Noting of how contemplative Shooter is being while peeping at an envelope's contents, Stan Lee said. "Now you got me curious."
"Come on..." The old man even urged from the side. "Just what exactly did the kid want to slip in? Is it some bribe money?"
With how instrumental they've been at this Creed-Marvel juncture, can anyone blame him for assuming like so?
Not pegging the old man to be money grubby, Shooter explained. "It's not what you think. Besides, weren't the both of us given the "insider bonus" already?"
It was really quite hefty when he was reminded of it.
Stan brushed it off and urged again. "Regardless, is there any chance that you're going to let me take a look?"
To which, Shooter relented. "It's bound to be given to you, anyways. The little boss actually wants your opinion on this Marvel insertion of his, after all."
"Just what is it?" Stan Lee asked again but he connected some dots himself and got intrigued once more. "But I take it that it's an authentic Alexander Creed comic creation then."
"If it is, then why don't you hand it over?" The old man was even more eager.
Something that made Shooter confounded. He didn't peg this old man to look forward to this territorial encroachment either. "I thought that you'd at least be offended or something along those lines."
"Why would I be offended?" The magnanimous old man said magnanimously. "I'm quite open-minded, you know. If I wasn't, the Marvel library of characters wouldn't be as plentiful as it is today."
Had things really always gone his way, all Marvel heroes would have alliterated names. After all, other creatives has got to have their inputs too.
Shooter could understand that but there's also some that he didn't. "This is Alexander Creed we're talking about here. Shouldn't you be quite indignant or unconvinced at where this status quo is headed?"
"Are you trying to goad me into conflict or to be some sore loser or something?" Even an experienced old man like him would be exasperated at this line of accusation. "I've already come to terms with all these when I agreed to his Marvel-acquiring intentions, didn't I?"
"Fair enough." Shooter didn't insist any further as he realized that he may have taken it too far. "It's just that I've never really seen you have this much enthusiasm before. Whenever Creed Comics brings up a new title, you always have that constipated look on your face."
"It was my love-hate face, okay." Stan Lee grinned sheepishly as he said. "I'm a comic book lover at heart but I had to take a outwardly hating stance given the circumstances. Those circumstances changed, however. Haha!"
The Marvel chief editor had nothing to say after that. He even handed the comic-carrying envelope as he should have.
Sort of a dead giveaway, in his opinion.
Still, it's something that the legendary comic creator quickly tore through and read through.
With such a display of fervor, one might misunderstand this esteemed Stan to be some stupid and toxic fan.
Stan, huh? Seems somewhat fitting, if it ever does get its chance to be a new made-up word, maybe he'll coin it.
On that note, would Stan still remain a stan when he's bombarded by what's about to happen to the comic book industry with Alexander Creed at the helm of it?
If the old man's this excited at just one new comic book creation, just what expression would he make when those thousands of new comic book titles get published one after the other?
That vault of "protocols" was looming as can be, after all.
Very much unlike the dead cesspool of stagnant waters that Marvel currently is.
Then again, with the obvious affirming grins that Stan Lee is showing, a comic book about a pool of death is about to change that.
Though he considers it to be a pool of death.
It's actually just Deadpool!
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After the editor-in-chief stopped being a bit dramatic over a puddle of water in front of the Marvel building, things quickly went underway.
Rather than underway, maybe it's better described as things getting out of a rut. Or unpaused.
As highly specialized printers finally churned like the industrialized automatic machine that it is.
Printing out hundreds... if not thousands... if not millions... of colored and varying pages.
And those pages get collated in an almost automatic way to form the very weekly or monthly comic book issues that a select niche would eventually come to collect and treasure.
This was a rather unappreciated but very important sequence in the comic industry's cycle. Which really baffled these printing facilitators all the more when Marvel unceremoniously cut the rhythm that they shared.
As a long-time partner, they knew the tendency of those "artists" to miss the expected deadlines. What they didn't expect was the very indeterminate gap that appeared out of nowhere.
Change in ownership and management, Marvel reasoned. Not anymore about "artists" getting lazy or creatively blocked.
Which in turn really made the printing facility owners and printing factory workers scramble for just about any printing commission they could find.
Making for quite some unprocessed grievances to fester... but for the most part... the people on the printing side were just happy that the familiar sound of their factory machine was cranking to the max as it is.
The unreliable Marvel finally gave them the go-ahead to go ahead and process what should be processed.
Of course, they were more than happy to read up on these "processing" Marvel issues as well.
It's unconfirmed but quite understandable that the ones who print have a free read on what they're printing, right?
Anyways, there's a lot to unpack here... but they can distinctly tell that this new Deadpool comic was something else!
Perhaps the first of the many new-wave comics that they were going to pack out of here...
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And pack it out of there, they did.
For distribution, which was out of their jurisdiction, because that was a task for the partnered distributors.
However, unlike the printing qualms that Shooter was able to make amends with, their old distributors weren't exactly slated for the same treatment.
Basically, a more homogenized distribution structure is what this Creed and Marvel partnership is going for when moving forward. And some overlapping partners had to be let go.
This forward movement alludes to leaving behind comic availability to newsstands as well.
In any case, that was some harsh capitalistic development that got swept under the rug.
Partly, because not a lot really cared for such details.
Mostly, because the awaited Marvel arrived where it should have... in comic book stores and stocking the shelves... and that's all that matters.
For it was the return of the comeback!
With something very, very new... and very shocking at that!
As Marvel Comics Presents...
DEADPOOL!
By Alexander "freakin" Creed!
If that combo stunned the comic book community already, then it's best to buckle up some more... since a red-suited figure's story is just starting out... this Valentine's of 1987...