last week i know like many other people i was out enjoying the weekend but maybe post and home today and that the situation is developing so quickly right now and as i mentioned one of the biggest concern trite now is the health caste system and so these definitely are still on the cards that we could see a situation developing like spain like italy that is certainly not off the cards and already you on the german health minister has been reaching out to the health service saying that even retired doctors could be pilled if pulled out and say we support the health care system. beyond. belief that. we are all about to risk that. whatever it takes. people are running down. you. know how

you made the mines. from captain america and spiderman. to the x.-men and the hope. that no one else. even if you've never read the comics will likely recognize these iconic superheroes and that world famous creates a i think you'll be quite accurate to say that more will revolutionize the superhero comic with thousands of characters and interweaving storylines the moffatt universe is one of the most astonishing titles in multan fiction. front's it all began to unravel for the company at the time of the millennium. it was losing sight of what you were trying to sell sell stories it was kind of like a victim of his own success. every great story has a point where the hero is on his. nice seemingly beyond salvation mobbles talking

style. came when it declared bankruptcy followed by an all out war between investors that raged for years and a lot of screaming i'm told for years 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 reemerged from the ruins of its comic book empire. and force its way back to the top. new york. times of marvel's headquarters and so many of its super heroes. from dramatic battles a grand central station. to spectacular rescue some staten island and every. part of the magic of marvel for a long time fans like sean how is that his car to set in the wheel wells. people

that i knew from new york city have the feeling that they might. catch a glimpse of a superhero battle there and where 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 ups office hits marvel has come could the entertainment world. 'd bounce rewinds for 3 decades and smallville wasn't just battling comic super villains it was combating bankruptcy stop defections and tied up in a legal battle that threatens to destroy the company.

to find out we go back to the beginnings of the marvel universe. 2 superheroes we next day were born in new york in the late 1930 s. . 2 2 in the midst of the great depression marvel's 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 mouth like a charm saida. the 2 propelled d.c. comics popularity well ahead of mom posts then just a small pulp fiction publish on one is timely from earlier years marvel was always the 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 was jaimee high didn't seem to use its own line of superheroes good cartoonists jay simon and so jack toby would go on to create some of the models must famous characters. and is america and the 2nd world war. right. we're. time as patriotic superheroes i would prefer a real life anime's in world war 2 you. struck a chord with soldiers and their families back home. i think that there was a way to see victory to have an idea of what that would feel like. imagine such as in forty's for the golden age of comics in the united states and as american soldiers brought that comics overseas yes against popularity in korea and japan it helps him. is the development of local manga comics. but in the 1950

s. there was a growing movement against violence and scorn in comic books. and it will allow. with. it resulted in regulation that severely limited the kind of content publishers could print. homage to ensure they didn't have them fired from drugs in a comic everything was now just completely the fandom no fun so comic sells wanted. by the early 1960 s. marvel was struggling just to stay in business the company's editor in chief stan lee was ready to create. but then marvel's old rival d.c. comics threw together its most popular characters into a single super group. their mission to fight the justice and to serve all mankind 1. the justice league became

a surprise case and inspired stan malians artist jack kirby to create their own team of superheroes. greatest genius of our democracy the world as ever and all fantastic. the 1st issue pro convention with all superhero archetypes of the day unlike the story can sniff flawless superman and batman. and cubbies heroes came not just with superpowers but with problems that readers could relate to. it was the beginning of characters have in 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 strayed even further from comic conventions for the 1st time a teenager became a superhero. such was marvel's impact there's now an exhibit dedicated to its famous character in new. spider-man is as my favorite character now is very complex and yet is 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 work so. he wants to try to have a social life i mean it's really a very modern story right it's about the kid who has more responsibilities than any

especially ability of being spider-man. spots ability. spider-man became the most popular comic book card to since superman but marvel's biggest innovation was just around the corner. as most superheroes imagined they become sick interacts and cross-eyed but with each of the stories. this connected became known as the marvel universe since. the narrative of the marvel 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 really does a glimpse into the you know one of them awful office. featuring prices. autists. and even secretaries so you have 2 levels of connection

and every comic you have not just the stories themselves but you have updates 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 is popular with fans as the superheroes they created. i think stanley is one of those figures without whom there might not be a coward. industry both creatively and in a business and promotional level he reinvented what the superhero was and could be. by the 1970 s. marvel was the number one comic book company in the world. releasing 40 different titles every month. and something 50000000 comics

a year in more than 100 countries. it's super heroes even became stars on animated shelly's. the company traditionally in 2nd place to its rival d.c. comics was now number one is somehow retained its status as an underdog so you had d.c. comics the superman batman and wonder woman it everybody knows those characters but with marvel we were like the shrugging company really we have spider may have involved in these guys who have problems and so even though we were the best selling comics we were still be underdogs lou banks joins marvel in the mid 1980 s. . as the underdog to the guys who are fighting the good fight and it felt like we were all fighting the good fight about as the company became increasingly successful that changed. the letters of marvel became progressively less

