Practicing Superhuman Law ✪

7 Practicing Superhuman Law ✪ Creative License, Industrial Identity, and Spider- Man’s Homecoming tara lomax Te industrial conditions concerning owner ship and licensing of intellec- tual property (IP) are central to the development of creative content in con- temporary media franchising. Similarly, the licensing relationships between comic book publishers and Hollywood studios have a dynamic impact on the creative development and industrial identity of superhero properties. For example, in the late 1990s Marvel Comics regained its economic stability following bankruptcy by licensing high- profle superhero properties like Spider- Man and the X- Men to Hollywood studios.1 Tis licensing strategy saw Marvel forfeit creative control of a number of its characters. Media and cultural studies scholar Derek Johnson notes that such licensing agreements gave Hollywood studios “creative and economic control over production, marketing, and sublicensing,” and thus Marvel “strug gled to maintain creative power over the direction of its comic book flms.”2 Tis creative- industrial tension is at the foundation of Marvel Studios’ orga nizational identity as a movie production com pany conceived to self- produce its remaining superhero properties. As president of Marvel Enter- tainment Alan Fine explains, in setting up Marvel Studios “we wanted to control the destinies of our own characters. We wanted to decide when, how, and in which ways we would bring them to flmed- entertainment.”3 Terefore, Marvel Studios is founded as an industrial intervention into the 3LMUEQRQECP>SCPQU9CPP1IIEQPCPCSCB conventional structures of owner ship and licensing relations between Hollywood and the American comic book industry. Marvel Studios’ objective to self- produce its own superhero properties is realized in the development of what it has branded the Marvel Cinematic -/=C<RMCCL<ULI,8CB?3RIQRC?B9LIQAP-/CBQCBU7?2RCCQ?IRQECP>SCPQU9CPP 9L:RCPQ5LL3CQ?IQQM,CLLACQ?IMLRCPQALIPTBCQ?I?AQL0BLA6.118 3C?QCBDLPTL ,, Practicing Superhuman Law ✪ 119 Universe (MCU): a transmedia franchise that maintains interconnecting diegetic continuity across multiple installments and media platforms. Te MCU positions the Avengers as its narrative and character centerpiece and draws from the rich cata logue of Marvel comic book characters that are not already bound up in license agreements with other Hollywood movie studios. Tis creative strategy balances solo superhero installments and franchise series around characters like Captain Amer i ca, Tor, and Iron Man with ensemble movies like Te Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy. Tis approach has been extended to tele vi sion, where characters from individ- ual Netfix series such as Daredev il, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones team up in the crossover show Te Defenders, while the broadcast series Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. also exists in and contributes to the same diegetic universe by incorporating subtle to obvious crossovers.4 Te MCU is therefore signifcant as a creative- industrial pursuit be cause it can be characterized as both a complex creative initiative, through its experimentation with diegetic continuity, and an industrial venture, since it uses this interconnecting creative strategy in its brand as a studio that self- produces its own IP. Due to preexisting licenses with Fox, Sony, and Universal, Marvel’s IP portfolio has been fragmented across multiple Hollywood studios. While Marvel Studios is largely distinguished by the characters and franchises located “inside the MCU”— namely the Avengers—it is also unavoidably associated with franchises that have been produced by other studios “outside the MCU,” like Spider- Man and X- Men. Tis means that the MCU is characterized by both what it is and what it is not. Tis not only risks creative confusion between the MCU and other franchises adapted from Mar- vel Comics through licensing but also incidentally complicates the strate- gic development of its interconnected diegetic continuity. Spider- Man is a productive example of a superhero property that has been developed as a franchise “outside (and prior to) the MCU,” and has now been incorporated “inside the MCU.” Spider- Man was previously of- limits to Marvel Studios due to a licensing agreement made in 1999 between Marvel and Sony Pic- tures Entertainment; however, th ese circumstances have recently changed since Sony agreed to loan Spider- Man to Marvel for inclusion in the MCU. As president of Marvel Studios Kevin Feige revealed, “Marvel’s involvement [in producing these new Spider- Man movies] will hopefully deliver the creative continuity and authenticity that fans demand from the MCU.”5 First occurring with a cameo appearance in Captain Amer i ca: Civil War, Spider- Man’s full welcome into the MCU was heralded with a solo movie 3LMUEQRQECP>SCPQU9CPP1IIEQPCPCSCB sentimentally titled Spider- Man: Homecoming.6 At the heart of this industrial collaboration between Marvel and Sony, therefore, is the cele bration of creative continuity and the afective sentiments of “returning home.” Homecoming is thus the result of two competing studios “collaborat[ing] on -/=C<RMCCL<ULI,8CB?3RIQRC?B9LIQAP-/CBQCBU7?2RCCQ?IRQECP>SCPQU9CPP 9L:RCPQ5LL3CQ?IQQM,CLLACQ?IMLRCPQALIPTBCQ?I?AQL0BLA6. 