Variety Piece: Does Kevin Feige’s Marvel Promotion Mean Ike Perlmutter’s Endgame

[H-E-D]

Everything was organic. The way Daredevil got his costume and when he wore it was appropriate. He was blind and able to fight better than thee Iron Fist.

That was his powers. The thing that bothered me the most was not seeing Jessica flying, ignoring she had that power.

Iron Fist wasn't around in the first season of Daredevil, though. It shouldn't have taken until the Defenders to be clear he was superhuman. In Season One, he seems about on par with Stick, who is not superhuman himself.

I think I might have been cool with them waiting until the last episode of the first season for the costume to show up if it had been 10 episodes, but 13 episodes was too long to wait for the Daredevil name and costume to show up. The show just seemed really reluctant to actually be a superhero show.

I wasn't bothered by Jessica not flying, because she hardly ever seems to use it in the comics anyways.

[Drops Of Venus]

Think about it.

Feige had been undercutting Loeb for quite awhile. He has finally gotten him out of the company. He isn't going touch his projects with a ten foot pole. He just got done killing Loeb's Ghost Rider project. https://ew.com/tv/2019/09/25/ghost-r...u-series-dead/

What makes you think he is going to let a character that Loeb had such a big hand in shine?

I think you're doing some crazy mental gymnastics there to tie this to Sam Alexander. Jeph created Sam for the comics. There is no evidence that he ever tried to push him to the movies or TV shows, so there is no reason to believe Feige was being forced to accept this character in the MCU against his will. ''Undercutting'' Loeb means he was simply not giving a **** about any of his shows, but Sam was never a part of any of those shows in the first place. Yeah, he killed Ghost Rider, probably because he has plans for the character on his own productions, not because of some conspiracy against Jeph. And there's some pretty strong rumors about Feige rebooting the Inhumans soon for the Ms. Marvel show, and if those turn out to be true, it'll be clear he doesn't mind ''touching'' Loeb's projects, he just wants to do them right. Also, Feige is pretty professional, so I like to think he wouldn't ''blacklist'' a character because he doesn't get along with his creator. That's such a childish mindset, not to mention dumb from a business perspective. Should Marvel blacklist Deadpool because Rob Liefeld keeps throwing tantrums on social media, and even threatened to sue them? I don't think so.

[JKtheMac]

Something that needs perspective in all of the stories and speculation is the situation Perlmutter is in. He is commonly cited as Disney’s largest shareholder, but technically he is Disney’s largest individual shareholder. The biggest shareholders at Disney are investment funds. Even individually these funds own far more stock than any one person. This is not the seventies. Corporations are not owned by individuals on the board of directors. Instead the board work primarily for their investors but those investors will be relatively hands-off and leave the board and the CEO to get on with things.

In reality any big structural shift at Marvel would need approval by shareholders, and with the kind of shareholders that count in these decisions, money talks. We can presume Iger has their backing for the change and that there is a bigger plan than we can’t quite see.

There have been rumblings for a while that Disney would probably integrate Marvel more fully into their business. The digital divisions were streamlined, the TV streaming business is expected to become a major part of Disney’s offering, the MCU has proved a behemoth that has only served to increase their already significant place in the movie business. Even the theme park space has been impacted by the purchase of Marvel.

Iger can point at the purchase of Marvel and later his decisions over Feige and the creative control of the MCU and convince his shareholders that he has a vision for the future. There will be no easier time for him to push through structural changes. I am pretty sure Perlmutter will be quietly retired at some point. He is most likely looking to retire anyway at 76. Perlmutter was never on the Disney Board of Directors, so technically he has little say over these matters.

When Perlmutter inevitably moves on he should also be remembered as a phenomenal businessman who steered a sinking ship back into calm waters and positioned it as a suitable purchase for Disney. But this is comic book fandom fuelled by press speculation, so he will inevitably be demonised and made into a caricature. His famously tight grip on Marvel’s finances will inevitably be turned into an anecdote about paper clips and his clear understanding of the value of Marvel’s IP will inevitably be twisted into simply a means of selling toys.

What is interesting about the new restructuring is that Dan Buckley will now report to Feige. Previously the way the remnants of Marvel Entertainment was organised was like a mini-board with Buckley technically being part of the table at which Perlmutter was the head. This probably simplifies Buckley’s job and turns him towards editorial decision making. We may have seen rumblings of this already with the recent bold moves in the X-Men line imposed by Buckley and being talked about by Hickman in wider franchise and synergy terms. Plus the Sony negotiations which seemingly wanted to move Feige away from his direct production input because he was going to be busy.

It is possible this was all planned quite a while ago. The surprise of the press and their unnamed industry insiders is no proof that this structural change wasn’t being put together over the last few years, timed to occur during the natural lull between the MCU phases.

Even the choice of CB as EiC may have been part of this shift. Realising that with Buckley taking more decisive control of the direction of the comics the EiC needed to be someone that could focus on softer people skills, talent retention, speaking to the press, making podium announcements at the big conventions and generally being the face of the comics.

It even potentially puts the departure of Bendis in a new light, as he was on Perlmutter’s committee and was technically advising Feige on story at the time Feige started to call for more autonomy from Marvel Entertainment. It may have been a little awkward for Bendis to watch his position become totally eroded.