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Posted August 2, 2010 by Earl Maghirang in Comics
 
 

Marvel Gets CrossGen Comics… Now What?

During the recently concluded San Diego Comic Con, Marvel Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada has announced that CrossGen comics will soon experience a revival of sorts. And this was met with mixed emotion for the general audience. It was something to cheer about and something to heckle and jeer at for fanboys.

To understand that above mentioned statement, one must know why this has happened. During the early years of the 21st century, a budding comic book company called CrossGen was established by Mark Allessi and Gina M. Villa, the comic book publisher thrived and produced several cool titles including Sigil, Scion and Sojourn. The publisher also hired several writing and art superstars including Mark Waid, Gail Simone, Greg Land and Jimmy Cheung. To cut the long story short, the company in the end had to fold because of bankruptcy and mismanagement.

Disney (now also the owner of Marvel Comics) picked up the rights and ownership of everything from CrossGen and is now (it seems) lending the property to Marvel.

A few questions come into mind. Marvel already has an imprint scheme taking full effect. MAX and the Ultimate line even ICON are all part of several imprints under Marvel’s umbrella. Will they be able to handle Crossgen’s “universe” with an insane amount of characters still waiting to be discovered and developed? Secondly, how will they manage the new imprint? Will they have a new corporate structure? Will Disney have a say in terms of editorial mandates and how characters can be used?

What I’m really worried about is if Joe Quesada decides to do a “crossover” between the Marvel Universe characters and the CrossGen characters. That in itself will be a disaster waiting to happen if that will be the case. DC Comics “managed” to integrate the characters from both Milestone comics and Red Circle comics now being utilized by DC Comics

Confucius once wrote “They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.” I want to believe that this will bring good, given the quality of stories that CrossGen came out with I have no doubt about it. Change is important. But if your company keeps on talking about change like it’s the next best thing yet, provide no action (Yeah, I’m looking at you Marvelman) then its not really supposed to be called change right?

So here’s to hoping Marvel makes CrossGen shine on its own. Arwen and the rest of the Sigil-bearers might just be owned by a capes and tights kind of comic book publisher but it also should weave its own brand of magic.


Earl Maghirang