years to cover the entire country nationwide restrictions to target traveling public doubts. and you are watching news from berlin coming up next a documentary on how marvel comics made a row a comeback after being on the brink of bankruptcy 3 decades of a spice or exploitation. because. we're all set. to go beyond. that. all of the stories that matter to. us. whatever it takes to get the running out cut nut job made for mines.

from captain america and spider-man to the x. man and the hope. that no one else. even if you've never read the comics you'll likely recognize these iconic superheroes and that world famous creates to be quite accurate to say that marvel devolution eyes the superhero comic with thousands of characters and interweaving storylines the marvel universe is one of the most astonishing titles in multan fiction. thoughts it all becomes one rival for the company at the time of the millennium. it was losing sight of what you were trying to sell stories it was kind of like a victim of his own success. if a great story has a points where the hero is on his knees seemingly beyond salvation models talking style. can when it's a clad bankruptcy followed by an all out war between. that's just that raged for

years. and a lot of screaming on telephone and threats to destroy one another everybody was just scared to death this is the inside story of how one of the world's most beloved pop culture icons real moche from the ruins of its comic book empire. and force its way back to the top. new york. times for marvel's headquarters and so many of its super errands. from dramatic battles a grand central station. to spectacular rescues on the staten island ferry. part of the magic of marvel for the long time fans like sean how is that his character is a set in the real world. people that i knew from new york city. the feeling

that he might. catch a glimpse of a superhero battle you know in their underwear the post office or something for almost 80 years marvel has captivated comic fans across the globe producing bestselling comic books costumes. video games. and record breaking pops office hits marvel has conquered the entertainment world. azza rewinds for 3 decades and marvel wasn't just bottling comic super villains it was combating bankruptcy stuff defections and tied up in a legal battle that threatens to destroy the company. which is. still struggling. to find out we go back to the beginnings of the marvel universe.

2 the superheroes we next day were born in new york in the late 1930 s. 2. 2 in the midst of the great depression novels rival d.c. comics created a character that became an instant hit. superman who was an inspiration for a lot of kids in the depression he was a crusader for the masses superman was soon followed by much like a charm saida. the 2 propelled d.c. comics popularity in well ahead of mom posts then just a small pulp fiction publish on line is timely from earlier years marvel was always kind of 2nd place company superman and batman and d.c. comics were were kind of the industry standard and marvel was. sure the scrappy other player to cash in on the trends is jaimee high tech scene to the juices phoneline if superheroes good cartoonists jay simon and so jack toby would go on to

create some of marvel's must famous characters. and is america and the 2nd world war. right. where. time is patriotic superhero. i do battle real life anime's in world war 2. struck a chord with soldiers and their families back home. i think that there was a way to see a victory to have an idea of what that would feel like. 930 s. and forty's for the golden age of comics in the united states and as american soldiers brought my comics overseas yes against popularity in korea and japan which helps influence the development of local magic bullets. but in the 1950 s. there was a growing movement against violence and scorning. mike brooks. any book aloud.

with. good results is in regulation that severely limited the kind of content publishers could print. to college to ensure they would never damn tired from drugs in a comic everything was just completely the fandom no fun to comics sells pointed to. by the early 1960 s. marvel was struggling just to stay in business the company's editor in chief stan lee was ready to crater. but then marvel's old rival d.c. comics through together its most popular characters into a single super group. their mission to fight for justice i do search all mankind. the justice league became a surprise case and inspired stanley and assist jack kirby to create their own team of superheroes. greatest team and super the longest the world has ever known.

fantastic. the 1st issue broke convention with all superhero archetypes of the day unlike the story can sneer floorless superman and batman slim kirby's heroes came not just with superpowers but with problems that readers could relate to. it was the beginning of characters having a 3 dimensionality that really set marvel apart. danny finger off edited some of marvel's most famous superheroes for close to 2 decades. marvel comics gave you a depth of characterization where people could work together but not like each other or like each other but be angry at each other or quit the team as far as comic books that was fairly. unprecedented. a year later marvel straight even

