Marvel and Mouse

At the 2009 Diamond/Alliance Retailer Summit in Baltimore, David Gabriel, Marvel Comics’ Senior Vice President of Sales, spoke about the publisher’s plans for 2010.

Promotions like the New Year’s Eve Eve Party were discussed. Details concerning important storylines, events, and programs like DoomWar, Siege, and Marvel Women were announced.

While this presentation had attending retailers talking for the rest of the night, there’s still more to tell about what Marvel has in store for the year ahead, and Gabriel was kind enough to answer Diamond Daily’s questions about the House of Ideas’ future in an exclusive interview.

Retailers that have wanted details about the topics of Marvel’s Summit presentation and the publisher’s overall 2010 plans need look no further than this interview series.

This is part two of the four-part series.

Marvel Women, which you discussed at the Summit. Can you tell us anything more about that right now? Maybe what characters in particular are involved, or a little bit more what the stories will be about?

David Gabriel: This will be a year-long program, and we’re going to launch this in March, which is Women’s History Month. That’s when we’ll see the kick off of some one-shots featuring female characters that don’t necessarily have their own books.

This won’t be another She-Hulk one-shot or Ms. Marvel one-shot. We’ll see some other, large female characters we haven’t heard much from recently. Along with that program, we’re going to announce a new Young Guns promoting female artists throughout the year, and we’ll be doing a Write Stuff as well. Whereas in the past we picked four of our best male writers, this time we’ll be picking four or five female writers and promoting them throughout the year.

There will also be one variant cover a month done by Jelena Djurdjevic, who is Marko’s wife. Of course, he did the 70th Anniversary covers for us. You’ll see the first one of those in January – an Invisible Woman cover. That will be followed in February by a Mohawk Storm cover, which should drive all the X-Men fans crazy. 

Those two are already in, and they’re stunning pieces.

Then, later on in the year, we’re going to do an omnibus with full runs from things like Night Nurse, Hellcat, and some other things you really wouldn’t collect anywhere else. Because this a big omnibus celebrating the Marvel women, we can get the full runs into that and make an event out of its release.

We’re also looking into doing something similar to what we did for the 70th Anniversary Parties, with that maybe taking place in August. And then there will be some kind of a fifth week event in June, taking all the super-heroines in the Marvel Universe and putting them into one story.

Daily: One of the things retailers talk about sometimes is how to get new customers into stores. Is Marvel Women the kind of program created to help get female readers into stores?

Gabriel: In part, yes. One facet of the program is to celebrate the women of the industry, whether they are super-heroines, super-villainesses, artists, writers, editors, colorists, inkers, proofreaders, models, and on and on. Titles like Runaways, Joss Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men, Dark Tower, and most important Anita Blake, are books that help bring in female readers. But fear not, we will be working hard to get female readership with a few of the projects over the year. Some I won’t announce just yet, but others I did speak of.

What we are going to do, however, is – much in the same way as what we just did with the STRANGE TALES anthology – have some top female creators come in and work on an anthology like that. That will be coming in March. Then there’s more to come after that. We’re making this a major initiative, even launching a new all-ages title, designed especially for young girls.

Daily: Captain America: Reborn has been terrifically received, showing up at the top of the sales charts month after month. At the Summit, it was announced that the mini-series would wrap up with a sixth issue. Why was the series extended?

Gabriel: It was extended because the fifth issue was just getting way too big. There were more splash pages being added in, and the story was getting larger. There was a point where, because of how it increased in page size, it would probably have needed to be bumped out of 2009.

So we said, “Rather than bump it out of the year and lose that for retailers and us in December, can we make this two issues?” And the entire creative team said yes, that that wouldn’t affect Siege or Who Will Wield the Shield?

Those could still be read. Readers will just have to wait for one final bit of the story. So for everybody, it just makes sense. And I doubt retailers would turn down the opportunity to have another big book to sell.

Daily: Have to ask just out of curiosity. When it comes to who should wield the shield, are you a Steve Rogers guy or a Bucky Barnes guy?

Gabriel: I don’t know. That’s a hard one. The stories with Bucky have been great. They’ve been interesting, maybe even more so than some of the Steve Rogers stories of the past. But then, there are those great Steve Rogers stories that are favorites of mine – when he ran for President; Secret Empire stuff; Nomad.

