Although the 52-minute film was almost made with the involvement of Disney France – an airing on ABC was even on the cards at one point – the directors ultimately wound up shooting Marvel Renaissance without the cooperation of its subject. For those unfamiliar with Marvel’s recent history, the documentary shows just how close the entire American comic book industry came to collapse in the mid-90s; by this point, a decade of slowly ebbing sales had been joined by an even greater threat: the arrival of Wall St executives, and a procession of puppetmasters who had little to no interest in comics. In one of Marvel Renaissance’s funniest anecdotes, we’re told that cigar-waving buyer Ronald Perelman had assumed that Superman came as part of the Marvel package – until someone quietly explained that Superman was owned by an entirely different company. Marvel Renaissance may not have access to the likes of Kevin Feige, the producer who’s done so much to steer the Marvel Cinematic Universe to box-office glory, or Stan Lee, the chipper comic book “pope” who brought a legion comic book characters to the masses, but the interviewees the directors have assembled are garrulous and informative. These include producers Tom DeSanto and Avi Arad, comic book writers Mark Millar and Mark Waid, Incredible Hulk director Louis Leterrier and, perhaps best of the lot, dryly amusing corporate lawyer Harvey Miller, who recalls some of the extraordinary boardroom intrigue behind the Marvel crisis. It was those new voices and artists, which included Millar, Joe Quesada and Brian Bendis, that kept the storytelling river flowing at Marvel while its executives began to put the pieces in place for a foray into Hollywood. Those adventures in Tinseltown would soon lead, of course, to the likes of Iron-Man and Thor, a $4bn acquisition by Disney, and the founding of the MCU. Marvel Renaissance packs an admirable amount of history into its one-hour-ish duration – 20 years of history, in fact – but it’s somewhat disappointing that its adherence to a three-act structure means that the final third is all the stuff comic book and film fans will likely know inside out – that is, the eventual explosion in comic book movies which took place from the launch of X-Men onwards. Then there’s the reclusive, famously penny-pinching Isaac Perlmutter, the CEO who somehow rules Marvel without straying into the public eye. Writer Mark Waid relates an oft-told story about Perlmutter stalking Marvel’s offices, picking paperclips up off the floor and demanding to know why the employees are wasting his money. Mark Millar notes that there only appears to be one photograph of Perlmutter on the internet – quite a feat in our always-online age. It’s little details like these which give the story its spark, and it’s a pity the camera doesn’t have time to linger a little longer on the quirks of these strange, sometimes obscure people who lurk behind the Marvel story. Even as it is, The Road To Civil War: Marvel Renaissance offers a brief yet entertaining insight into a pivotal phase in comic book history – a phase that Marvel, no doubt, would much rather forget. The Road To Civil War: Marvel Renaissance is showing at the Glasgow Film Festival on the 24th February. See also: How Marvel went from bankruptcy to billions
