DC is clearly placing a lot of muscle behind the new Dark Matter imprint. Spinning out of the events of Dark Nights: Metal, the Dark Matter line will pair some of DC's top writers and artists on new series that emphasize bold storytelling and new ideas and characters. Between Jeff Lemire and Ivan Reis' Fantastic Four-esque The Terrifics and James Tynion IV and Jim Lee's The Immortal Men, there's plenty of reason for readers to be excited about this new initiative. But the most important element of Dark Matter isn't the books or creators involved, but the way it has the potential to reshape the relationship between DC and its creative talent pool.
DC Co-Publisher Dan DiDio recently revealed in an interview with ICv2 that the company has set up a system of equity-sharing for the Dark Matter books. DiDio said, "All these talents are participating in the books, whether that's creator-owned, or taking equity positions. They have vested value in participating and helping creating this. If these books win, we all win, which is, I think, the fairest way to approach anything. It's an exciting moment for us because I feel honestly, since I've been at DC (and you can look back almost to the start of Image), this is probably the largest creation of new ideas, new books on the super hero level coming from a major company."
It's hard to argue with that logic. The more financial incentive creators have to bring their original ideas to Marvel and DC, the more groundbreaking stories we'll see from the Big Two. The simple truth is that this industry has a long history of profiting off the hard work of creators, creators who are lucky to see a small shred of those profits themselves. Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster had to sue DC in the '70s just to receive annual stipends and "Superman created by..." credits in the comics. Marvel only very recently struck a deal with the heirs of Jack Kirby, narrowly averting what would have been a monumental Supreme Court case.
These days, Marvel and DC are much more diligent about fairly crediting creators for their work, but neither company is particularly generous when it comes to compensating those same creators when their stories and characters are used in other media. For example, writer Mark Waid and artist Leinil Yu didn't receive a dime from the release of 2013's Man of Steel, despite the fact that the film borrowed fairly heavily from their work in Superman: Birthright. The same goes for writer Grant Morrison, even though Man of Steel re-purposed entire lines of dialogue from his All-Star Superman work. Waid blogged about the subject at length, discussing how both companies have their own approach to royalties and profit-sharing, and how ultimately Marvel and DC will only do what's required of them by law.
Waid said, "Would it be nice if the policy were different? Sure, but 'nice' is a human behavior, and I say this without one hint of snark or cynicism, simply as fact: corporations are not designed to act based on society’s expectations of ethics or morality. They are designed to generate profit, and a responsible, publicly traded company will by design prioritize profit over all else."
Like Waid said, you can't necessarily blame these giant corporations for acting in ways that serve their bottom line over "doing the right thing." Creators work for these companies on a work-for-hire basis under ironclad contracts, knowing that whatever stories and characters they conjure become the immediate property of a monolithic corporation. Just because Waid and Yu deserved a cut of the profits on Man of Steel doesn't mean they're legally entitled to them. The same goes for Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning with the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, or Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting with Captain America: Winter Soldier or countless other examples.
But however much this profit-driven approach is helping the bottom line for Disney and Time Warner's shareholders, it's having a negative impact on the quality of Marvel and DC's comics. Both publishers have been dealing with a mass exodus of creative talent in recent years. The creator-owned comics scene has grown robust enough that many established creators can now make a comfortable living solely by working on their own projects. Writer Scott Snyder famously revealed that he made more money writing his Image Comics series Wytches than he did working on Batman, one of the top-selling books in the industry. If you can have total storytelling freedom and retain all the rights to your creations, why wouldn't you go that route?
At some point, creators have to ask themselves what they stand to gain by bringing their original ideas to Marvel and DC. Hence why so many have abandoned Marvel and DC for greener pastures lately. And given that pretty much every Marvel and DC adaptation draws from the comic book source material to some degree, you have to imagine that this creative brain drain will eventually start to make an impact outside the comics themselves. It's possible that, in the long run, the profit-driven approach is actually a bad thing for these corporations.
That's why DC's approach to Dark Matter has the potential to be such a game-changer. Finally, DC is offering creators clear incentive to bring their best and most original ideas to the table rather than saving those ideas for more lucrative creator-owned projects. Finally, creators can build new characters and invent new concepts for these shared superhero universes knowing that they'll continue to reap the rewards of those characters and concepts as they make their way from the page to movie screens, video game consoles and toy aisles. It's a stark change from the work-for-hire model that's dominated this industry from its earliest days.
Ideally, DC's approach to Dark Matter will expand to encompass all books at the company and, in turn, inspire a similar system of equity-sharing at Marvel. Whatever short-term financial hit these publishers might take, it'll surely be offset by the benefits of improved morale and the influx of new and returning creators. Both companies face a never-ending uphill battle these days when it comes to cultivating and retaining top talent. Again, once a creator develops a large enough fanbase, what financial incentive do they have to keep working on Batman or Captain America? The recent news about Netflix's purchase of Millarworld or Amazon's arrangement with Robert Kirkman's Skybound only highlights how much greater the potential rewards are for creators who strike out on their own.
Granted, it's doubtful that any of the Dark Matter creators will ever see a Millarworld-level payday from their work. In the end, an A-List creator will always have the potential to make more money working on independent projects they own and control entirely. But regardless, Marvel and DC have to do what they can to encourage creators to stay invested (financially as well as emotionally) in these universes and bring their best work to the table. Even years after the fact, Marvel is still suffering from the void left by popular writers like Ed Brubaker, Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Jonathan Hickman and Rick Remender. Dark Matter may be the critical first step towards finally plugging the hole in the dam and building an industry where more storytellers are properly rewarded for their hard work.
"Between the Panels" is a bi-weekly column from Jesse Schedeen that focuses on the world of comics. You can see more of his thoughts on comics and pop culture by following @jschedeen on Twitter, or Kicksplode on MyIGN.
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