Planet Money - We Buy A Superhero 3: Resurrection

Episode Date: February 27, 2021

We have found the perfect superhero. Now we just have to make him our own. | Find the full Planet Money Superhero series here.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Thank you. One. We have ignition. Oh, whoa. Oh, my gosh. This is Planet Money Studios from NPR. I can narrate this for you. Is this, this is the last one? Yes. Okay. Remember how in last week's episode, we had just picked a public domain superhero called Microface? Microface, yes. He was created in the 1940s. And we've done some research, and what we want you to narrate is like our comic bookified version of how we imagine the moment Microface was created.

Sounds good. We're very excited. We're going to shut our mics off. You ready? Yeah. Planet Money buys a superhero. Issue number three. It opens in 1942. A man with a thin mustache is riding the subway. He mutters to himself. I need a new character. The man is comic book artist Alan Ulmer.

He hears an overhead announcement. announcement. A woman sitting next to Elmer turns to him. Gee whiz, you'd think that announcer has a microphone strapped to his face or something. Sure, and you'd need super hearing to understand it.

The next panel shows a light bulb drawn over Alan Elmer's head. We cut to the office of Hillman Publishing, home of Clue Comics, where Alan Ulmer is at his desk frantically drawing. Okay, we got the super hearing side of the mask. Oh, yeah, yeah, microphone. Yeah, nice big microphone right here in his face.

Alan Ulmer's mind is racing. Okay, okay, okay. How about eyes? Eyes that can see through anything. No, no, no. Almost anything. And so a new superhero was born. Just one more line and...

Microface. Microface. Microface. Alan Ulmer finishes his sketch, turns off his desk lamp, and looks at a picture of his five-year-old daughter, Peggy. I'm coming home, Peggy. I'm going to make my famous beef wellington.

Mmm, beef wellington. Kenny, can I be done? What is this? It's going to be, it's going to come back. Okay, whatever. Thank you, Amanda. You're perfect. You're done. Great, thank you. You've been spectacular. Don't call me. I'll call you. Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Kenny Malone. And I'm Robert Smith. Audio embellishments aside, Alan Ulmer really was the creator of Microface, the Planet Money superhero.

He did not own the rights, his company did, and the company never renewed the copyright. Microface was forgotten. Our mission today is to do what Alan Ulmer was never allowed to do, finish the story, update it for the 21st century, and have Microface live again, but this time in our world, in the world of business and economics. Today on the show, we are going to figure out how to build a new superhero franchise from the ground up. And who knows, if we do this right, Microface could be bigger and more lucrative than the Hulk. He is the biggest.

Right here in my hands is what Alan Ulmer created in 1942. Clue Comics issue number one. The very first comic book appearance of Microface. In this origin story, our hero is an inventor and mechanic named Tom Wood. We see him at a defense factory tinkering with a plane engine This origin story, our hero is an inventor and mechanic named Tom Wood. We see him at a defense factory tinkering with a plane engine when his colleague comes running into the panel and says, quote, Say, Tom Wood, you want it on the phone? Tom picks up the phone. It's the police.

Is this Tom Woods? What? We're sorry to report, sir, that your brother was murdered. What? Tom wants revenge. He goes back to his house where he pulls a strange mask from a drawer. Maybe at last I've found a use for my micro- micro mask invention, which the government turned down. Yeah, I guess Tom Wood tried to sell this mask to the Defense Department.

That's the first and last we hear of this particular plot point. But we do see a patent drawing of the micro mask's powers. Super sensitive hearing. Photoelectric eyes, which can penetrate almost anything. And microphone-amplified voice, which can appear to come from anywhere. In the next panel, we see Tom Wood wearing the mask and announcing himself to the world. Crime can blame none but itself for its most dreaded menace. Microface.

It's a little bit of a confusing sentence. So he's a menace to crime itself. Yeah, that's what's written there. To the crime, and they have only themselves to blame for him becoming their menace. Makes sense. Now, here is the biggest obstacle standing in the way of our plan for world superhero domination. In order to make money off a superhero, you need to own the copyright to that character.

But remember, no one owns the copyright to Microface because he is in the public domain. Everything in that old comic book we just read is public domain. Yeah, the story, the design of Microface, the alter ego, inventor mechanic Tom Wood, all of his superpowers. If we were going to try and sell a t-shirt with Microface for $18, I mean, we're allowed to do that, but you, dear listener, you could sell that exact same t-shirt and only charge $15. We can't sue you.

No, in fact, we would have to probably buy your T-shirts and then sell them for $18. Make a little profit. There is, however, an exception to the public domain rule that is critical for us. If we do add things to Microface's story, if we can improve him in some way, we can give him new superpowers, a new identity, change the design, we will own all of those changes. Planet Money would hold the copyright to that new version of Microface.

