Comic Wars: How Two Tycoons Battled Over the Marvel Comics Empire--And Both Lost

by Dan Raviv

Book Overview

Presents the story of the business superheroes who rescued Marvel Comics from bankruptcy. Combining journalism with storytelling, this work takes readers behind the scenes of America's most bitter... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0767908309
• ISBN13: 9780767908306
• Release Date: April 2002
• Publisher: Broadway Books
• Length: 305 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

One of the best business books ever!

Dan Raviv's account of Marvel, Ronald Perleman, Carl Ichan and the fight for Marvel Comics is amazing. In the world of High Finance and coporate intrigue one would be hard pressed to find a book that is laid out more complete. Taking topics such as Zero Yield Bonds, distressed debt & Coporate Bankrupcies that would confuse most readers or put them to sleep Raviv does the unthinkable. He writes the most entertaining business book I have ever read. Although the cover of the book makes others think you are reading a comic book the content is as complete on the complexities of High Finance as any I have read. This includes textbooks. The pure educational value of the book alone is awesome. Add in the entertainment and you have a sure fire winner! I have read this book 4 times and each time I learn more and am more entertained than the last. Should be required reading for any Finance professionals. If I could give this a 6 I would!

Hardball Business Tale Colorfully Told

At first glance, Dan Raviv's book might seem irrelevant to readers of intrigue novels. Despite the flashy title and cool cover, reading about two rich businessmen fighting for the control of a publishing company might not seem all that exciting. It is exciting. Like in any theatrical drama, Raviv begins his book with an annotated list of players. Most names will be unknowns outside of the industry. Stan Lee is here, as you might expect, but so is Isaac Perlmutter and numerous lesser executives. Their parts in this drama are crucial and understanding who they are from the beginning will help keep the plot clear. This is, in some ways, a history of Marvel Comics, beginning in 1939 with Captain America, the Sub-Mariner and the Human Torch. Raviv walks us through Marvel's troubled times under various owners. We get the play-by-play debacle hindering the X-Men and Spiderman from the silver screen, and the intense personalities behind it all. The cynicism of loyal comic readers is told, as Marvel aimed for the financial speculator and played games with collectors (remember the many covers and bags of certain Spiderman issues?). When the quality of the Marvel Universe stunk up the magazine racks in the 1990s, it seemed if Spiderman would weave his last web. Letters, trial notes and other details fill in this adventurous tale of the struggle for power, money and egos. We find out how Spiderman was finally able to make the bigtime. I fully recommend "Comic Wars: How Two Tycoons Battled over the Marvel Comics Empire--And Both Lost" by Dan Raviv. Anthony Trendl editor, HungarianBookstore.com

Make Mine Marvel!

Dan Raviv's retelling of the Marvel Entertainment bankruptcy is one of the most riveting business books to come through the book publishers in a long time. I've been a fan of many of Marvel's characters and collected books throughout the seventies, eighties and early ninties. I was aware they had enjoyed a golden period in the mid nineties when the market value of Marvel grew to $3 billion. I knew they got into trouble right afterward. I never knew how close to the brink they came to non-existence.Comic Wars tells the story of how a couple of billionaires saw value in a popular publisher, bought and fought over it, and nearly destroyed it. Like one of the books it published, Marvel was saved from extinction at the last moment by the wheeling and dealing head of a toy company. Many business books will tell you what happened, but never in the detail of this one. Comic Wars lets you get to know all the parties involved in intimate detail. These are a bunch of angry New Yorkers and the fight is very personal. Ron Perelman bought Marvel in 1989 for a mere $10 million of his own money and managed to grow the company through a series of acquisitions. Fleer, Skybox and Panini joined the company as subsidiaries, engorged the balance sheet, allowed Perelman to sell junk bonds against this inflated stock price, and the billionaire lined his pockets with the proceeds. The huge debtload of nearly $1 billion nearly sank the company when Carl Ichan joined the fray, at first looking like a white knight, but soon revealed his true colors in attempting to buy the company on the cheap by buying the distressed bank debt, bankrupting the company and wiping out the debt, converting his bonds to a controlling interest and selling the post-bankruptcy Marvel for a tidy profit.In many ways this has numerous similarities to Barbarians at the Gate and the fight for RJR Nabisco between management and LBO legends KKR. The difference between that fight and this one is the interest in the business involved. RJR was a corporate behemoth and neither side was willing to wring so much money out of it that it was no longer viable as a going concern. Perelman and Ichan both wanted to generate as big a pile of cash as possilbe without any concern for the business itself. Neither had a concern about the people who worked for Marvel. Had Perelman remained in charge of Marvel, we would never have seen Spider Man the movie with a $700 million to date box office gross. Perelman was only interested in generating hype about a movie and cashing in on that. Generating interest and then generating intangible value, cashing in and not delivering seems unethical to extreme. Destroying a company for its present value seems unethical in the extreme.Even Ike Perlmutter, Marvel's eventual savior had ulterior and selfish motives. His royalty free in perpetuity license to make toys based on Marvel characters was at stake. He saved (and absorbed) Marvel to preserve this. In the end, things turned out al

Comic Wars is a must for any comic book fan

I have been involved in the comic book industry for a long time and lived through this whole ordeal. Dan Raviv was right on the money in his recounts of what happened. When these events were going on, you really didn't know what was going on behind the scenes, but the book really brings you in and lets you see how these titans of finance operate. I'm certainly glad these events are in the past and now we have a great book that captures this whirlwind time in the comic book industry.I definitely recommend it to anyone who has ever picked up a comic book before - there's more action than any comic I've ever read!

I learned a lot

Especially after the Spiderman movie, I wondered about the Marvel company. I ended up learning about bankruptcy, two Israelis running Marvel now, and a bunch of surprises. There are some funny bits, too.