July 2002
Karin L. Kross
comicbookslut
Comic Wars - How Two Tycoons Battled Over the Marvel Comics Empire -- And Both Lost by Dan Raviv
In 1996, Marvel Comics declared bankruptcy. The troubles had begun in
1989, when financier Ron Perelman bought the company and proceeded to
gut it, much as he had done with Revlon and with his other holdings. Staff
was slashed, titles were cut back. Perelman also bought a comics distribution
company and tried to force dealers into using it as their only supplier.
Meanwhile, the quality of the books themselves had gotten so bad that
the readers engineered a boycott (apparently, those at the top thought
that Marvel’s standing was so strong that the readers would buy
anything; by refusing to buy, the fans showed them how wrong they were).
With the dealers and fans upset, and with Marvel’s holdings badly
overstretched, it was not long before the company found itself in a lot
of trouble.
Enter corporate raider Carl Icahn, who bought up large amounts of Marvel
junk bonds and bank debt, and who led an attempt to take over Marvel himself.
Icahn ended up going up against Ike Perlmutter, the owner of Toy Biz.
Back in the better days, Perlmutter had made a deal with Perelman in which
Toy Biz would be licensed to produce Marvel-based toys without having
to pay royalties. As Icahn moved into position to take over Marvel, it
was not surprising that he took a dim view of the Toy Biz deal. He took
an even dimmer view of Perlmutter when the Toy Biz executive decided that
Marvel would fare better under his own stewardship.
This is the basic story at the heart of Dan Raviv’s Comic Wars:
How Two Tycoons Battled Over the Marvel Comics Empire -- And Both Lost.
And as you might imagine, the reading gets a bit dense at times. It’s
a little ironic, given that a large part of Marvel’s troubles came
from decisions that angered their fans, that this book might not be terribly
enjoyable for the fans either -- unless one has a background in business,
at any rate. There is much talk of junk bonds, bankruptcy court, bank
debt, and stock holdings, and it can get a little overwhelming. As well,
the timeline of events is not entirely clear at times; one might be aided
by keeping a scrap of paper around on which to take notes.
Still, the story is interesting, and Raviv has certainly done his homework,
reconstructing conversations and events in considerable detail. Most fascinating
for the business neophyte is the look that he provides into the high-testosterone,
high-dollar world of the millionaires and billionaires who own the world’s
corporations. It’s a very different world from the one that the
rest of us inhabit.
Marvel’s story, of course, does not end with the book; the book
hit stores around the same time that the Spiderman movie was released.
With the success of that movie and of X-Men, and with a number of other
Marvel properties hitting the screen soon (The Incredible Hulk and Daredevil,
for instance), the company seems to be on its way back up. Only time will
tell if its rise will continue.
Comic Wars by Dan Raviv
Published by Broadway
ISBN:0767908309
Non-Fiction
305 Pages