So you would have Alan Ulmer's version of Microface, which we cannot own, but we would create Planet Money's version of Microface, which would be different enough for us to own. The best way to do all this, to reboot a character, is actually the old-fashioned way. We need to make a comic book of our own. The new adventures of Planet Money's Microface. Like, I'm imagining something that will look totally authentic,

with pictures and the dialogue bubbles printed on real paper. That will conveniently cement our ownership. Now, of course, we have no idea how you actually make a comic book. Nope. And so we needed a guide, someone who knows everybody in the comic book industry. Hey, Alex. How's it going? I think we're ready to tell you which superhero we want to go with.

I'm excited. Alex Segura is the co-president of Archie Comics. We talked to him in the very first episode of the series when he refused to sell us one of his superheroes. He was understandably not helpful back then. But Alex is a close friend of mine. close friend of mine, and he told us at the time that if somehow we did end up with our own superhero character, he would personally take off his Archie president hat and put on his freelance comic writer, I don't know, visor, whatever it would be, and then he would actually do a comic book for us. We explained the whole thing to him, how we had found someone who was basically like a

podcaster, but in the public domain from 1942. What's his name? What's his superhero name? So we want to take any guesses of what you might expect his name to be? Microphone Man, The Recorder, The Speaker. All very good names. The name for the character is Microface. Micro hyphen face. It is Micro hyphen face. That's an unfortunate name.

It's just not a good name. But as we kept pitching Alex, showing him our enthusiasm, sending him some of the panels from the old comic books. That's a pretty cool costume. It's not bad. It's not bad.

He is jacked. Yeah, he's got like 15 abs. He has more abs than I would have known were possible. And not as many fingers as he probably should. He has the right amount on his right hand, and there's a confusing number on his left hand. Yeah. Who knows?

He's a mechanic. Maybe he lost some fingers. This could be worked with. This is very basic superhero costuming. It's a good starting point. Okay, good. All right. Alex is in. We have a good starting point. Okay, good. All right! Alex is in!

We have a bonafide comic book executive who is going to write the new Microface story for our brand new comic book. Now, Alex explains that we do need to make a few decisions first, because when you're reviving an old character, and when you want to make it, you know,

like the old version, but just different enough to satisfy the lawyers, of course, there are a few classic ways to do a reboot. Number one, continuity. This is where our comic book would just continue the existing Microface story. Set our comic in the 1940s and literally pick up where Al Ulmer left off. Again, as I said 11 episodes ago, crime can blame none but itself for its most dreaded menace, microface. I'm already a little bored. Let's not do this one. On the other end of the spectrum is the homage, where our comic book doesn't worry too much about the existing canon.

We just let the old stuff inspire us to make a whole new thing. We could just make up any story about a sound-wielding superhero. Maybe an archaeologist. just make up any story about a sound-wielding superhero. Maybe an archaeologist. Opens the tomb of Sonos, the god of sound, and finds... What is this? A mask? A burial mask that gives the powers of amplification. Crime can blame none but itself for its dreaded menace, Microface. Which, you know, maybe, but we really do love, like, the old Microface. We love the weird character and all the weird details that Al Ulmer created. And so we don't want to just throw those out.

Which leaves us a third choice. The legacy route. What if in our comic book we pretend that all of the old Microface stories really did happen back in the 1940s? Microface really was this inventor with a mask, but the mask itself is passed on somehow. What's this? Pop-Pop's mask? Yeah, maybe it's like a grandson who discovers the mask in the attic. I'm gonna put it on. Crime can blame none but itself for its most dreaded menace, Microface. Cool. I sound like Grandpa.

Maybe I could buy beer. Okay, so maybe not that version of the legacy. I feel like maybe I've already seen that in the movie anyway. But 100% yes to the legacy approach. Like, this feels exactly right for a comic book. Alan Ulmer's Microface passes on the legacy of the mask to Planet Money's new hero. We have a modest budget to pay Alex for the story and bring on whatever artists he feels he needs to make this happen. And I gotta say, he does have an amazing Rolodex. It is like assembling a band. So Alex is the lead singer-songwriter. The main artist is going to be our lead guitarist.

