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Chapter - 107
🕑 Added 2025-04-20 16:01:03 +0000 UTC[Title : MarvelDC]
….
Regal's decision to buy MDC wasn’t about nostalgia.
It was about potential.
And if no one else could see it…
Then good. That just meant no one would get in his way.
But of course not everyone around him thought so too.
….
On the other end of the line, Gwendolyn winced.
She shouldn’t have called it unworthy. It was a gut punch, too sharp and dismissive - especially for something so many still cherished herself included.
But she couldn’t take it back.
This wasn’t about trust.
She believed in Regal’s conviction - of course she did.
But she also knew conviction wasn’t a shield.
Not against history or failure.
He was diving headfirst into a shipwreck. And no matter how skilled the swimmer, some wrecks drag you under.
Still… part of her guilt wasn't just about what she said. It was about what she wasn’t saying.
And couldn’t. Not yet.
Not until—
[“Believe me, Gwen.”] Regal’s voice cut through, unwavering.
She closed her eyes.
Too late.
He was already planning.
Gwendolyn barely heard his next words - [“I am not doing this out fanatic. I believe I can make it work.”]
She tuned it out. Her mind was racing ahead of him now.
“…Alright.” She said quietly, too aware of the weight behind it.
[“Hmm?”] he blinked, surprised.
“I said alright.” Firmer this time.
[“Thank—”]
“But.” She snapped. “Buying it outright? You are serious?”
There wasn’t mockery in her thoughts about his inability to afford it. It is just sheer disbelief, the kind that came from knowing exactly how absurd the idea sounded… and also from knowing Regal well enough to realize he wasn’t joking.
Then she said it, the name that made everything feel real.
“You think the old ma - uh, Stan Lee - is just going to say yes?” Gwendolyn asked, her voice tight.
There was a pause on the line. Not because of the question itself, but because of the way she said it. Something in her tone shifted - just enough for Regal to notice.
She realized it too and immediately clamped down, like she’d said more than she meant to.
Too quickly.
She tried to cover.
“He is going to lash you out of the room the second you bring it up.” She added, hoping the bluntness would steer him off course.
…and it did. As it managed to get Regal distracted.
In that instant, things started to fall into place for Regal.
Stan Lee.
Regal thought understandingly.
Gwendolyn was pointing to a wall Regal hadn’t considered tall enough. And now that she had said it, he realized just how solid and immovable that wall really was.
In this world - Stan Lee - wasn’t just an exuberant editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics that Regal had grown up idolizing in his past life.
No, here - he was something else entirely.
A founder. A mogul. The architect of a shared empire.
When Regal first arrived in this world, one of the first things he did was dig into the landscape of entertainment, comics, film, television. He needed to understand what had changed, and where the opportunities were buried. That’s when he discovered the odd, almost surreal divergence in comic book history.
In this reality, Timely Publications, the original seed that was supposed to blossom into Marvel Comics, never made it to its destined greatness. Despite several attempts to stay afloat, including a last-ditch rebrand into Atlas Comics, it couldn’t withstand the shifting tides of the industry.
Eventually, it declared bankruptcy and was put up for acquisition.
That was when Stan Lee stepped in, not as a staff writer climbing the editorial ladder, but as the ambitious founder of a modest but growing publishing firm of his own.
And he wasn’t alone.
Beside him stood - Jerry Siegel.
The same Jerry, who was the original co-creator of Superman.
In this world, Stan and Jerry weren’t from rival camps. They were friends.
Visionaries who saw beyond the petty divisions of publisher labels. They shared something deeper than market share or brand loyalty - a belief in the transformative power of stories.
And together, they founded a new creative force:
[MarveleD Comics]
Or in short - [MDC].
But of course, both the individuals were smart enough to understand that the Marvel and DC universes were fundamentally different realities.
Trying to fuse them into a single, shared continuity would have been foolish - like blending oil and water.
Marvel thrived on flawed, human characters set in grounded, real-world cities like New York.
DC, on the other hand, operated on a mythic scale, larger-than-life icons standing tall in fictional cities, symbols of ideals rather than people.
So the combination was in name only.
Marvel and DC remained separate universes under the same publishing company under - MarveleD Comics - sharing publishing infrastructure, distribution, and creative synergy, but never crossing over narratively.
