For many in the core comic book business, the world is defined by the Big Two. But while Marvel Comics and DC Comics may control the vast majority of the market share, the two publishing titans aren't nearly as heated of rivals as they once were.
At least that's how Marvel Editor-in-Chief CB Cebulski sees it. The top editor at the House of Ideas explained where the relationship between the two is at during a video interview with CBR where he noted that Marvel was happy to take a cue from DC when it came to prepping the incoming Marvel Comics #1000.
"I think the rivalry between Marvel and DC gets blown up a lot," Cebulski told CBR. "Don't get me wrong. There were tenuous years back in the day, even when I was in my early years at Marvel, where there was no words minced from editorial teams and publishing teams against each other in the press. But now we're in a place where there's not a lot of that. The rivalry almost exists more in the minds of fans and on Twitter and Instagram than anywhere else.
"We're friends with all the the DC editors. [I] myself speak with Jim [Lee], speak with Dan [DiDio]. And there's a great camaraderie because we know we're all in this together. But I won't deny that, yeah, there's rivalry. And there's secrets – between not just the editorial teams but between the creative teams as well. They're all friends too. But we keep a lot of our stuff hush hush, because we just want to make sure we're not stepping on each other's toes, or being influenced too much by other people's storylines."
Still, the publishers do protect their trade secrets so they don't line up too close to the competition, and that practice is keeping a moratorium on shared publishing projects in effect. "There is some natural crossover, and I don't...that's bad word. We're not doing a Marvel/DC crossover!" Cebulski laughed. "There's some natural storylines that kind of have similarities in them that just come naturally, because we tell stories about the world outside our window. That's a very Marvel thing to do because it takes place in the real world. But DC writers are just as affected about the world around them and want to tell stories about what they see going on in the world. So there are some natural touch points that we see in in books in different lines.
"But we have respect for what they do. We love to read the books that they have coming out. With [Brian Michael] Bendis over there now, Bendis is a dear friend of so many of us at Marvel personally and professionally for two decades. We love to see what he's doing. And yet, we still want to beat them in the numbers and tell better stories, and they do too. And I think we do that. Sorry, guys! But that rivalry isn't what it once was, and there's a lot more camaraderie these days than I think people really see."