knowledgeable and less interested in the comic books. by the 1980 s. the comic industry was booming worldwide with people hungry for heroes once considered cheap and a disposable comics have become prized items and speculators was snapping up issues in bulk to resell them to collectors for enormous profits. in the us vintage comics the cost $400.00 in the 1970 s. shops a fine. 1000 u.s. dollars a decade later. by the early ninety's and some 1st issue comics were west of $40000.00 u.s. dollars and up to cash in the number of specialty comic books all surged globally from a few 100 to over $10000.00. 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. helman would still be changed the way marvel ran its business. probably was kind of a step above. the glamour of warner he was it a 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 in 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 uses 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 models who years before 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 growth home and facets how to raise the price of comic books by appealing to collect says they started marketing their comics as products as collector's items as things that were bother them you know the inherent value of. something you read we had a practice of doing special covers enhanced covers glow in the dark others will

covers how a 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 gum eclipse preyed on the bottle. initially polman strategy was dramatically over the next couple of years models revenues grew by 50 percent and its profits multiplied 6 follows a quick. in $99.00 he won 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 with shareholders now expecting bigger returns the pressure at marvel intensified. marvel goes public that's one profits have to be of every quarter marvel started just. increasing production at a crazy rate in 1905 marvel have 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 good thing. hellman's marketing team 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 know that there were people there were ravenous wolverine and punisher and always spider 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 to collect every appearance of movement at some point you chase the guy away by trying to take too much of this money. the plots also figured into one another so readers had 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 was it still seeing a record number of sales every month. the problem was

the distribution system. unlike traditional newsstands specialty comic book shops copper turn unsold copies for a refund. if the issues don't sell retail is shown to the cost. so marvel couldn't tell how many comics the shops were actually sending to customers. and this was about to become a big problem. bookstore manager jeff as discovered shops that oppose a huge oversupply of comic books for speculators. i had seen in other stores i worked out in basement long boxes of base of millions of books there spawn of the one box one box to box 3 box for as because doors and bought so much of this manufactured tray 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 when news got a little bank he went to the comic book stores to find out what was given on. when

you had those conversations with comic store owners about what they were selling or what they were sitting on that's when they started getting very dark it'd conversation was very bleak. and it gave me the sense that something was going on here that we used to record. loose and field representatives out to survey comic stores across the country their findings was shocking. every time marvel sold its special editions the subsequent issues or a 20 percent decline in sales. readers were getting tired of expensive and gimmicky comics that were mainly marketed to collectors and speculators. who sent an urgent memo to marvel senior management. and i'm sure i c c 6000000 other people showing that we were literally chasing away our long term readers or long term

customers by doing these enhanced covers and the reaction to that memo was silent 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 of certainly you know now i understand what they were doing they weren't in it for the long haul they wanted to make as much money as they could make right now right here and damn the consequences. of 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 i didn't want to be

a part of what i saw heirs be coming down for. a more. insatiable drive for profits at marvel was also beginning to westin with its creative team. by this. time founding editor in chief stanley but 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 double it sort of being thing and you have this the static

feeling for the characters you also know you're in a 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 were popular rise of 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 put 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 implied it. publishes 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 on a toy retailer how montrose marvels debts up to $600000000.00 u.s. dollars all the while moving further and further away from its core comic books.

by 995 the company was in crisis it reported a full she 8000000 dollar 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 companies made the difficult decision to leave. i was heartbroken to leave more of all things had 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 for 18 years it was where i growing up you know i'd say i had at the end of a romantic relationship with the death of loved one living more all was the most traumatic thing that ever happened to me. by $996.00 marvel

reported a staggering loss of over $460000000.00 u.s. dollars the company desperately needed cash to keep running and to pay back its debts. but it's in a disagreement with chef. olders over the company's future poland declared bankruptcy. as majority owner it gave him the power to reorganize marvel without their consent. but in doing 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. with a lot of screaming out of phones and threats to destroy what another there is something that was so certain grotesque about these cold 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. romney 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 cuneo to rescue marvel was a huge risk he knew nothing about the comic book industry was not a particularly a comic book fan i wasn't a nurse at all in a comic book world in

a comical community so i had to learn that. but a crash course is all cuneo what have time for. the company's stock could fall into a dismal $0.96 a share. with marvel in disarray and investors in. impatient for results the pressure on cuneo is intense currents 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 at sticker and trading card companies a mere fraction of the 400000000 dollars pound minutes spent on them. while kinnear's search for ways to settle the company's remaining debts also had to start

reviving marvels lifeline. its comic books. they have to get their readers back the 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 artist the freedom to walk. in also tasks for my us both executive and comic fan bill janus with reviving marvel's

superhero comics. at the time the company was publishing 60 monthly titles that were filled with convoluted plots threating back to the 960 s. . he recognized i think it was very day. fickle 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 storytelling. so bill recognize that we have to start telling the stories of our major characters all over again from there are region 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 instant chip at the. the 1st issue of the ultimate spider-man became an instant hades. by the end in 2 thousands marvel had reclaimed

is a lead in the comic industry's market share. meanwhile cuneo and his team mates thought of another way to translate the company's cash problems and pay back its loans. they would focus on marvel's 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 company's 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 i find happiness in animal kingdom tacky or critical and financial disasters. cuneo and his team decided that marvel would from now on tightly control how their movies were made and 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 movie so. marvel was finally moving