further from comic conventions for the 1st time a teenager became a superhero. such was marvel's impacts there's now an exhibit dedicated to its famous character in new york. spider-man is is my favorite character now he's very complex and yet he's very simple he's he's the most like a regular person peter parker was an introverted didn't have a lot of friends also asked to work 2 or 3 extra. and then has a sick relative and yet wants to excel. and he want to try to have a social life i mean it's really a very modern story right it's about a kid who has more responsibilities than any especially as ability to inspire me and it's about. spider-man became the most popular comic book characters since

superman but marvel's biggest innovation was just around the corner. as more superheroes emerged they began sic interaction crossover with each of the stories. this connected became known as the marvel universe this. narrative of the metal universe is just a staggering achievement that i think is really the most complicated narrative that probably exists in history. it wasn't just a new universe that stan lee and his collaborators forward in periodic updates stanley gave readers a glimpse into the you know what of the marvel office. featuring crisis. artists. and even secretaries so you had 2 levels of connection and every comic. you have not just the stories themselves. but you have

updates of what was going on in the office and you had a sense that you knew the people behind the stories they were like almost surrogate family members the team at marvel became as popular with fans as the superheroes they created. i think stanley is one of those figures without whom there might not be accountable industry both creatively and a business and promotional level and he reinvented what the superhero was and could be. by the 970 s. marvel was the number one comic book company in the wilds. releasing 40 different titles every month. and something 50000000 comics a good in more than 100 countries. it's super harry's even became stars on animated shelly's.

the company traditionally in 2nd place to his rival d.c. comics is now number one is somehow retained its status as an underdog so you have d.c. comics with superman batman and wonder woman everybody knows those characters but with marvel we were like the shrugging company we had we had spider may have been balkan these guys who have problems and so even though we were the best selling comics we were still the underdog new banks joins model in the mid 1900. as the underdog the guys were fighting the good fight and it felt like we were all fighting the good fight about so as the company became increasingly successful that changed. the owners of marvel became progressively less knowledgeable and less interested in their comic books. by the 1980 s. the comic. industry was booming worldwide with people hungry for heroes once

considered cheap and disposable comics have become prized items and speculators were snapping up issues in bulk to resell them to collectors for enormous profits. in the u.s. vintage comics that cost $400.00 in the 1970 s. shot up to $5000.00 u.s. dollars a decade later. by the early ninety's and some 1st issue comics were worth 40000 u.s. dollars and up to cash in the number of specialty comic book stores surged globally from a few 100 to over 10000. as rare and new comic books were flying off the shelves marvel attracted the interest of millionaire businessman ron perlman who bought the company for over $80000000.00 u.s. dollars in 1990. pound one with scn to be changed the way marvel ran its

business. probably was kind of a step above. the glamour of warner he was in the corporate raider he was somebody who had no emotional connection to the comics so you know this was marvel's 1st real existence as. kind of a piece and someone's game. i can remember ron coming through the office during that 1st week. and he was he was he may not have been smoking the cigar but he was at least chewing the cigar he says this short little man who looked like he owned the world being toward through the offices by a young woman dressed as spider woman in spandex and to me that's who run pro men will always be this guy who owns the world it can make young women dress up in spandex. new banks joint model 2 years before pound uncles have the company.

when i started at marvel you know i was i was surrounded by the people whose comics i had grown up reading it was really amazing it was fun it was exciting everybody was thrilled to be there when the announcement came that the company was being sold . everybody was nervous and as we saw perlman walking through the office we became more nervous. to drive grimes home and fesa town to raise the price of comic books by appealing to collect as they started marketing their comics as products as collector's items as things that were other than you know the inherent value of. those something you read we had a practice of doing special covers enhanced covers glow in the dark covers well covers for our great covers and adding

a glow in the dark cover caused us to take that same 32 page comic book that we sold for a $1.15 instead make it to $95.00. in the short term consequences of that were that we would sell 4 times as many copies of back comic double the price so $4.00 times the comic lives portrayed on the bottom. initially polman strategy watched dramatically over the next couple of years models revenues grew by 50 percent and its profits multiplied 6 fall. in $9091.00 the company went public and its market value balloons to $3000000000.00 us dollars. we all thought that was hilarious because we're just a bunch of guys running around the office shooting each other with plastic guns at night but the mood at marvel changed significantly after the initial public offering but shareholders now expecting bigger returns the pressure at marvel intensify and. marvel goes public that's when profits have to be of every quarter

