Though Marvel Comics is likely just playing it safe until the merger is finalized, artist Reilly Brown recently revealed via Instagram that he submitted pencils for a recent Spider-Man/Deadpool issue that were rejected because he illustrated the Merc' with a Mouth in his film attire.
On Instagram, Brown wrote, "I didn’t think anyone would notice or care, since the difference is just a couple of straps and some knee pads. But they did notice, and made me change it back to his typical character design, because the lawyers wouldn’t allow them to use the movie costume for some reason!
So weird. So I had to redraw that Deadpool in all those scenes."
Someone asked if I’d ever drawn Deadpool in his movie costume, and I actually did once, for an issue of Spideypool. In this story, Wade got a part in a Deadpool movie playing as the stunt double. For the scenes on set, I thought it would be fun if he wore the actual movie costume, so that’s what I drew. I didn’t think anyone would notice or care, since the difference is just a couple of straps and some knee pads. But they did notice, and made me change it back to his typical character design, because the lawyers wouldn’t allow them to use the movie costume for some reason! So weird. So I had to redraw that Deadpool in all those scenes. I ran into a similar lawyer-induced problem with Marvel a few months ago when they asked me to do an ad for some smart phone drawing software. I was going to draw Deadpool, but it turned out they weren’t allowed to use him for the ad, so we figured Spidey would be safe, and I did a drawing of him. Turned out, they weren’t allowed to use Spidey either! So I had to do it again. This time I used Iron Man, and there was a long conversation and lots of phone calls before we figured out which Iron Man costumes would be safe for me to draw! The moral of the story: study your licensing deals! #dailydeadpool #spideypool #deadpool #costumes #freelancelife #reillybrown
A post shared by Reilly Brown (@reilly_brown) on
As Marvel comic readers know, the comic publisher loves to bring in the film costumes for the Avengers into its comics so Reilly making the attempt to do the same with Deadpool is unsurprising. But with the Marvel/Fox acquisition now being bumped from this Summer to next Summer, is there a specific reason for Marvel's caution?