WAKING UP TO SPIDER-MAN’S BRAND NEW DAY

Buckle up, folks. This may be kind of a long one. I didn’t really want to have to write about this. Honestly, I don’t need this kind of grief. But, hey… for any Twin Peaks fans out there, I just can’t help but think of the Fireman’s infamous utterance, “It’s happening again.”

Because, for me, it looks a lot like it is happening again. In about a month, Sony will release the newest film in the current live action Spidey franchise, Spider-Man: Brand New Day. And while I identify Sony by name, fundamentally it’s yet another Marvel Studios film. Obviously, the “Marvel” brand has come to mean something unique in the current pop culture climate. When I was a kid and an unabashed fan of the comicbooks, I never could’ve conceived the kind of penetration Marvel has achieved through these past two decades of MCU movies.

But recently, it’s been a bit of a bumpy ride. Films have been under-performing at the box office. Fans have gone a bit sour on things they once seemed to love unconditionally. And behind the scenes, it’s all been a bit chaotic.

And I should know.

Here’s where it started (this time): Just a few short months ago, the rumors emerged that actor Tramell Tillman had been cast in the film as a character -- lifted directly from the comicbooks that serve as the MCU’s tried and true source material -- named William Metzger.

Those rumors spread fairly quickly across the icy cold face of the internet (as rumors often do) and I became understandably curious…

... because, along with renowned artist, Steve Rude, I actually created the character of William Metzger for our 1999 mini-series, X-Men: Children of the Atom (which, ironically, was a new take on the origin of the X-Men, which is now supposedly on deck in the films). Metzger was the leader of an organization with a very on-the-nose name, the Anti-Mutant Militia, and by the end of our series, had met his grisly demise at the hands of Magneto.

Now, from what I’ve heard, the “William Metzger” that appears in the film this summer is the head of the Department of Damage Control who secretly (or not so secretly) harbors intense anti-mutant sentiment. Apparently, Tramell Tillman has been signed for a multi-picture deal with Marvel, so presumably this character will carry through into their upcoming X-Men films. Tillman is certainly a skilled actor and I have no reason to believe he won’t absolutely kill in the role.

That is, if the rumors are true…

And, if they are, one of the more curious aspects of this entire thing is that the character -- as originally depicted in X-Men: COTA -- was white, intentionally modeled (and obviously named) after real life white supremacist racist scumbag, Tom Metzger (in basic concept, if not appearance… I’m not sure if Steve Rude really knew from Tom Metzger). The move to cast a black actor in the role was an… interesting choice on Marvel Studios’ part. So I’m not convinced that anyone there was fully aware of the character’s inspiration. But if it serves as a cool “f**k you” to other racist shitheads out there (who perhaps idolized Tom Metzger, God knows why), even better.

Now we come to the big questions: Did Marvel -- either the film division or the publishing division -- give me any kind of heads up that they were using the character? Of course not. Did either of them reach out to even discuss any kind of financial compensation -- fair or not -- based on Steve Rude and I having created the character? Of course not. That’s typically not the Marvel way.

But, hey… I’ve been here before.

The most egregious example for me would have to be America Chavez, a character I created with artist, Nick Dragotta for a 2011 mini-series titled Vengeance. She ended up playing a fairly pivotal role in 2022’s Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. And this was after already appearing in animated series, video games and being sold as action figures. There was even authorized America Chavez-branded apparel. And, like I said, this stuff pre-dated the movie.

The thing is, I never signed the infamous “Special Character Agreement” which Marvel provides creators in order to “acknowledge” their contributions to the characters being exploited in media outside of comicbooks. The sole reason I didn’t sign it was because the language of the agreement was extremely -- and, I’m certain, purposefully -- vague when it came to determining creator compensation. Through my legal reps, I pushed back to get more clarity on the agreement, but Marvel wouldn’t budge. So… no signature, no money. Simple as that.

So what do you do?

You speak to The Hollywood Reporter, that’s what you do.

Apparently, certain folks at Marvel weren’t too happy that I spoke out. I certainly wasn’t the only creator who went public with their dissatisfaction on matters of this ilk. But, as it turns out, it wasn’t even my first ride in this rodeo (although I’ll admit I didn’t know it until years after the fact).

Because here’s yet another instance, which also serves as a little-known fact: in collaboration with artist Javier Pulido, I created a character named Katherine Spar -- named after Christine Spar from Matt Wagner’s Grendel, by the way -- during my short stint writing the Incredible Hulk monthly way back in 1998.

A decade later, that character was cinematically adapted into “Kathleen Sparr” (as portrayed by Christina Cabot) in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. Honestly, I never saw the film when it was first released. But it turned out I didn’t even get one of the perfunctory “thank yous” you get at the tail of the endless credit crawl for that one. And while the altered spelling of the film character’s name might’ve been a way to provide some sort of weak legal cover for Marvel to, yet again, slither out of fairly compensating the creators (without whom they would have no IP to adapt)… it all just ends up making the filmmakers look kinda lame.

The thing is, I haven’t created that many characters for Marvel. Only a small handful, really. And I’ve written for Marvel, on and off, for the past thirty years. Now it would seem that three of them have been adapted into feature films that, in the case of the Doctor Strange sequel specifically, made close to a billion dollars in box office ticket sales alone. And I’m fairly certain that Spider-Man: Brand New Day will make truckloads of money, too.

And, unbelievably, it doesn’t even end there. The cover of a series I wrote (collaborating with artist, Chris Weston) called FF: First Family was lifted and used in some random promo clip for last year’s Fantastic Four movie. I mean, they had the actors posed in the exact same manner…

… oddly enough, when that particular “swipe” went public, two days didn’t go by before Chris and I were invited to the FF film premiere (in our respective cities, of course… him being in London and me in LA). I mean, talk about a crazy coincidence…!

Now I should reiterate here… there’s no real bitterness being expressed on my part. I’m in full control of my patented Gen X ironic detachment. And, of course, acknowledging the basic ridiculousness of it all is always a key factor. Oh, maybe there’s some general frustration, but I’ve always gone into my dealings with Marvel with my eyes wide open. So all of this is just par for the course. Nevertheless, it should be obvious to anyone with a brain that the system is broken. And these things only get changed for the better if we can talk openly about them.

Of course, with the recent firings and shifts in Marvel management I still have to wonder if things are actually going to get better for creators. Or if it’s simply another case of, as the great Pete Townsend once wrote (and the great Roger Daltrey subsequently sang), “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss”…?

So, y’know… I’m not holding my breath.

Joe Casey

USA