marvel started just. increasing production at a crazy rate in 1905 marvel had been publishing 40 titles a month by 993 they did more than doubled that number. but printing so many comics and specialty covers started to dilute the marvel brand there's all different gimmicks some of them very nice gimmicks but gimmicks arguments adventure they do they run a bit thin. hellman's marketing seem also began to dictate the contents of the comics. artists and writers were told to engineer more crossover stories that featured its best selling superheroes to display a comic book stores like this one in new york. we knew that there were people there were ravenous overeem and punisher and always spider-man collectors and all you got to do is put those characters into or a low selling comic and suddenly you some more copies because people wanted to

maintain their complete spider-man collection of the complete wolverine collection . but at some point the guy who collects every appearance of wolverine can no longer afford the collective reappearance of movement at some point you chase the guy away by trying to take too much of his money. the plots also figured into one another so readers have to buy all related issues if they wanted to make sense of them as production increased the quality and content of the comics began to suffer . and this started to alienate the company's cool audience. bounce if marvel was losing ranges why this is still seeing a record number of sales every month. the problem was the distribution system. unlike traditional newsstands specialty comic book shops cannot return on sold copies for a refund. if the issues don't sell retail is

a show to the cost. so marvel couldn't tell how many comics the shops were actually soundings of customers. and this is about to become a big problem. bookstore manager jeff as discovered shops that have both a huge oversupply of comic books for speculate as. i had seen in other stores i worked out in basement long boxes of this millions of books there spawn the one box one box to box 3 parts for as because doors and bought so much of this manufactured trite. and sold that that's going to everybody's going to want 50 of those and it just wasn't the case and then i mean a lot of stores are hurting. the news got so little bank he went to the comic book stores to find out what was given on. when you head those conversations with comic book store owners about what they were selling or what they were sitting on that's

when they started getting very dark conversations very bleak. and it gave me the sense that something was going on here that we needed to record. loose and field representatives out to survey comic stores across the country their findings was shocking. every time marvel sold its special edition and subsequent issues or a 20 percent decline in sales. raises we're getting tired of expensive and gimmicky comics that were mainly marketed to collect isn't speculators. who sent an urgent memo to marvel senior management. and i'm sure a c c 6000000 other people showing that we were literally chasing away our long term readers a long term customers by doing these enhanced covers and the reaction

to that memo was cyber. 2 marvel continued to publish enhanced covers and also began to include trading cards to encourage more collectors. alienating even more of their readers. meanwhile comic book shops unable to cope with unsold stock started to close down. so it just seemed absolutely absurd to me you know now i understand what they were doing they were in it for the long haul they wanted to make as much money as they could make right now right here and be in the consequences the i'm the to the people who suffered the results of their decision we got what we needed out of them . we don't need them anymore i didn't want to be a part of that strip mine i didn't want to be a part of what i saw as the coming down fall. of marvel.

the insatiable drive for profits at marvel was also beginning to westin with its creative team. by this. time founding editor in chief stanley had moved to california to pursue hollywood deals for the company. and the new editors left in charge one being allowed to do their jobs. the editor's job was to set direction for the comic and suddenly there was this this marketing division that was setting direction and the editors were not happy they feel like they should have more say in what the stories are at some point that created a conflict and certainly demoralize the people. working in editorial and that's the devil is sort of being painted you know this the static feeling for the characters you also know you're in the business and that that constant tug of war and you had all these editors slamming their heads up against

the wall to make the comics that they were responsible for spike in sales get really sad and and there was more infighting and people were just unhappy they were having fun. and then in 1992 the inevitable happens. in a mass exodus marvel's top talents left to join rivals and to form their own publishing houses. by alienating writers and artists who had developed stories who had popularized the characters marvel ended up setting themselves up for failure. as comic book readers followed their favorite artists of the new labels marvel's market share dropped from 45 to 30 percent. meanwhile the special and collectible comics but over saturated the markets. if you print tens of thousands of a particular kind of comic immediately it can't be worth as much so it's it was