Spider-Man never swung past Gotham’s skyline. Superman never exchanged words with Tony Stark.
The lines were drawn, respectfully. Intentionally.
Similar to his previous world - Stan brought his signature bombastic energy and charisma, an endless fountain of ideas.
He helped birth characters like Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, The X-Men, Iron Man, The Hulk, Thor, and Doctor Strange. His heroes were often neurotic, flawed, relatable, juggling personal problems alongside supervillains. They felt like people first, legends second.
Jerry, on the other hand, brought gravity.
His contributions to the DC side weren’t just about powers or costumes, they were about mythos. Alongside Superman, which he co-created in his youth, Jerry expanded and redefined many of DC’s legendary figures.
He helped shape the timeless qualities of Batman, the philosophical depth of Wonder Woman, and the political complexity of characters like Green Lantern and Martian Manhunter.
Even secondary figures in the DC world, Zatanna, The Spectre, Doctor Fate, Black Canary, were infused with deeper emotional stakes and existential themes under his watch.
Jerry’s heroes felt eternal. Archetypal. Like they had existed long before the reader was born, and would outlast them too.
Together, Stan and Jerry offered the perfect balance - energy and gravitas, modernity and myth.
And under MDC, those two styles were allowed to flourish independently, side by side. It was a rare kind of harmony - two creative giants shaping separate worlds from a shared table.
This is what made MDC unique was the way it fused two very different universes into one brand.
For a while, they reigned.
Their characters dominated the comic book shelves. Fan conventions filled with devoted readers. The creative energy flowed freely, and their brand seemed invincible.
But like all empires, it faced its reckoning.
As the 1990s dawned, the comic book industry began to crack under its own weight. What had once been a thriving cultural phenomenon was now bloated and unstable. Speculative collectors had driven prices sky-high, treating comics like stocks rather than stories. First editions, variant covers, limited prints - everyone wanted a piece of the ‘investment’.
But bubbles always burst.
And this one did - spectacularly.
The crash came swiftly. Prices plummeted. Sales collapsed. Enthusiasm drained. And not even the great legacy of MarveleD Comics, this world’s combined Marvel-DC titan, could weather the storm unscathed.
By 2005, MDC was in dire straits. Bleeding cash, losing fans, and struggling to justify its place in an evolving entertainment market, while their competitor -
[Power Ranger] became a cultural phenomenon, under - Boom! Comics.
And it didn't stop there - Boom! Comics evolved into Boom! Studio and even ventured into producing their first feature film.
The result?
The movie succeeded, becoming the first of many to come and also increasing the market and fanbase.
Altogether, MarvelD Comics was left with no choice but to try out their luck in the feature films in hope and desperation.
After years of hesitation, they greenlit a high-budget cinematic project to revive the brand.
The chosen flagship?
[Green Lantern] - a character rich in lore, visually compelling, and, on paper, a perfect pick for their cinematic debut.
It premiered in 2008.
And it was a disaster.
The writing was paper-thin. The CGI looked unfinished. The direction was uninspired, the tone inconsistent. Critics tore it apart. The Audience were confused, then disappointed. Longtime fans were outright furious.
And investors?
They vanished overnight.
The financial fallout from [Green Lantern] was catastrophic, so severe it nearly collapsed the entire company. The dream of building a cinematic universe, something that had already begun to flourish in Regal’s old world with [Iron Man], was dead before it even began.
The failure convinced MDCV’s leadership that the comic book genre simply didn’t belong on the big screen. Not in this world. Not under their name.
The company limped along. The only thing keeping the lights on were the personal funds of its founders, Stan Lee and Jerry Siegel.
It was a bitter irony.
These two men - whose vision had outlived wars, survived shifting cultural tides, inspired generations, had finally met their match in a single failed film.
And that’s what Gwendolyn meant. That’s why she had looked at Regal like he had gone insane.
Because this wasn’t just about acquiring a struggling brand.
This was about prying open the rusted gates of a legacy buried in shame. It was about approaching two ghosts, Stan Lee and Jerry Siegel, and asking them to sell off the last piece of their dream.
Then came the final blow - the one no one saw coming.
Jerry Siegel died.
Or her grandfather.
Or more like her father’s adapted father.
.
….
[To be continued…]
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