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Mexican Spider-Man

Posted: Tue May 31, 2016 6:16 pm
by ShadZ
vanhornluke wrote:
Stories not clearly referenced in anything official (to my knowledge), and might fit into 616 continuity, but I can't say for sure because I've never read them:

El Sorprendente Hombre AraƱa #123-125, 128-129, 135-139, 145-159, 163-173, 176-185 (Mexican original Spider-Man stories)
From what I understand, these stories are basically illegal bootlegs. The publisher only had the license to reprint existing stories, they did not have permission to create new stories. When Marvel found out they were making new stories, they shut it down. I'm pretty sure that someone at Marvel (Tom Brevoort?) made a statement in the past few years saying that Marvel would never reference, canonize or reprint these stories, because of their bootleg nature -- but I can't find that statement online right now.

Re: Some Stories Missing from MCP

Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 1:54 pm
by vanhornluke
It's my understanding that the legal status of some of these non-English comics is unclear and that we don't know for sure that these comics were unlicensed. But even if they were, I don't see why that's a reason to ignore them. These Mexican Spider-Man comics were published within a series that was otherwise licensed which reprinted the American originals, and the new Mexican stories were written to maintain continuity with the rest of the series they were a part of.

A similar sort of case was uncovered a couple years ago with Star Wars. Back in the late 80s, a comic publisher in Spain published a series of original Droids and Ewoks comics tying into the cartoons. LFL has no record of a licensing agreement with the publisher and the current LFL employees had never even heard of these comics until a fan pointed them out. So, these comics may have been illegally published. However, since LFL owns all the Star Wars characters, they figured they own these Spanish stories, too, and published an article on starwars.com about them, published English translations online, and then incorporated their original characters into their official continuity (so-called C-canon before the big reboot in 2014). If LFL can do that with possibly illegal Star Wars comics from Spain, I don't see any reason why Marvel shouldn't do so with comics from Mexico.

Re: Some Stories Missing from MCP

Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 2:34 pm
by Col_Fury
vanhornluke wrote:the new Mexican stories were written to maintain continuity with the rest of the series they were a part of.
Doesn't this mean they're part of a different continuity, then?

Re: Some Stories Missing from MCP

Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 7:06 pm
by Russ Chappell
vanhornluke wrote:But even if they were [unlicensed], I don't see why that's a reason to ignore them.
I do. They weren't published by Marvel. Marvel says they're not canon.

This is covered in the FAQ, in the follow-up to Question 15.

Using your reasoning, I could scribble out a Spider-Man comic, run off a dozen copies on my laser printer, and distribute them on the sidewalk to passersby. Not licensed? Not a problem. Cease & desist letter from Marvel? Not a problem. Marvel states they're not canon, and that they're not bound by the events in my story? Not a problem. Marvel vows that they'll never print, or even reference, anything in my story? Not a problem. We should still include it in the MCP.
vanhornluke wrote:the new Mexican stories were written to maintain continuity with the rest of the series they were a part of.
But the people who produced those new stories don't get to decide that.

Some Stories Missing from MCP

Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:11 pm
by vanhornluke
Col_Fury wrote:
vanhornluke wrote:the new Mexican stories were written to maintain continuity with the rest of the series they were a part of.
Doesn't this mean they're part of a different continuity, then?
No. The series they're a part of is the officially licensed Spanish translations of the American editions of Amazing Spider-Man. A translation of a 616 story is not a different continuity from that 616 story.

Re: Some Stories Missing from MCP

Posted: Wed Jun 01, 2016 10:21 pm
by vanhornluke
Russ Chappell wrote:
vanhornluke wrote:But even if they were [unlicensed], I don't see why that's a reason to ignore them.
I do. They weren't published by Marvel. Marvel says they're not canon.

This is covered in the FAQ, in the follow-up to Question 15.

Using your reasoning, I could scribble out a Spider-Man comic, run off a dozen copies on my laser printer, and distribute them on the sidewalk to passersby. Not licensed? Not a problem. Cease & desist letter from Marvel? Not a problem. Marvel states they're not canon, and that they're not bound by the events in my story? Not a problem. Marvel vows that they'll never print, or even reference, anything in my story? Not a problem. We should still include it in the MCP.
That's not an accurate parallel. These original Mexican stories were published by an official licensee, not some guy printing stuff off in his basement. Apparently there were lots of licensees back in the 60s and 70s in other parts of the world that published original stories, and it's not entirely clear whether or not these stories went beyond the terms of the licenses (for example, the writer of the original X-Men stories published by an official licensee in Brazil says that his stories were licensed, but apparently all the paperwork has been lost on both ends, so this can't be confirmed either way). I would like to see this quote from Brevoort to see if he actually says these Mexican stories were definitely unlicensed, or if he's just saying that's what he suspects. But in any case, if Brevoort says that Marvel's current position is that these stories are definitely not 616 (again, I'd like to see that statement), then it doesn't matter whether they were licensed or not, since they wouldn't then be covered by MCP (at least not for 616 character chronologies).

