Paramount

Geek Punditry #176: We Know What We Want

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Valiant Comics is in trouble, but what else is new?

Here’s a highly-abbreviated history lesson. When it was founded in the early 90s, Valiant Comics was one of the hottest publishers in the business. Jim Shooter, former Editor-in-Chief at Marvel Comics, launched a whole new universe with some of the best writers out there, creating new characters and new stories, built on a foundation that started by resurrecting a couple of forgotten Gold Key classics, and eventually it became one of the major innovators in the comic book field. But after the first few golden years, Valiant’s history has been chaotic. Shooter was fired from the company he founded, and a disastrous crossover with Image Comics nearly destroyed Valiant entirely. (The disaster part, ironically, was mostly the fault of certain Image creators, but it was Valiant that got crushed by it.) 

Pictured: Consistency and Stablity

The publisher was sold to video game maker Acclaim which proved that, when it came to knowing how to publish comic books, Acclaim was a hell of a video game company. After struggling for a few years to keep it running, Acclaim rebooted the Valiant Universe for no apparent reason, then let it die on the vine, save for a few tie-in comics to different video games they were releasing. There was an effort to bring it back with a new Unity miniseries that would merge the original Valiant Universe with the old, but only two issues of the six-issue story were ever published. 

There were several attempts over the years at resurrecting the once fan-favorite characters, including a bitter court battle over the copyrights and trademarks, but eventually a new Valiant rose from the ashes in 2012. New Valiant – which once again rebooted the universe, but did a better job of it this time – started off strong, putting out a lot of acclaimed comics that set a few records. But behind the scenes, things were still chaotic. They were sold to DMG Entertainment in 2018 and, again, the company began to flounder. Books went unfinished and publishing was sporadic, and it seemed like it was going to once again die off. In 2023, they licensed the characters to another publisher, Alien Books. Alien brought back the Valiant characters with a “Resurgence” series, which turned out to be an ironic title as, rather than “resurging” the characters we loved, they ONCE AGAIN rebooted them into yet another new universe, this one called “Valiant Beyond.”

And then THIS shit happened.

And barely a year into “Valiant Beyond,” the universe is still in a shambles. Several of the books (lookin’ at YOU, All-New Harbinger) seem to bear no resemblance to any of the versions of the past beyond the name. And even the ones that have potential are being released as a series of three-issue miniseries rather than an ongoing comic book, which only serves to increase the feeling that this whole thing is transient and temporary and may vanish at any second, like so many Valiant universes before.

Things were made even worse last week when Valiant (the original company, NOT Alien Books, it should be stressed) released a series of teasers featuring their characters. The thing is, these teasers were – this is a publishing term, so forgive me for using technical jargon – awful. Boring, bland pictures of the heroes from behind, staring at a dull, generic apocalyptic hellscape in front of them. A lot of fans immediately said they thought the images were AI-generated, and to date I haven’t seen any attempt by Valiant to refute that. The truth is it’s becoming difficult to distinguish something that’s AI from something that’s simply boring, soulless pablum, but their silence is pretty damning. It also doesn’t help that “boring image of the character from behind” is as standard an AI trope as “six fingers and piss-yellow shading.” Several fans even said that if it IS AI, they would never buy a Valiant Comic again. This, of course, is an overreaction. The appropriate response, if the images are confirmed to be AI, is to never buy Valiant again until the people responsible are fired, vilified in the public square, put into the stocks, and pelted with rotten tomatoes. Once they’re gone, it’s fine.

But back to the boring-ass teasers. The last of them ended with a shot of five characters together with text reading, “Join Them: Sign up for what’s coming next.” Then, at the bottom, “Hint: It’s not a comic book.”

Oh. Oh dear.

Valiant. Didn’t anybody tell you? All we actually WANT is a comic book. All we want is a good, consistent comic book series with the characters that we’ve loved and cared about in their various forms for over three decades now. That’s what we want. Just a solid comic book series.

