Daily Comics Digression #46: Big Brothers

There is a growing trend for comic book companies to be owned by much larger corporations. Marvel is owned by Disney, DC comics is owned by Warner Bros, and Valiant was recently acquired by DMG. Valiant comics has a pretty long history, but the best way to sum them up is to say that they do superhero books that are in a lower tier compared to the big two. I own some Valiant comics myself, and some of them are quite good. I'm also a personal fan of Valiant's founder, Jim Shooter, but that's a story for another day.

A cursory internet search reveals that DMG is a Chinese film production company, though they seem to fairly tertiary. They "contributed" to Iron Man 3, whatever that means. I'd wager that they helped add in those weird scenes they put in Chinese releases of films to make them more attractive there. DMG has been fairly transparent about what they want from Valiant: film rights. They want a piece of that sweet Marvel Cinema pie. While there have been some leadership changes at the company, Valiant assures readers that it will be business as usual, and that DMG is just a "big brother," a resource that will stand behind them.

While it may seem nice that comic book companies are finding such staunch allies, I'm not convinced that this turn of events is actually good for the industry. Am I the only one bothered by the fact that it seems few of the major comic book companies exist independently of film and television ventures? Even more disturbing is my fear for what happens when the superhero film fad dies out. When comic books can no longer reliably reel in millions of dollars through movies, how friendly will these big brother companies remain?