kind of like a victim of his own success in 1903 when spec. waiters and collectors realize that the value of comics have been inflated the comic industry imply did. publish a sales plummeted by 70 percent. and 9 out of 10 comic book stores in america close their doors. the comics division that had once made up 90 percent of marvel sales was now a 3rd of its business in a desperate attempt to spur growth. pomona to gone on an acquisition spree. from trading card manufacturers to stick a company's and 20 retailer home and drove marvel stats up to 600000000 u.s. dollars all the while moving it further and further away from its core comic book. by $995.00 the company was in crisis it reported

a full she $8000000.00 loss the 1st time since permanent bought the company that they haven't turned a profit. its stock value collapsed shares once worth $35.00 in 1903 that sunk to just $2.00. each. as a result marvel announced company wide cuts. 40 percent of its workforce was necco. after almost 2 decades at the company edited down a finger off made the difficult decision to leave. i was heartbroken to leave marvel things have changed there in such a way that it was very unpleasant for me on a day to day basis but you know i've worked in 18 years it was where i growing up you know i'd say outside of the end of a romantic relationship with the death of the loved one living marvel was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me. by 996 marvel

reported a staggering loss of over 400 and. eckstein 1000000 u.s. dollars the company desperately needed cash to keep running and to pay back its debts. but it's in a disagreement with shareholders over the company's future poneman declared bankruptcy. as majority owner it gave him the power to reorganize marvel without their consent. but entering so pohlmann dragged the company's reputation through the mud in a series of very public court battles. surrounded by the small during ruin of its comic book empire marvel was in its darkest hour and the future looks bleak. and a lot of screaming on telephones and threats to destroy one another there is something that was so absurd in grotesque about these whole hearted men suing each other to have custody of something that emotionally

a lot of college readers thought belonged to that in 1998 after a 2 year battle it was finally over. from coleman sued for diversity over $500000000.00 u.s. dollars from marvel to his other businesses. was ousted from the company. but marvel was still broke surviving on a $200000000.00 loan that had to be repaid soon. it now needed a super hero of his own to save the day. in 1909 the company brought in peter cuneo known as the turnaround king he successfully guided 6 businesses through tough times including cosmetics company clairol and security hardware group black and decker. bouts hiring puniet to rescue marvel was a huge risk he knew nothing about the comic book industry was not a particularly

a comic book fan i was immersed it all in a comic book or a little comical community sad to learn that. but a crash course is all. kunio what have time for. the company's stock could fall into a dismal $0.96 a share. with marvel in disarray and investors impatient for results the pressure on cuneo is intense kerns are not for everybody they're really in fact you have to be a little nuts to do what i do really it's not normal my experience has been that things are always worse than you thought they were and they'll be sleepless nights with barely $3000000.00 in the bank the 1st thing that kept cuneo up at nights was how to get marvel the cash it desperately needed. for $26000000.00 u.s. dollars marvel sold its sticker and trading card companies a mere fraction of the 400000000 dollars pound minutes spent on them. while cuneo search for ways to settle the company's remaining debts he also had to start

reviving marvel's lifeline. its comic books. they have to get their readers back for years of gimmicks had left their stories in a sorry state. to reinvigorate them he would have to convince some of the creatives who had left marvel to return. a lot of the creative people particularly comic book industry felt that they had been mistreated frankly by the company obviously wanted to get the best back and so that's what i was doing was basically courting people the creative people in most business are the ones that actually make you money. and so the people working in the creative jobs have to feel wanted needed and rewarded. immediately instigated a complete change of atmosphere he gave his artists the freedom to walk. he also tasks for my us both executive and comic fans will janus with reviving marvel's

superhero comics. at the time the company was publishing 16 monthly titles that were filled with convoluted plots threading back to the 1960 s. . he recognized i think there is very difficult to get new readers into the comic book industry because if you want to get. emotionally attached to a character or set of characters let's say spider-man you had to come in at issue $475.00 so you have 40 years of story telling. so bill recognizer we had to start telling the stories of our major characters all over again from there are rich and he started a new series of comic books that did that bill janus also gave the series an upgrade to the new millennium. park and became a tech geek with an intention that the. the 1st issue of the ultimate spider-man became an instant taints. by the 2000 marvel had reclaimed is