That’s.

It.

Not…whatever this is.

Several times over the years, I’ve heard different comic book editors argue that the readers don’t actually know what they want, they only THINK they know what they want, but if it’s given to them, they’re unsatisfied. This is usually an excuse given by an editor of a book that’s suffering from heavy backlash because of an unpopular storyline, so it comes across as a half-assed attempt at a saving throw, but there IS at least a BIT of truth to it. It doesn’t really matter what any storyteller does, there will always be a faction of the audience left unhappy, and that faction is the type that tends to walk around with megaphones. But the thing is, that adage is only true when it comes to CONTENT, not to FORM. 

For example, let’s think about Spider-Man. Ever since the godawful “One More Day” storyline wiped out Peter Parker and Mary Jane’s marriage, a lot of fans have wanted to see them get back together. Marvel has teased it occasionally over the years, even had them date at points, but then always pulls them back apart because somebody in that office seems to think that if they allow Peter Parker to be happy for twelve consecutive seconds the ghost of Stan Lee is going to set their Disney stock on fire. Personally, I prefer Peter and Mary Jane together. Those are the stories I want to see. And I know that a large portion of the audience is on my side on this one. 

“Put a stop to this! If Goofy can’t be happily married anymore, NOBODY can!” –Mickey Mouse

But this is a question of story CONTENT. An editor might think that fans don’t “really” want Pete and MJ together, and they may be wrong and they may be right and they’re probably wrong. I’m not arrogant enough to try to speak for ALL fans. But saying people want Peter and Mary Jane together is a LOT different than saying that fans of Valiant Comics want to actually read monthly Valiant Comics, and THAT’S what just isn’t really happening.

And that’s the most baffling thing to me. If you go to McDonald’s and order a Quarter Pounder, but instead they give you a Filet-o-Fish, that’s the fault of the restaurant. If they tell you that they’re not making hamburgers anymore and they’re switching to an all-fish menu, you’re going to go eat at Burger King. And if they try to sneer at you and blame it on you not really knowing what you want, they’re going to sneer their way right out of business. 

That’s kind of what’s happening at Valiant right now. They’re so desperate to do something to get attention that they’re alienating the people who brought them there in the first place. (No pun intend–no, you know what? Pun intended. I’m gonna own this one.)

Because almost a dozen people on Tumblr demanded it!

Not that they’re alone in this. Paramount has a similar problem with Star Trek right now. After the well-received third season of Star Trek: Picard, there was a groundswell for a proposed series set on the new Enterprise, called Star Trek: Legacy by showrunner Terry Matalas. But Paramount danced around it, cancelled all of the other Trek series one at a time, and then gave us…a Starfleet Academy series that nobody was asking for. A series set in the distant future of Star Trek: Discovery, an era that a lot of fans just never found appealing. A series full of characters we didn’t know (and a couple we did, off to the side) in a time period we didn’t care about. Now to be fair, I haven’t watched Starfleet Academy yet, so I have no opinion to express about the quality of the show itself. But it would be ridiculously disingenuous to look at how that series was presented to a fan base that keeps telling Paramount that they want another damn series set on the Enterprise, ANY Enterprise (there’s a reason we liked Strange New Worlds so much) and then act surprised that the streaming numbers were historically dismal, leading to the show being cancelled before the second season (which had already been ordered) even started production.

Is it possible, if Star Trek: Legacy had gone forward, that fans would have turned against it? Sure. There are people on the internet who like nothing better than to turn against the things that they used to love. But by going so far against what the fan base is asking for, ANY new Trek series would have started at a disadvantage when it comes to finding an audience.

