Just went to visit my Local Comic Book Store owner on Sunday, 25 July 2022. He had a story to tell me that was quite the insider's information. This is going to be a long post because this is a long story, and the reference is an employee at AT&T in the USA telling the information to my LCS owner. My memory is already fading on the details and names given, so don't be critical. This is all hearsay.
Back in the Trump Administration (2016 to 2020) the company AT&T acquired DC Comics. Not the movie rights. Not the animated movies. Just the comic book line, reprints, etc. When the owner of AT&T or a major Board of Trustees member found out that AT&T now owned DCU, he didn't care. The man cares nothing about a "little" $7 million dollar company because he only wants companies that make $35 million dollars or more each year. But when this person found out that he could not sell DCU away as a single company, for whatever reason it was, he said "Fine, I'll run it into the ground."
This begat the firing of Geoff Johns. This explains all the turmoil at DCU; just the comics, not the movie rights, for the past 4-6 years. AT&T then bundled DCU amongst other items AT&T wanted to sell off to a conglomerate called "The Discovery Group", and attempted the sale right at the end of the Trump Administration. All looked good on the sale until the Securities and Exchange Commission stepped in after the 2020 election and said "You didn't tell us you were adding another company to this sale." So the sale of DCU to the The Discovery Group, along with the other little companies that AT&T wanted to sell, was put on hold until the SEC could look over the 40-page sale paperwork. That has taken from 2021 to now, even with the SEC "rushing" the oversight. The date that the SEC has given AT&T and the Discovery Group for a final ruling on the multi-sale is 30 July 2022.
AT&T does not want any of the companies that they are trying to sell The Discovery Group, back, deal or no deal. Especially the DCU comic book line. Meanwhile, several very wealthy fans, including a famous actor billionaire, are trying to purchase DCU from either AT&T or The Discovery Group. This "Fans Group" (for lack of a better term) cannot get between AT&T's deal to The Discovery Group, or even offer AT&T to buy just DC Comics.
The best course of action, from what I heard from my local comic book store owner, is for the SEC to allow the deal from AT&T to The Discovery Group to go through. Then The Discovery Group gets the bundle of companies, DC Comics continues legally, and we just have to worry about the editors and staff of DC Comics continuing to act like pandering lickspittles to the globalists, Communist-liberals, and Millennial generation. (My LCS owner argued that DC Comics' staff is reactionary to sociopolitical events, not proactive like Marvel Comics.)
The worst-case scenario is that the SEC does not allow the AT&T bundle sale to go through, the 40-page deal has to be totally rewritten, AT&T hates the DC Comics company, and every company in the bundle deal goes bankrupt from lack of funding by AT&T.
Somewhere in all this is the still-being-funded "Fan Group" that is trying to offer to buy DC Comics, but no one has any idea if that will ever happen. These events have taken and are taking years to complete. Comics are written and published 3-9 months ahead of when you see them in stores. So even after the SEC's 30 July 2022 ruling, the fallout could take months.
So this is all hearsay, I know I left out names and details, do your own research, etc. But here's the rumor about DC.
Back in the Trump Administration (2016 to 2020) the company AT&T acquired DC Comics. Not the movie rights. Not the animated movies. Just the comic book line, reprints, etc. When the owner of AT&T or a major Board of Trustees member found out that AT&T now owned DCU, he didn't care. The man cares nothing about a "little" $7 million dollar company because he only wants companies that make $35 million dollars or more each year. But when this person found out that he could not sell DCU away as a single company, for whatever reason it was, he said "Fine, I'll run it into the ground."
This begat the firing of Geoff Johns. This explains all the turmoil at DCU; just the comics, not the movie rights, for the past 4-6 years. AT&T then bundled DCU amongst other items AT&T wanted to sell off to a conglomerate called "The Discovery Group", and attempted the sale right at the end of the Trump Administration. All looked good on the sale until the Securities and Exchange Commission stepped in after the 2020 election and said "You didn't tell us you were adding another company to this sale." So the sale of DCU to the The Discovery Group, along with the other little companies that AT&T wanted to sell, was put on hold until the SEC could look over the 40-page sale paperwork. That has taken from 2021 to now, even with the SEC "rushing" the oversight. The date that the SEC has given AT&T and the Discovery Group for a final ruling on the multi-sale is 30 July 2022.
AT&T does not want any of the companies that they are trying to sell The Discovery Group, back, deal or no deal. Especially the DCU comic book line. Meanwhile, several very wealthy fans, including a famous actor billionaire, are trying to purchase DCU from either AT&T or The Discovery Group. This "Fans Group" (for lack of a better term) cannot get between AT&T's deal to The Discovery Group, or even offer AT&T to buy just DC Comics.
The best course of action, from what I heard from my local comic book store owner, is for the SEC to allow the deal from AT&T to The Discovery Group to go through. Then The Discovery Group gets the bundle of companies, DC Comics continues legally, and we just have to worry about the editors and staff of DC Comics continuing to act like pandering lickspittles to the globalists, Communist-liberals, and Millennial generation. (My LCS owner argued that DC Comics' staff is reactionary to sociopolitical events, not proactive like Marvel Comics.)
The worst-case scenario is that the SEC does not allow the AT&T bundle sale to go through, the 40-page deal has to be totally rewritten, AT&T hates the DC Comics company, and every company in the bundle deal goes bankrupt from lack of funding by AT&T.
Somewhere in all this is the still-being-funded "Fan Group" that is trying to offer to buy DC Comics, but no one has any idea if that will ever happen. These events have taken and are taking years to complete. Comics are written and published 3-9 months ahead of when you see them in stores. So even after the SEC's 30 July 2022 ruling, the fallout could take months.
So this is all hearsay, I know I left out names and details, do your own research, etc. But here's the rumor about DC.
Comment