Russo Brothers Producing Marvel Vs. DC Docu-Series ‘Slugfest’ For Quibi
In all the excitement for Disney+ (and the lack of excitement for Apple TV+), we forgot aboutQuibi! The short-form content streaming service is still headed our way, and it continues to line up interesting concepts and talent. The latest:The Russo Brothers, famous for directing multiple Marvel movies and then doing press tours where they explain what happened in those movies, are set to produce a Marvel vs. DC docu-series for the platform.
The Quibi Marvel vs. DC Docu-Series is calledSlugfest, based on the bookSlugfest: Inside the Epic, 50-Year Battle Between Marvel and DCby Reed Tucker. PerVariety, “the docu-series will chronicle the growth of comic books as a new American art form, following the rise of the two companies that went on to become comics-publishing and Hollywood powerhouses.” Here’s the book’s synopsis:
To many partisans, Marvel is now on top. But for much of the early 20th century, it was DC that was the undisputed leader, having launched the American superhero genre with the 1938 publication of Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel’s Superman strip. DC’s titles sold millions of copies every year, and its iconic characters were familiar to nearly everyone in America. Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman–DC had them all.
And then in 1961, an upstart company came out of nowhere to smack mighty DC in the chops. With the publication of Fantastic Four #1, Marvel changed the way superheroes stories were done. Writer-editor Stan Lee, artists Jack Kirby, and the talented Marvel bullpen subsequently unleashed a string of dazzling new creations, including the Avengers, Hulk, Spider-Man, the X-Men, and Iron Man.
Marvel’s rise forever split fandom into two opposing tribes. Suddenly the most telling question you could ask a superhero lover became “Marvel or DC?”
This sounds like it has a lot of potential, and there’s plenty of material to turn to. The series will “bring to light little-known stories from the history of both Marvel and DC, including interviews with creators of the best-known superhero characters in the world. Among the show’s retrospective dives will be the history behind the bone-crushing handshake between Superman and Spider-man in the first official Marvel-DC crossover comic in the ’70s.”