One more example, this one from the chuckleheads at Warner Bros (who are soon going to be one and the same as the chuckleheads at Paramount). Earlier this month, Warner Bros co-CEO Pam Abdy announced that they are committed – their word, not mine – to bringing the Looney Tunes back to movie theaters. That might sound pretty surprising to anybody who’s been paying attention, as there have been two recent efforts to do just that, but Warner Bros tried to strangle them both. The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie and Coyote Vs. Acme were both produced and ready to go, then WB decided to shelve them. They finally relented and allowed them to be released…via a deal with Ketchup Entertainment. Ketchup are the heroes here, of course, but Warner’s behavior is frustrating, with the announcement by Abdy being absolutely baffling. 

Wile E. Coyote has the same expression as a teacher does on the third week of state testing.

Especially since – once again – the question of what the audience actually wants is so FREAKING simple. Look, I very much enjoyed The Day the Earth Blew Up, and I’m looking forward to finally getting to see Coyote Vs. Acme, but those are kind of extras. They’re bonuses. They’re not where the Looney Tunes are at their best. No, I want to see Bugs and Daffy and Tweety and Michigan J. Frog in shorts, because that is where they are unsurpassed in the history of animation. 

If you want to get the Looney Tunes back in theaters, make new shorts and put them out there. Pair them with your kids’ movies, with your comedies, with your superhero movies. I already can’t wait to see Supergirl on the big screen next month. It would be even BETTER if, before the movie started, we saw that Looney Tunes logo bubble up only to make way for seven fresh minutes of Bugs Bunny making Elmer Fudd’s life a living hell. They had a well-received run of cartoons on HBO Max not long ago with Looney Tunes Cartoons, but like seemingly everything else in Warner Bros’ catalogue, they didn’t know what the hell to DO with them, and they cancelled the show instead of exposing it to a wider audience.

Just take THAT and put it THERE! Geez, do I have to think of EVERYTHING, Warner Bros?

It’s FUN to see shorts in a theater. On New Year’s Day this year, my wife and I decided to treat our son to a movie, and he picked The SpongeBob Movie: Search For Square Pants. It was a fun movie. I enjoyed it. But I enjoyed it at LEAST 50 percent more because the movie was preceded by a totally unexpected short cartoon, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Chrome Alone 2- Lost in New Jersey. I had no idea that they’d made a Christmas cartoon set in the continuity of the recent Mutant Mayhem film, whose spin-off TV series had become one of Eddie’s favorites. It was a GREAT cartoon (and I’m not just saying that because the underlying message of the short was that generative AI sucks) that made me so, so happy to see it on a big screen.

All of these companies are sitting on great properties with amazing potential. But they keep trying to chase something new instead of actually looking back at what has worked in the past. I’m not anti-innovation. Culture grows and changes, and that’s as it should be. But when fans keep pleading with you to make more of what they actually like, and instead, you do anything you possibly can to AVOID it, you don’t get to act surprised if the things you’re trying don’t land with an audience. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. While we’re at it, when the hell is Disney going to green light a new season of The Muppet Show? 

Geek Punditry #167: Mish, Mash, Consolidation’s a Smash

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The bidding war is over, and after a protracted tussle over the fate of the grand old movie studio called Warner Bros, the winner – shockingly – seems to be Paramount. Over the last few months we’ve watched as Warner Bros, which of course has expanded far beyond being a movie studio to being a full-blown media empire, was put on the market. We saw it get snapped up by Netflix, we saw as Paramount entered the game with a hostile takeover bid, and we saw them continue to sweeten the pot until Netflix stepped back and threw in the towel. And now, pending government approval and all sorts of other rigamarole that will tie things up for a while, it seems as though Warner Bros will become another star on the Paramount mountain.

One big, happy family.

Feelings about this are…complicated, to say the least. Generally speaking I’m not a fan of the massive media consolidation we’ve borne witness to this century. Fewer players in the game means less competition, and fewer outlets for fewer voices. And sure, we live in an era where anybody can theoretically build an audience and a following using social media, but in practice, the big companies are always going to have an edge. Even when a new player comes along – an A24, for example – they’re going to have an uphill battle when it comes to staying relevant next to the likes of Disney, Sony, and whatever this new Paramount/WB hybrid will be called once it’s all over.

