlane tried to lowball Gaiman stating that he was under contract when he introduced Medieval Spawn and Angela.

In hindsight I'd definately agree selling Wildstorm to DC might have been a big mistake. Granted he got a pretty nice gig out of it, but I think there's a descent chance some of the Wildstorm properties could have taken advantage of the comic book boom in movies and TV. Though honestly at the time I'm not sure anyone could have seen just how big comics got in other media. Who would have thought they'd become billion dollar movies.

[Sandy Hausler]

Despite what popular belief, Marvel is not using the characters because they don't want to pay the original creators. Tom Mason, one of the co-founders of Malibu, explains why Marvel can't use Ultraverse characters:

Ah, a good question that brings up old stuff. Here’s a couple of things. I went to the Hudnall link above, and he’s wrong on at least one point. Marvel never bought Malibu for its coloring department. That was never true. Marvel bought Malibu for only one reason: to keep it away from DC which had been negotiating to buy the company since April/May 1994. (Marvel actively and repeatedly tried to shut down the coloring department post-acquisition and it was only saved through the intervention of Mark Gruenwald and the guy who ran the coloring department Mike Giles.)

As far as I know, there are no creator contract issues with the Founders that would prevent the revival of the Ultraverse. I know that phantom issue gets tossed out there a lot, but both Tom Brevoort and Joe Quesada have stated that it’s not a creator contract issue that prevents Marvel from reviving it. And since I’m one of the people who has an Ultraverse contract and an interest in multiple characters, I would know. Also, Marvel owns the Ultraverse outright, so they don’t need anyone’s permission. (The Founders still keep in touch and we’ve all talked about it over the years – there’s nothing legal going on between the Founders and Marvel.)

Johanna is correct that the Ultraverse contracts for the Founders do have participation %. However, the Founders do not have an ownership stake, do not share in any “profits” (however that may be defined), and have no control over the properties. (Just as if they had created a character for the DCU.) Character Interest Agreements for the Ultraverse simply state that writers and artists who created specific characters will receive a very small percentage of the money that comes in based on their media exploitation. The agreements were based on standard terms at DC at the time for creators who created a character for the DCU. And those terms are in perpetuity, so if for some reason there’s a Sludge movie, Steve Gerber’s estate receives a check. But, those percentages are not onerous and not out of line with what DC was offering at the time.

Brevoort has stated in the past that the reason Marvel can’t discuss the Ultraverse properties is because there’s an NDA in place with certain parties.

If you read the original press release where Scott Rosenberg left Marvel and announced the formation of Platinum Studios back in 1997, you’ll find this nugget: “Rosenberg also has an ongoing producer deal for all Malibu Comics properties.” http://goo.gl/v2WRc2

So that NDA just might relate to that and probably has more to do with the reason why the Ultraverse properties have languished.

So the reason they Marvel can't revive Ultraverse, is because the rights are partially tangled with Rosenberg's Platinum Studios company.

This is fascinating. I apologize for passing on misinformation. My only defense is I thought it was true.

[Sandy Hausler]

So the reason they Marvel can't revive Ultraverse, is because the rights are partially tangled with Rosenberg's Platinum Studios company.

Whatever deal Malibu had with Platinum Studios shouldn't stop Marvel from doing comics of the characters, but I can see that they would not have the movie rights for the characters, which these days is a big thing.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Just look at what DC Comics done to Wildstorm. Jim Lee made the worst mistake of his career by selling the company off to DC instead of riding out the comics slump. The company had Gen 13 animated series in development. Imagine how far Wildstorm would be today if Jim Lee not sold the company to DC Comics? It's like Todd MacFarlane selling Spawn to Marvel Comics, who would kill off the character, never to see the light of day again. Just look at what Marvel has done to Angela, a Spawn created character. Macfarlane should have bought out Neil Gaiman's stake in the characters he created for Spawn. Instead, Macfarlane tried to lowball Gaiman stating that he was under contract when he introduced Medieval Spawn and Angela.

Perhaps, but I don't think Wildstorm had/has the legs that the Ultra verse has, IMO.

[Zero Hunter]

Just look at what DC Comics done to Wildstorm. Jim Lee made the worst mistake of his career by selling the company off to DC instead of riding out the comics slump. The company had Gen 13 animated series in development. Imagine how far Wildstorm would be today if Jim Lee not sold the company to DC Comics? It's like Todd MacFarlane selling Spawn to Marvel Comics, who would kill off the character, never to see the light of day again. Just look at what Marvel has done to Angela, a Spawn created character. Macfarlane should have bought out Neil Gaiman's stake in the characters he created for Spawn. Instead, Macfarlane tried to lowball Gaiman stating that he was under contract when he introduced Medieval Spawn and Angela.

Wildstorm was already in a tailspin by the time Lee sold to DC. They had peaked and were in a deathspin after the Stormwatch series I honestly believe. The Authority was just shock on top of shock on top of shock to try and keep the book relavent, but it was already going down. They let the success of the Stormwatch/Authority influence their whole line with everything taking up that tone which turned off readers more and more. Books like The Establishment, The Monarchy, Stormwatch: Team Achilles, and Stormwatch: PHD all just felt like guys writing comics who hated superhero comics. It was like everyone was trying to write like Mark Millar and Warren Ellis, and were trying to make all their main books feel like Vertigo books. That sound good on paper but the quality was just not there.

Even their more superhero focused books like Gen 13 and WILDCats were no fun because the tone of the book was influenced by the "we gotta be edgy" mindset.

If Lee had not sold off I think Wildstorm would have gone totally belly up within 5 years because they were just not fixing the problems they had going on.