Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics, News With Benefits | Tagged: Donny Cates, Donny Cates Equals Clicks, ike perlmutter, marvel, sony, spider-man

Donny Cates Doesn't Think Marvel Will Stop Publishing Spider-Man Comics Over Sony Spat

Global entertainment superstar Donny Cates had a reassuring message for Marvel fans concerned about the future of Spider-Man after yesterday's news that a schism between Disney and Sony has shattered the alliance that led to Spider-Man's inclusion in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. According to Cates, Marvel won't stop publishing Spider-Man comics any time soon, despite a past history of shelving characters as part of a feud with rival movie studios that owned their film rights.

The Absolute Carnage writer and 3/4s of the Beatles of comics took to Twitter to post:

The tweet Cates quoted came from one of his hardcore fans, a group who call themselves Catesbronies or AdvoCATES, who was in turn responding to a tweet suggesting that fans could find solace in Marvel's Spider-Man comics even if the movies went down the tubes.

Of course, while Cates remains optimistic, and it is true that Marvel publishes approximately 47 ongoing titles starring Spider-Man at the moment, we have seen in the past that Marvel isn't above cutting off their own nose to spite Sony's face. Bleeding Cool was the first to report, in depth, on rumors that Marvel would cancel The Fantastic Four and nix merchandising efforts for either FF or The X-Men in response to a feud between Fox, which owned the movie rights to both characters, and Marvel Chairman Ike Perlmutter. Those rumors were denied outright by lying Marvel executives at the time, but were later proven true.

And while The X-Men may have been too popular a franchise to cancel outright, the prominence of the franchise was clearly reduced in favor of ones to which Marvel did hold the movie rights, a fact recently alluded to again by Jonathan Hickman, who has returned to bring the X-Men back to their former glory after Disney purchased Fox and effectively put to rest any vestiges of that feud. Superstar artist Rob Liefeld has also spoken directly about Marvel "turning down the volume" on the X-Men due to the movie rights in the lead-up to his Major X project, which was possible, he said, do to a change in attitude and budgets due to the Fox/Disney deal.

We haven't heard anything about how Marvel Comics will react to the Spider-Man movie news, so there's no evidence that Marvel is planning to snap their fingers and make him disappear from the comics universe. In fact, it's totally possible that the news is merely a negotiating tactic on Disney's part to put pressure on Sony to accept a less favorable deal to continue the collaboration. But it's not completely outrageous to worry that Marvel could treat Spider-Man like they did the Fantastic Four and X-Men in an effort to spite Sony because it's absolutely something they've done in the past.

Then again, Ike Perlmutter might be too busy shadow-running the Department of Veteran's Affairs for his good friend Donald Trump to care much about Spider-Man these days. Or he might need the money to support Trump's 2020 reelection campaign.

Either way, we'll keep an ear out, or at least pay attention to our Peter Tingle, and let you know.

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