AXEL ALONSO, the new editor in chief of Marvel Comics, was recalling how, about 10 years ago, when he was less experienced and recently hired by the company, he persuaded the British writer Peter Milligan to take over a struggling superhero comic called X-Force.
“We drank all night, to the degree I realized I can’t go home because I’ll be sick,” said Mr. Alonso, a lean man of 45 with a bald head and a close-cropped beard. “We walked around all night, got breakfast the next day. I said, ‘So, you’re writing this.’ He said, ‘Yeah, I’m writing this.’ ”
With some wistfulness, Mr. Alonso added, “Those were the days.”
In the year 2011 this is how the day-to-day destiny of Marvel Entertainment, the home of universally recognized characters like Spider-Man, Iron Man and the mighty Thor, and whose publishing division releases 60 to 90 comic books a month, is now determined.
One day last month in the company’s office in Midtown Manhattan, its top creative talent — 30 or so people, mostly male, many bald or bearded, or both — were gathered in a conference room known as the Hulk room, for what felt like the simultaneous meetings of a corporation, a television writing staff and the traders of the New York Stock Exchange.
One by one the Marvel editors who surrounded the long conference table stepped to the front of the room and delivered rigorous but colorful PowerPoint presentations on their coming comics, with story lines plotted out for months or years in advance: Who would join the Fantastic Four to replace the Human Torch, who fell in battle to the evil Annihilus? Who might be the new adversary for the blind vigilante Daredevil? What would Galactus, the planet-eating cosmic entity, consume next, and did anyone have a young hero ready to graduate to the X-Men?
Though the meeting could at times be rigidly precise, it had moments of spontaneity (like when Brian Michael Bendis, the author of Marvel’s Avengers, New Avengers and Ultimate Spider-Man series, observed that an enigmatic writer named TBD “has got a lot of books” assigned).
Similarly Marvel, which has produced comics in various forms since 1939, is a company that teems with talent while it is confined by its traditions and is enjoying a hard-fought moment in the spotlight while it grapples with larger difficulties afflicting the publishing world.
Marvel, acquired in 2009 by the Walt Disney Company, can make a claim to being the No. 1 publisher in its field, often beating its rival DC Comics, the home of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, owned by Time Warner, in the total number and dollar value of comics it sells each month.
There will also be an avalanche of mass entertainment featuring Marvel characters this year, including new movies based on the X-Men, Thor and Captain America, and someday, surely, the opening of the Broadway musical “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.”
But these opportunities arrive as the comics industry is still struggling to adapt to the 21st century, and Marvel’s core business faces some of the toughest challenges in its history. While its movie business thrives, its print business is contracting, and those responsible for creating its comics — a seemingly seat-of-the-pants enterprise — are more cognizant than ever of their place within a larger corporate structure.
“If comics is sick, it’s not a broken arm, it’s diabetes,” said Tom Spurgeon, a journalist who covers the industry for the Web site The Comics Reporter. “There’s no easy solution.”
Marvel has certainly rebounded from the period in the 1990s when it sought bankruptcy protection amid a fight between the financiers Ronald O. Perelman, who had bought Marvel and combined it with other collectibles companies, and Carl C. Icahn, who sought control of it. (A third entrepreneur, Isaac Perlmutter, acquired the company and is now Marvel’s chief executive.)
The months and years Marvel’s creative staff members spent fearing for their own fates left them shellshocked and uncertain of what to do in their comics. “It was incredibly frightening,” said Joe Quesada, who was named Marvel’s editor in chief in 2000. “It’s that looking over the precipice and seeing nothing but sky, and hoping that when you jump off, you can fly.”
Mr. Quesada, who last year was named Marvel’s chief creative officer, said his strategy as editor had been to “focus on writers first, and then bring in the artists.” The company regained its footing as it brought in authors like Mr. Bendis, Mark Millar and Ed Brubaker, recruited from rival publishers, as well as screenwriters like Joss Whedon (the creator of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer”). And it found best sellers with mini-series, like House of M (written by Mr. Bendis) and Civil War (by Mr. Millar), that featured almost every major superhero in the Marvel pantheon.
Marvel also benefited as movie franchises like “Spider-Man” and ”X-Men” became blockbusters and brought new attention to its characters. (They also helped overshadow other movies based on Marvel characters, like “The Punisher” and “Elektra,” that struggled at the box office.)
The company reached a turning point during the making of the 2008 film “Iron Man,” which was produced by its own Marvel Studios in California and starred Robert Downey Jr. as the armor-clad hero. During the movie’s development Marvel invited some of its editors and writers, including Mr. Quesada and Mr. Alonso, to consult with its director, Jon Favreau. And Mr. Bendis even helped write a post-closing-credits sequence that introduced Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury, director of the spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D.
When “Iron Man” (released by Paramount) went on to sell $585 million in tickets worldwide, its success seemed to validate the suggestions from its publishing talent. That led to the formal creation of what Marvel calls its creative committee: Mr. Quesada, Mr. Bendis and Dan Buckley, the Marvel comics publisher, meet several times a year with Marvel studio executives to discuss film and multimedia projects.
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