Marvel Senior Vice President Of Publishing & Executive Editor Tom Brevoort recently spoke about DC Comics’ DC Universe: Rebirth #1. Its more in good humor than Marvel execustives’ usually more bit8ing commentary.
- Brevoort: I did read it, and I will say that I thought it was — and I mean this in a good way — the most “DC” comic that I’d read in a long while. I’m kind of conflicted in terms of the central twist that is revealed there, because philosophically as a fan, I kind of feel like that work is a complete work, and I’ve liked the fact that people have stayed away from it, except in really recent memory, and let it be its own thing. On the flipside of that, as the guy that does all this publishing for Marvel, I know that if that book was in our back catalogue, there would definitely have been interaction by this point, and it probably would have happened much sooner. So I can’t fault them for doing exactly what I would do, at least in the abstract, if I had the publishing rights. The real proof for me is going to be, “OK, what happens now in terms of all their new launches?” and how much of the spirit and the promise of the kickoff book is carried out into all those individual books. But it’s good. It got a lot of people into the stores to read “Captain America” Tuesday night. [Laughs]
Marvel’s Tom Brevoort also discussed DC Universe: Rebirth #1’s massive leak 5 days prior to release and how it impacted DC and Marvel.
- Brevoort: That was a total fluke. We did not plan that. I feel some sympathy for them — it’s two bad bounces. Bad bounce No. 1, their story leaked a couple of days earlier, so people had those conversations beforehand. The second part was, people just responded to this “Captain America” twist, even to a greater degree than we had anticipated. We knew it would be big, we knew it would get readers’ eyebrows arching; we did not anticipate this kind of a response. I feel sorry for them at least on that level. I’m sure the book sold well, and it seems like it’s getting a good response. It’s not like it hurt them particularly, it just means the conversation moved away from them for a day. I would do it again in a heartbeat. [Laughs] But it’s not like it was any Machiavellian planning on our part, it was just the way the chips happened to fall.