3C?QCBDLPTL ,, 120 ✪ tara lomax a new creative direction for the web slinger.”7 Previously divorced from the creative and economic control of Marvel Studios, Spider- Man’s incor- poration into the MCU, and into the same diegetic world as the Avengers is a signifcant creative industry occurrence. Indeed, this chapter argues that Homecoming sets a pre ce dent for understanding the complex creative and industrial dynamics of superhero franchises. As this chapter discusses below, Homecoming is not simply a new beginning for Spider- Man, Marvel, or Sony, but is discursively inscribed with Marvel Comics’ turbulent economic history of bankruptcy, license farming, and the interplay of creative and industrial priorities in constructing the com pany’s orga nizational identity. In examining the nature and function of superhero properties within the context of media franchising, this chapter demonstrates that superhero franchises constitute both a proprietary function and a creative mode of expression. Te interplay of these impulses is fundamental to understanding media franchising as a dominant mode of production in con temporary screen media. Johnson conceptualizes this interaction as a pro cess of creative license, which he defnes as “franchising as a mediation of creativity” through licensing relations.8 Tis chapter considers this “mediation of creativity” through the notion of industrial identity; this conceptualizes how vari ous franchise properties are inscribed with a distinct identity as a result of owner ship structures and licensing relations, in tandem with the strate- gies of creative development. For example, prior to Homecoming Spider- Man’s industrial identity had been shaped by its estranged licensed rela- tionship, including vari ous reboots and genre reimaginings under dif er ent creative teams and actors: Sam Raimi and Marc Webb as directors, and Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfeld as actors. Spider- Man’s industrial identity, therefore, is currently under revision with his foray into the MCU, in which he is played by actor Tom Holland. Tis chapter considers the concept of creative license as a pro cess through which a superhero property’s industrial identity is also negotiated and sh aped. As such, this approach understands superhero franchises as being inherently constituted by creative and industrial priorities. Te intersection between creativity and business is a premise that Marvel Comics has already previously explored with the introduction of the metatextual concept of “superhuman law” in comic book writer Dan Slott’s run on She- Hulk.9 As explained in She- Hulk, superhuman law is “a new and unchartered territory for legal pioneers” that caters to the litigious require- 3LMUEQRQECP>SCPQU9CPP1IIEQPCPCSCB ments of superheroes and other comic book characters, with clients rang- ing from Spider- Man to Howard the Duck.10 In She- Hulk, superhuman law constitutes the professional setting for the character She- Hulk, aka Jenni- fer Walters, who is ofered a job at the prestigious law frm of Goodman, -/=C<RMCCL<ULI,8CB?3RIQRC?B9LIQAP-/CBQCBU7?2RCCQ?IRQECP>SCPQU9CPP 9L:RCPQ5LL3CQ?IQQM,CLLACQ?IMLRCPQALIPTBCQ?I?AQL0BLA6. 3C?QCBDLPTL ,, Practicing Superhuman Law ✪ 121 Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway (GLK&H), on the condition that she practice her job as Walters, not She- Hulk. For Walters, superhuman law and the ofces of GLK&H are merely a backdrop for her to gain a better understanding of herself as hu man and superhuman; just as compelling, however, is that this character journey works in tandem with how the premise of superhuman law legalizes the dual nature of superheroes and supervillains as both fctional characters and legal entities. In the series Walters learns that in the practice of superhuman law comic books constitute le gal case fles that are “admissible in any court of law” and “most Marvel books are licensed from the real heroes.”11 In this legal practice comic book origin issues are approved by each superhero before being fled in long boxes and kept as legal documents in the basement of GLK&H.12 For th ese reasons, it is not She- Hulk (or Walters) that is of interest for this chapter, but rather the practice of superhuman law. Superhuman law is a metafctional practice in which Marvel Comics demonstrates

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