in a new direction toward dealing in intellect. profits instead of selling products. we have 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 model's hope was that a successful film would transform is other businesses. if someone goes to your movies they're probably going to buy toys for their kids someone plays you video games they're 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 placing gentlemen 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 worldwide x.-men 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 the x.-men before they started seeing trailers and then you had people lining up around the block when the film was opening. up 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 but the company wasn't getting the full profits from its partnership with hollywood studios. and sony's 2 spider-man films made a combined $3000000000.00 worldwide marvel only received $6000000.00 from selling the current to rights. 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 them millions. of us taking some financial risk and films was not initially particularly popular with some of our investors. but i think the people the outside didn't understand it as we had been apprenticing and 12th film we learn 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 fought and iron man as collateral for a massive $520000000.00 cash reservoir to make 10 movies bounce if marvel

studios failed all of their super heroes would belong to the bank. as marvel studios went into production for its fast film on 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 viewed these characters as the stars. they found that tony stark 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. it had some ups and downs in his life and his career so

there was certainly some natural questioning about it out well this is the right cast. well the people running marvel studios showed marvel board robert downey jr screen test. in this edition in 2006 robot sound union was reading for one of the 1st scenes in iron man working out what's going through the called my time don't ask don't tell to much of a 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 but out of break out the psyops there it is there's a smile it's ok yes it's natural just less muscles to smile and a serious amount of course became a massive success largely chew to danny genius onil to doc's take on tony stark to fret or be feared respect i say is it too much to ask for

a book it ranks number one at the box office and grossed over $580000000.00 on a budget of 140000000 a good look even i. think you'll be home. in on man's place credits scene novel set up not only the next movie of the avengers but a whole new world of overlapping characters is big here directorship. and here to talk about the of injuring. the marvel cinematic universe was born. realizing the huge potential in marvel's library of superheroes disney kutch is 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 never. to date its movies have grossed over $12000000.00 u.s.

dollars worldwide making. at the biggest film franchise in history. if you think you can see. 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 my was relatively unknown characters that did very well in china a few movie grossed somewhere around 140000000 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 but issue. these days selling 40000 disc considered a success. now

a new battle 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 went be that easy. monger is a form of comics that originates from japan it's very different to some because in the fact that a lot of the characters are very young at the start it's 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 drama. manga dominates almost every major city in the region. it's more than 50 percent of the market share in taiwan and hong kong while western comics take less than 11 percent here. to compete at marvel knows it has to build a stronger emotional connection to asian readers. to securely us regional events

like the singapore comic convention. model. most exciting event of the year of hollywood. movie buffs like. singapore ian illustrator and avid marvel pham garry chu comes here every year. in a way this is so brush a lot of people would like my obvious like my the interest. of the interest in american superheroes has grown the characters on display here don't really reflects marvel's new target audience was always patient characters but you know truth be 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 mentor or a samurai or a geisha it was a chinese character with always on food. you see the sapolsky as marvel's man in the east responsible for bringing the marvel universe to asia and vice a versa he's here scouting for local artists who incorporate asian influences in

the comics were looking for now so bring a little more authenticity to it since our fanbase is going global we want people to feel like that world is outside their window so that the characters are authentic lesion from the actual cities and that the writers were hiring the artist or eric 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. of muslim superheroes headlining her own comic book this fall she's muslim pakistani american i think it's great because right no they're getting fans to understand that there's a bigger it's a bigger picture here this more people there's a lot of other different ethnicities living together. gary chu cause his big break here 4 years ago when he met models talent scout c.b. supposed to our super nose but it looked at my hopefully oh you felt cool and

we were just going to. after so it was also the 1st couple i drool form lovel. force excellent special i was really happy with their love that 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 i've delivered this exportable. to me that is very satisfying the films and licensing deals remain marvels main business it continues to develop its comics for a more global audience based on the strong tradition of storytelling stanley and his collaborators began in the 1960 s. when i think any good story appears to anyone anywhere and usually it's

a case of someone being dumb and not one having a problem somewhere they're being given great power and what it is they do without power thus a pretty universal kind of um story marvel hands a wealth of characters that have never been explored in any shape or form. but should they get out right they will be here for many many many years to come. for him writing is an act of liberation. for a novelist it's a tremendous to him saying that in all of our lives our characters was something going on that's maybe obvious except that they don't notice the artist told them the irish writer exclusive new interview marks 20 minutes. and 30 minutes on d w. in

the upside of climate change. africa's most of. what's in store. for the future. comforting megacities to the multimedia in such a clear answer. is no human race destroying itself. we are ruining the basic elements of our existence we're using too much water and were colluding. water is life. going to go among our supplies will last for ever but they won't. when the rain stops starts march 20th on w. .

cut. this is deja vu news live from berlin and the u.s. tightens its coronavirus travel ban chaos at u.s. airports as americans rush home from europe before flights from britain and ireland are grounded and washington to soon start restricting travel within the united states as well also coming up paris for bars served there last drinks as france ordered.