Re: Some Stories Missing from MCP

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 12:16 am
by Col_Fury
A quick google search tells me Jim Shooter (editor in chief at the time) said in an interview:
Jim Shooter is quoted to say that Marvel completely ignored the existence of these stories and that they would never allow them to be published if they knew.
http://www.againwiththecomics.com/2008/ ... ikini.html

Roy Thomas was also interviewed. This link leads to another link (in the comments section) where you can download a PDF (it's in Spanish).

I didn't find anything about Tom Brevoort's thoughts on it, but I'm willing to bet his thoughts are similar to Jim Shooter's. If anyone finds something on Brevoort I'd be interested to read it, though! :)

Re: Some Stories Missing from MCP

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 1:16 am
by ShadZ
Col_Fury wrote:I didn't find anything about Tom Brevoort's thoughts on it, but I'm willing to bet his thoughts are similar to Jim Shooter's. If anyone finds something on Brevoort I'd be interested to read it, though! :)
Shooter's statement is most likely what I was thinking of. So there's probably no Brevoort statement except in my failing memory!

Re: Some Stories Missing from MCP

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 1:21 am
by ShadZ
vanhornluke wrote:A similar sort of case was uncovered a couple years ago with Star Wars. Back in the late 80s, a comic publisher in Spain published a series of original Droids and Ewoks comics tying into the cartoons. LFL has no record of a licensing agreement with the publisher and the current LFL employees had never even heard of these comics until a fan pointed them out. So, these comics may have been illegally published. However, since LFL owns all the Star Wars characters, they figured they own these Spanish stories, too, and published an article on starwars.com about them, published English translations online, and then incorporated their original characters into their official continuity (so-called C-canon before the big reboot in 2014). If LFL can do that with possibly illegal Star Wars comics from Spain, I don't see any reason why Marvel shouldn't do so with comics from Mexico.
I agree, Marvel could do this with those Mexican Spider-Man comics, if they wanted to. But the last official word (from back when Shooter was editor-in-chief) is that Marvel wants the stories to be ignored and forgotten instead.

Re: Some Stories Missing from MCP

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 6:45 am
by Russ Chappell
vanhornluke wrote:
Russ Chappell wrote:
vanhornluke wrote:But even if they were [unlicensed], I don't see why that's a reason to ignore them.
I do. They weren't published by Marvel. Marvel says they're not canon.

This is covered in the FAQ, in the follow-up to Question 15.

Using your reasoning, I could scribble out a Spider-Man comic, run off a dozen copies on my laser printer, and distribute them on the sidewalk to passersby. Not licensed? Not a problem. Cease & desist letter from Marvel? Not a problem. Marvel states they're not canon, and that they're not bound by the events in my story? Not a problem. Marvel vows that they'll never print, or even reference, anything in my story? Not a problem. We should still include it in the MCP.
That's not an accurate parallel.
No, it's entirely accurate. That's why I quoted the part where you said:

"Even if they were [unlicensed],"

That was the premise of my post, based on your premise. If they weren't licensed, I can promise you that Marvel doesn't treat them as canon. Your premise here is that they may have been licensed. You've moved the goal post.

Re: Some Stories Missing from MCP

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 12:28 pm
by vanhornluke
Russ Chappell wrote:That was the premise of my post, based on your premise. If they weren't licensed, I can promise you that Marvel doesn't treat them as canon. Your premise here is that they may have been licensed. You've moved the goal post.
I don't think I have. I said your example isn't a good parallel, because the company that published the original stories in Mexico did have a license, although that may have only covered translations. That seems to me to be importantly different from a guy printing stuff off in his garage with no legal connection to the license holder at all. But I didn't intend to start an argument. All I was saying is that it's not entirely clear that these comics weren't licensed; even if they were unlicensed they don't seem to be straight-up illegal bootlegs like a guy printing stuff in his garage; and whether or not they are bootlegs is moot since Jim Shooter (maybe Brevoort, too, if that quote ever turns up) says Marvel doesn't consider them 616. I only raised them in the original post as possibly 616, but apparently Shooter has ruled that out, so there's not really any point in arguing about this. :wink: I'm still hoping Marvel is open to including the original stories published in Brazil, as well as the original Sgt. Fury stories in Mexico, as 616.

Re: Some Stories Missing from MCP

Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2016 1:26 pm
by Russ Chappell
vanhornluke wrote:
Russ Chappell wrote:That was the premise of my post, based on your premise. If they weren't licensed, I can promise you that Marvel doesn't treat them as canon. Your premise here is that they may have been licensed. You've moved the goal post.
I don't think I have. I said your example isn't a good parallel, because the company that published the original stories in Mexico did have a license, although that may have only covered translations.
shrug. I don't know how to make it any clearer.

You said: Even if they weren't licensed, we should add the appearances to the Project.

I replied: If they weren't licensed, we shouldn't add them to the project, and carried the original reasoning to its extreme (albeit, absurd) conclusion.

You replied: But we don't know that they were unlicensed. They might have been licensed.

I never addressed the issue of what to do, if they were licensed. That's where you moved the goal post.

But you're right. The point has been mooted. I'll close the discussion.