That said, if it HAD to be between Netflix and Paramount, Paramount is the company I feel will be better for people who want movie theaters to survive, no matter what Netflix claimed. And if it’s happening whether we like it or not, I’m not in the mood to debate it. I would rather talk about what’s going to happen when the properties of these two corporate monoliths are under one roof.

What’s going to happen when Warner Bros – the company that owns DC Comics, DC Studios, the Looney Tunes, Hanna-Barbera, Harry Potter, and countless other properties – is folded under the umbrella of the company that controls CBS, Star Trek, Nickelodeon, SpongeBob SquarePants, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? This is going to be mostly speculation, of course – I’m the first to admit that I don’t know anything. But I’m going to throw out some ideas and discuss some concerns about what’s going to happen. And keep in mind that all of this is dependent on how long it takes for the deal to be complete, as well as how long it takes for existing licenses and deals to expire, so I can’t really put a specific timeline on any of this. 

“Let’s call it PARAMAX.”
“For the last time, Curtis, NO.”

One thing we CAN be sure of is that there’s going to be a change in the respective streaming services. Paramount has already indicated that eventually they intend to fold HBO Max into their existing Paramount+. When this happens, one can only hope they don’t decide to double the price on whatever the remaining service will be. Furthermore, I really hope that they use the technology behind HBO Max, because of all the major streamers I’ve used I’ve found Paramount+ to be the buggiest and most annoying. Honestly, if I didn’t love Star Trek so darned much I would have abandoned it entirely.

What content will there be, though? Warner Bros has had a terribly frustrating habit of sending out some of their properties, including movies and TV shows that were once on HBO Max, to other streamers like Netflix, Amazon Prime, and most recently Tubi (which picked up a gargantuan selection of WB cartoons). I would like to believe that Paramount would be smarter with its properties than Warner Bros was, but I would be kidding myself. Remember, Paramount+ was launched (originally as CBS All-Access) with the promise that it would be the home for everything Star Trek. Then they cancelled Prodigy after one season and Netflix saved season two, but now that deal has expired and it can’t be found anywhere. What I’m getting at is that both of these companies can be pretty boneheaded about what to do with their legendary properties, so having a singular service – whatever form it winds up taking – will be no guarantee that you can find everything you want under one roof.

Over in the Comic Book Collecting group I help moderate on Facebook, a user asked if we thought that the Ninja Turtles – now that they’re corporate siblings – would be added to the DC Universe. This is something I find particularly unlikely. Although DC has a proud and storied history of absorbing the superhero characters of other defunct publishers that they’ve purchased, the Ninja Turtles are too valuable an intellectual property in their own right to make them part of a different one. It’s the same reason that Disney never made Anna and Elsa from Frozen an official part of the Disney Princesses merchandise line – they make too dang much money on their own to mash them together with everybody else.

That said, although I do not foresee a future in which Donatello becomes the new leader of the Teen Titans or anything, I think that being under the same corporate umbrella will make crossovers easier and more likely. It’s happened before. The Turtles have had four separate comic book crossovers with Batman, one of which was adapted into an animated movie, and they’ve freely crossed over with dozens of other properties over the years – Ghostbusters, Strangers Things, Masters of the Universe, Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Naruto, and that’s just off the top of my head. Having them cross paths with the Justice League is in no way out of the question. Heck, having them cross paths with Bugs Bunny isn’t out of the question.

“Dude, our dad is like, a bat without wings! We could be cousins!”

Just because I don’t think the Turtles will be part of the DCU, though, that still raises the question of who is going to publish them. The Turtles have been licensed to IDW Publishing for many years now. So have other Paramount properties, most prominently Star Trek. And just last year, IDW launched a new IDW Dark line of horror comics, including several series based on Paramount properties such as The Twilight Zone, Event Horizon, A Quiet Place, and Smile. I don’t know exactly how long those contracts have left, but once Paramount owns one of the Big Two comic book publishers, will they really want to continue licensing their properties to one of the…Fluffy Five? I need better nicknames.

