Some of the talking points from D23 from Joe Q given their first real presentation at Disney's big expo:
-We used to have a boilerplate at the bottom of press releases saying we had 5,000 unique characters, but then Disney did some research and discovered we have more than 8,000 characters.
-Joe Q talking about how we pride ourselves on story. Stan Lee, in the 1960s, starting calling Marvel "The House of Ideas."
-Joe sees us, now that we're part of Disney, as being the world's storyteller
-Stan Lee start that with his letters column and "Stan's Soapbox," where he would open up the curtain and show you the inner workings of Marvel, warts and all. And he always made it seem as if he was talking specifically to YOU. Stan Lee was creating the Marvel social network before social networks even existed
-Marvel started as Timely Comics, Inc., founded by Martin Goodman. In 1938 Superman came into being, 1939 Batman came around, and super heroes became all the rage. In 1939, Timely published Marvel Comics #1. Then two years later Captain America Comics #1 came out and really started the Marvel super hero revolution
-Stan Lee wrote his very first comics piece, a short prose story, in Captain America Comics #3. As super heroes started to wan, Goodman started to publish crime comics, jungle adventure books, etc. Stan Lee, after coming after World War II, he was dissatisfied with writing these stories. Once super heroes started coming back in the late 50s, early 60s, Martin Goodman heard about the Justice League and asked Stan Lee to create some new heroes.
-Lee had the idea of making the heroes into something more like normal people. Goodman didn't like this idea, but Stan's wife told him to do it anyway--"what the worst that can happen, he fires you?" So he created the Fantastic Four, and things took off from there.
-One year later, in 1962, he created Spider-Man. And from there, the Marvel Age of comics began.
-Joe says Superman is the first guy to put his underwear outside of his pants.
-Joe Q sees the Marvel Age as a huge paradigm shift. They were creating characters that were more honest than the ones that came before. Which isn't to denigrate what came before, it's just that they were created in a different time and place. With Superman, for example, Clark Kent is just a facade. He becomes more bumbling than he really is.
-Batman is the character, the mask is Bruce Wayne--he only puts on the mask to facilitate his life as Batman. With the Marvel Age, though, Peter Parker is the character. His mask always comes back off, and the real person is Peter, not Spider-Man.
-In the 90s, there was unprecedented growth, but Marvel also started to focus less on stories. We were focusing more on speculators, and when the bottom fell out, Marvel went into Chapter 11. Joe Quesada thinks this happened because we forgot about our DNA. Joe Q talking about the '90s, the crash of the comic industry and the fact that comics lost track of story and character.
-Marvel comics back then, if you do the research, were hitting the drug abuse and o.d.; the Vietnam War and racial / social protests...in a lot of their issues. more than DC was doing.
-In the 2000s, Joe Q and a new management team wanted to rebuild the House of Ideas. They focused on content and actively looked for great writers. We also started to focus on interconnected storylines and a shared universe again. Joe Q also wanted to focus on the connection with the fans again.
-We're also the #1 comics publisher in the digital realm, with the Marvel App and Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited
Agent M: Q is discussing the licensed Marvel movies - X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Daredevil. Not made by Marvel Studios, but really got our characters out there.
- Moving onto Marvel Studios now--around 2000, there were a lot of Marvel movies coming out. The first one was really Blade, though, which was a big deal because New Line saw the potential in a character that is really a third-tier character in publishing. We started licensing out characters such as X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four. We created Marvel Studios in order to create our own movies, beginning with Iron Man in 2008
Moving onto Marvel Television right now, which only started to build up a couple years before the Disney purchase.
-Ultimate Spider-Man, coming next year, is the first Marvel cartoon produced almost solely by Marvel creators--Jeph Loeb, Joe Quesada, the Man of Action team, Brian Bendis...
-We're now watching a clip from next year's Ultimate Spider-Man animated series. So great. You guys are gonna love this show.
-Do we have an idea of when Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes comes back for its second season? Epic show is epic! We haven't announced that yet, sorry!
-Saw Spidey riding around on a Spider-Cycle with what looked like a Doctor Octopus-type drone robot chasing after him! Spectacular.
-Joe Q is talking about when Disney bought Marvel. We still work as an autonomous unit--Disney wanted us to just continue doing what we do, just as part of the Disney family.
- Bringing things back to what makes a Marvel character a Marvel character. Two weeks in as Editor in Chief, Joe asked Stan Lee the formula for creating a perfect Marvel character. He said that if you show Spider-Man about to jump off the precipice of a building, the reality is he's just a red and blue suit. But if you start telling us about his lovelife, his problems, the people who don't like him, his family, then we are him when he jumps to swing through the skyline.
Q: First question is about whether there will be any more stage productions like Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.
A: Joe Q says not right now, but you never know what will happen.
Q: Fan asking why there's no Marvel booth here at D23.
A: Joe says he's not sure, hopefully next D23!
- Question about how Marvel tries to bring in new readers while still paying homage to everything that's come before. We don't do hard reboots at Marvel--all the characters still have their same history going back to the 60s. We did do the Ultimate Universe, though, which imagined what would happen if Stan Lee had created the characters today.
Q: Question about what future, if any, there is for Marvel in the Disney parks.
A: "There have been some talks," says Joe.
Q: Is there a chance of seeing Spider-Man or X-Men connecting to the Marvel Studios films?
A: It's difficult right now with the deals with Sony and Fox being what they are
Q: Who are Joe Quesada's favorite villains?
A: He really likes Galactus. He's a force of nature that eats planets.
Q: Could we ever see a revival of the Ultraverse?
A: Joe Quesada says there are absolutely no plans for them.
Q: How many different Universes are there within Marvel?
A: MANY MANY MANY universes!
Q: Will Marvel start publishing Uncle Scrooge comics?
A: Joe Q honestly doesn't know.
Q: What's going on with the Marvel rides at Universal Florida?
A:They're staying there.
Q: How do we choose who's going to die in the comics?
A: It all comes out of story. There has to be a plan for what comes after it.
Q: Are there any plans for a Deadpool movie?
A: That belongs with our partners at Fox, so we don't have any control over that.
Q: Any plans for any TV shows closer in tone to the Marvel Knights Animation Black Panther series?
A: That will come out of the Marvel Knights Animation group--the next project for that is more Astonishing X-Men, adapting Joss Whedon and John Cassaday's run!