But… I’d say Steve. [Laughs.] I probably should have said, “Whichever one is selling better,” in typical marketing fashion, but I can’t hold back the inner fanboy.

Daily: At the Summit, you seemed really excited to recite the oath of The Deadpool Corps. This looks like yet another crazy story for the character. Can you tell us about the publishing schedule for that, and who’s joining the original Merc with a Mouth?

Gabriel: In March, with that being a five-week month, each member of The Deadpool Corps will be getting a spotlight. Right now the plan is to hold those to the $2.99 price, which I think people should like. And the cast members will be: Lady Deadpool – introduced in Merc with a Mouth #7 – the new Kid Deadpool; Deadpool, of course; Headpool, the zombie head of Deadpool that’s been floating around; and then there will be the introduction of Dogpool, the Deadpool dog.

Daily: Can’t have too much Deadpool.

Gabriel: No, apparently not. I think nearly every single issue of Deadpool since we relaunched it last year has sold out. The “Suicide Kings” stuff all sold out. We went back to press on three or four of those books. Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth is all sold out, and we went back to press with the first two of those. I imagine Deadpool #900 will sell out by the time this interview goes up.

And I also announced, kind of as a joke, that since a lot of people didn’t get to read Deadpool #800, we’ll be going back to press on that sometime next year, too. The never-before-seen reprint of Deadpool #800.

Daily: Certain characters, like Deadpool, go through these times of great popularity. Gambit experienced something like that in the past. Wolverine has been a favorite for a long time now. Is there any real explanation, from your side of the business, for why certain characters become so popular at any given time?

Gabriel: Well, with Deadpool, no one was really claiming him at one point, and [Executive Editor] Axel Alonso was happy to do as much with the character as possible. Sometimes other editors have a piece of a character or a certain investment in a character on a team.

Deadpool was all by himself, and when he came back and it was big, we decided we were just going to push the limits with him a little bit, and that’s paid off. Then the announcement for the Deadpool movie, I believe, came out right after our announcement of Deadpool: Merc with a Mouth – and we haven’t heard anything new about the movie – but that kind of opened the flood gates even more.

And it doesn’t hurt when people are putting out quality books people want to read. I’ve heard, even from people that confess Deadpool isn’t their favorite character, that they’ve been loving his stuff right now. And if you look at the Classic Deadpool trades right now, they’ve been far outselling other Classic trades.

It doesn’t make sense not to capitalize on that right now. Someone shouted out, “Why?” after The Deadpool Corps announcement at the Summit. And I jokingly shouted back, “Because it’s making you money.”

Daily: Jeph Loeb is returning to the all-new Ultimate Comics Universe following Ultimatum. For those that weren’t at the Summit, what do retailers need to know about Ultimate X and New Ultimates?

Gabriel: I can’t say too much here. With Ultimate X, the idea is that there are no more Ultimate X-Men in the Ultimate Universe. So what does the X stand for? And there’s cool Art Adams art.

Daily: You announced a new Dark Tower series – The Gunslinger – for early 2010. Is this a direct adaptation of the first Dark Tower novel, or does the story come chronologically before that?

Gabriel: It’s not an adaptation. What’s happening is we’re taking the first book that we did – Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born – and expanding on those stories.

Daily: The newly announced DoomWar has a lot of popular characters in it – both Black Panthers, Deadpool, several X-Men, and the Fantastic Four. How big is the scope of this event?

Gabriel: That is going to be a six-issue limited series. Think an event rolled out similiarly to Captain America: Reborn. It’s going to be that kind of series. It won’t be a huge crossover. It won’t have a Siege-like prologue and epilogue. It will be self-contained within the six issues.

Daily: You announced that Young Avengers’ Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung will be reuniting for Avengers: Children’s Crusade. When can we expect this story to begin? How will it be released?

Gabriel: Right now the plan is to release the first issue in July of next year, right before the San Diego Comic-Con. We’re expecting to release it bi-monthly. I know the creators and editors are already two or three issues into that story, so we’re making sure we have a lot of it ready before it comes out.