a lead in the comic industry's market share. meanwhile cuneo into his team at the thought of another way to trance of the company's cash problems and pay back its loans. they would focus on models most valuable asset its unique library of comic book characters. we need a business that would generate a lot of cash and this is why we adapted as a business model a licensing model in licensing it does not require us to put up much capital. marvel began licensing out his characters for toys clothes school supplies and video games. but to generate more revenue the companies characters needed to appeal to a much wider market not just hardcore comic fans so marvel turned to hollywood movies were just always just out of reach for stanley. although he has been trying to get

them made for decades. i'm out here hoping to put the use and other properties into movies and television shows unfortunately for marvel's famous editor in chief previous licensing deals with studios have been anything but successful. partly due to the limits of technology. and partly because marvel have no creative control over the movies. films like howard the duck in 986 and my friend happiness in animal kingdom decade were critical and financial disasters. cuneo and his team decided that marvel would from now on tightly control how them if these were made they would commission the scripts hire good quality directors and find the right cost for the characters themselves and then partner with large

hollywood studios to produce and distribute the movies. and marvel was finally moving in a new direction toward dealing in intellect. profiting instead of selling products . we had to look at our characters as talent and we had to treat them as if they were living people but we had also run them like brands spider-man as a brand models hope was that a successful film would transform this other businesses. if someone goes to your movies they're probably going to buy toys for their kids someone plays you video games are going to go and movies kids like the toys you're going to buy back to school products from and on and on and on. we are now seeing the beginnings of another stage of human evolution. x.-men was released in the year 2000 to critical acclaim and grossed over $290000000.00 u.s. dollars well why. it's meant one proves something very important to marvel and i

think the rest of the entertainment industry and that is that you could have a big success financially if you made a good film even if the general public did not know the characters 99 percent never heard of the x.-men before they started seeing trailers and then you had people lining up around the block when the film was opening. suddenly superheroes were all the rage and big budget adaptations like spider-man. the hulk and devil also became massive hits. marvel's movies like x.-men had been a smashing success of the company wasn't getting the full profits from its partnership with hollywood studios. and sony's to spider-man films made a combined $3000000000.00 worldwide marvel only received $6000000.00 from selling the current sorites. the new management came up with a radical idea. should produce its own films and keep 100 percent of the profits.

it was a bonus plan. not everyone agreed it was a good one. marvel had never produced a film before and a flop in hollywood could cost the meetings. idea of us taking some financial risk on films was not initially particularly popular with some of our investors. but i think the people me outside didn't understand it as we had been apprenticing the 12th film we learned how to make it. in 2005 the company's board gave marvel studios the green knight to finance its films marvel struck a risky deal with wealth management firm merrill lynch it offered up its hand of its most prized kerrick says including captain america thaw and iron man as collateral for a massive $520000000.00 cash reservoir to make 10 movies bounce if marvel

studios failed all of the superheroes would belong to the bank. as marvel studios went into production for its 1st film and man it decided to take an even bigger risk and break with hollywood convention. hollywood has a tendency when they're worried about a film to chaos very well known and often highly paid actors and actresses because they will quote guarantee the box office we didn't believe in insurance and we thought that the characters were so strong the company really view these characters as the stars. they found that tony stark in robert downey jr bounce at the time he was best known for his past problems with addiction rather than his acting talent the choice was seen as a big gamble. and he had some ups and downs in his life and use career so

there was certainly some natural questioning about it out well as mr a cast. well the people running marvel studios showed marvel board robert downey jr screen test. in this edition in 2006 robert downey jr is reading for one of the 1st scenes in iron man working out what's going is they're called my time don't ask don't tell but if you're shipping about ago he's on script for the 1st couple of minutes and then he just goes off as robert can do and he right in front of us became tony stark done you're still buckingham palace where we go to break out the psyops there it is there's a smile it's ok yes it's natural just less muscles to smile. i'm man of course became a massive success largely juta downey genius onil to doc's take on tony stark to better be feared respect i say too much to ask for it ranks number one at the

box office and grossed over $580000000.00 on a budget of $140000000.00 a good lucky. break here the home and long were in on man's purse credit scene novel set up and also only the next movie of the avengers the whole new world of overlapping character as nick fury director she. talked about the of injury. the marvel cinematic universe was born. realizing the huge potential in marvel's library of superheroes disney touches the company for a full 1000000000 u.s. dollars in 2009. with disney's global reach the top catapulted a whole galaxy of marvel's stock characters to