“Move? We just GOT here!”

It’s possible that Paramount would move the comic book licenses for their properties over to DC, but it’s by no means certain. After all, DC hasn’t done a ton of licensed comics in recent years, aside from the occasional crossover or a book based on one of their current corporate siblings. They’ve published Star Trek before, of course, but that was nearly 30 years ago, and there hasn’t been any indication that they would be interested in doing so again. And even now WB properties have had recent comics published by companies other than DC, such as Cartoon Network comics published by IDW or the current Space Ghost and Herculoids comics produced by Dynamite. 

And recent comic book history has made it quite clear that sharing a parent company isn’t necessarily a guarantee of comic book consolidation. When Disney bought Marvel Comics in 2009, they ended the Disney Comics license that Boom! Studios had. Then when they bought Lucasfilm in 2012, they pulled back the Star Wars license from Dark Horse and gave it to Marvel. They did the same with Aliens and Predator when they bought 20th Century Fox. But although Marvel has produced a lot of Star Wars, Alien, and Predator comics, Disney has ALSO licensed Star Wars out to other publishers again, first IDW, and then back to Dark Horse, with their respective series co-existing with the Marvel books. Marvel has also done precious little with the classic Disney characters – a few What If? one-shots mashing Mickey Mouse and friends with Marvel superheroes, and a few Uncle Scrooge comics. But at the same time, Disney kept farming those characters to other publishers as well. Dynamite currently has the license to Disney Afternoon books like DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, and Gargoyles, as well as other properties like Lilo and Stitch, Disney Villains, and – most recently – the Muppets. As for the classic Disney comics, after being moved to IDW (they are in this licensing mix a LOT), they vanished for a few years, only to come back last year at Fantagraphics. In fact, last fall I walked into my comic book shop and bought new comic books starring Scrooge McDuck from three different publishers at the same time.

I guess that made Fantagraphics, Dynamite, and Marvel the Three Scrooges. Ah? AAAAAAAH?

The melding is far from certain, is what I’m getting at.

What about some of the other properties the different companies hold? How will they be affected? Paramount+ isn’t the only streamer they own, they’re also the controlling company of what is possibly my favorite streaming app, Pluto TV. Pluto has on-demand content, but it also has 24/7 channels dedicated to dozens – perhaps hundreds – of individual shows and genres, most of them owned by Paramount: channels dedicated to Star Trek, I Love Lucy, classic sitcoms, game shows, and tons of other things. Not everything on Pluto is owned by Paramount (they also have channels dedicated to Mystery Science Theater 3000, RiffTrax, and the Universal Monsters, for instance), but I don’t think you can currently find any WB properties there. Could we see channels with all-day streams of the Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, Babylon 5, DC Cartoons or the live-action DC superhero shows? I have to admit, of all the theories I’m throwing around, this is probably the one I feel most likely to happen in the near future. It just seems very much like the kind of thing Paramount is likely to do. Although – like everything else – how SOON it might happen would depend largely on the current licensing deals they have in place, what rights exactly those existing deals entail, and when they expire.

If all of this sounds confusing…well, that’s because it is. The merger of two of the biggest media companies in the world is an enormous endeavor, something with so many moving parts that I can’t even wrap my head around it. And we just don’t know how it’s all going to shake out in the end. 

Blake M. Petit is a writer, teacher, and dad from Ama, Louisiana. His most recent writing project is the superhero adventure series Other People’s Heroes: Little Stars, volume one of which is now available on Amazon. He’s also started putting his LitReel videos on TikTok. He kind of likes the idea of a SpongeBob/Animaniacs crossover where Squidward just rapidly loses his mind over the Warner Brothers and the Warner Sister.