a new level. to date its movies have grossed over $12000000.00 u.s. dollars worldwide making. at the biggest film franchise in history. you think you can tell me. marvel's remarkable turnaround was in large part helped spice budgeting popularity in asia. as time progresses is proving that asia is very important to companies that marvel. movies for example like man which was one of mob was relatively unknown characters that did very well in china a few movie grossed somewhere around $140000000.00 more white and of that one for it was contributed to the chinese market. but the loss of marvel's business its comic books is in decline. in the heyday publishers could sell a 1000000 copies per issue. these days selling 40000 disc considered a success. now

a new bottle is brewing in the comic book industry. marvel is looking to expand its business in asia and that means it's barely serious mistake on the ensuring the populace starry eyed gals of manga. but it won't be that easy. monger is a form of comics that originates from japan is very different to some because in the fact that a lot of the characters are very young the start is very unique and the story types of very different to western comics as well among generally speaking in asia it's much more popular in a western genre. manga dominates almost every major city in the region. it has more than 50 percent of the market share in taiwan and hong kong while western comics take less than 11 percent here. to compete marvel knows it has to build a strong that emotional connection to asian readers. securely at regional events

like the singapore comic conventions the autumn. exciting event of the year for callie will take said movie buffs like. singaporean illustrator and avid marvel fan gary chu comes here every year. in a way this is so brushing off people with like minded hobbies like my that interests although interest in american superheroes has grown the characters on display here don't really reflects marvel's new target audience marvel's always at issue characters but you know if you've been told they've always been a little bit stereotypical they were created by writers based mainly in the west and it was a japanese character is based on a major or a samurai or a geisha there was a chinese character was always on food. c.b. sapolsky as marvel's man in the east responsible for bringing the marvel universe to asia and vice versa he says scouting for local artists to incorporate deeper

asian influences in the comics we're looking for now is a pretty little more open to city to it since our fan base is gone global we want people to feel like that well this outside their window so that the characters are authentically asian from the actual cities and that the writers we're hiring the artists we're hiring a rare piece of their lives to those characters to make them feel you know just really real to the readers who marvel's new characters are now gradually starting to reflects the diverse readers the company wants to connect with and for the 1st time in the history. muslim superhero is headlining happen in comic books this fall choose muslim pakistani american i think it's great because right no they're getting fans to understand that hey there's a bigger it's a bigger picture here this more people there's a lot of other different cities living together. gary chu cause his big break here 4 years ago when he met small bulls talent scout c.b. supposed to our supernovas but looked away hopefully oh you felt cool and

we were just going to actually each other after so we're also also the 1st couple i drool form level floors excellent special. i was really happy with the outcome then of that and i couldn't wait for it to be printed today gary continues to work as a freelance artist for marvel. as a last trade irish level where i've delivered the best exportable. and to me that is very essential so films and licensing deals remain marvel's main business it continues to develop its comics for a more global audience based on the strong tradition of storytelling that stan lee and his collaborators began in the 1960 s. i think any good story appears to anyone anywhere and usually it's

a case of someone being dumb and not having a problem somewhere they're being given great power and what it is they do without power that's a pretty universal kind of one story and marvel has a wealth of characters that have never been explored in any shape or form. that should they get that right they will be here for many many many years to come. because. if i only became so sure of what close ranks of. top entertainment in the top. clinch the deal is to see a single cause. i

get nothing else out of a long it's not easy to go to another country you know nothing about twice a day and do this because we can't stay in venezuela i'm not i don't know most of what that. closely global news that matters d.w. . made for mines. closely. carefully. those soon to be nice to do good. action. to discover who. subscribe to documentary.

this is news coming to you live from berlin the whole of potentially is now in quarantine the prime minister says he's extending emergency measures to try to stop the spread of the corona virus across the country people are no only allowed to travel in an emergency also coming up germany has recorded its 1st 2 deaths from the virus and confirmed that the epidemic is spreading rapidly through europe's largest economy. plus the european union and turkey tried to find a way out of the standoff over.