And we needed somebody who could update Microface's look, take this admittedly kind of weird old character and turn him into a modern-day classic. And we found a virtuoso. The saying in comics is that there's no bad character, there's only bad, you know, handling of a character. Jerry Ordway is a legend. Over 40 years, he's drawn modern versions of all the famous Golden Age characters,

Superman, he's been on Batman, Captain America. And Jerry says he is willing to help us. He pulls up a picture of the old micro face, big helmet, mask, and he looks at that like a superhero plastic surgeon i mean it is very unusual and interesting that the original helmet or whatever it is has these two kind of projections on the side that are clearly some sort of maybe a hearing device or microphone thing they are in fact micro faces super ears but they look look almost like a floppy dog ear. And I said, that really doesn't work unless he's, you know, got some kind of canine name or something.

Excellent. So we are going to get an updated Microface look from Jerry. We're going to get an updated Microface story from Alex. And now we just need someone to make those little letters inside the dialogue bubbles. That's an actual job. What is your official title? It's Letterist, Letterer? So I prefer Letterer.

Letterist, like, gives me the heebie-jeebies. It's like, ooh. Letterer is harder to say, I will say. Letterer, yeah. It is. It's a lot of rr-r-r-r-r. This is Taylor Esposito. He says that the letter is sort of like the bass player in the artistic band. You know,

he sets the rhythm of the story. And kind of like the bass player, he never gets any credit. And so you know what? Here's an interview with the bassist, Taylor Esposito, letter master for the ages. Did you just have extraordinarily neat handwriting when you were growing up? Oh, I have chicken scratch. It's awful. What have we done? No, no. Luckily today, everything is done digitally.

It's more of a graphic design job these days than it is a hand-done job. So we got our story. We got our art. We got our words. This comic book team is starting to come together. And then we realized there is one more person that we probably should have on board before we start production on an entirely new comic book about Microface. Somebody who embodies the legacy of the original Microface

and could, with one little word, tank this entire project. Hello? Hi, is this Peggy? Yes, it is. The daughter of the original artist who created Microface, Al Ulmer. Maybe we should have our lawyers here just in case it gets a little litigious. After the break. Do you want to start by just telling us your name and who you are?

After the break. Do you want to start by just telling us your name and who you are? Yes. I'm Peggy Lauchs, and I'm 83 years old, and I'm a retired librarian. And I'm the daughter of Alan Ulmer, U-L-M-E-R. When we found out that Al Ulmer's daughter, Peggy, was still alive, I was thinking, yes, I have so many questions for her. I, on the other hand, was nervous because, look, we don't need Peggy's permission to do anything with her father's character, Microface, since he is in the public domain. But, like, look, if she hates this project, I mean. But, like, look, if she hates this project, I mean... Yeah, it would be a jerk move to be like,

ah, tough luck, lady. We're taking your father's idea and completely changing it and making a fortune off of it. So we started off with some easy questions for Peggy. Do you know what he thought about drawing superheroes? Did he enjoy doing superheroes in particular, creating them? Oh, yes. You know, especially some of these characters, they were always in tights with capes and, you know, some kind of headgear or masks.

So what was your father like as a person? Yeah, he would have been really someone you would like to have known and been in their company. You know, he was a gourmet cook. His beef wellington was to die for. We always waited for that. The Ulmers lived on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Peggy was five years old when her dad created Microface. This guy with these goggled eyes and this nose with the microphone.

Where did he come from? We were going to ask you the same thing. We were going to ask you, where did he come from? Where did he come from? Where? Where, where? Truthfully, I don't know. Peggy says that she doesn't know the whole backstory,

but Microface was one of her dad's favorite characters, but he never really got the chance to have this character take off. After drawing just about six issues, her father went into the army, served during World War II. And then after he got back, her dad got caught up in this huge moment, this huge change in comic book history that drove him from comics forever. This was in the 1950s, and there was this backlash amongst parents against comic books and superheroes. They blamed comic books for juvenile delinquency. There were congressional hearings, and eventually the industry created the Comics Code to, quote, self-regulate content.

What that really meant was... Comic books were censored, and it led to the loss of hundreds of artists and closed down many of the comic books, almost all of them. Her father lost his job during that, and sort of also lost his will to try and do comics at all. Then he went into making film strips, educational film strips, which were a big thing at the time. And he just started doing fine arts. He did a lot of paintings up in, from Maine and here on Long Island, you know, seashore and that type of thing. But he wasn't drawing any superheroes anymore? No, no. I think it left such a bitter taste in his mouth. You know, from doing something that you love to do and then to have people just randomly say, you know, forget it. You know, you're not good anymore. We don't want our children

looking at anything you were drawing. Al Omer died at the age of 64. Peggy says that as a child, she never really followed comics or knew much about her father's work. But recently, she's been looking back at his collection. And sometimes she thinks that she sees her father, his little mustache, dark hair, drawn into the action. Now, after about 30 minutes of chit-chat with Peggy... We did awkwardly start to broach the subject with her of Planet Money's plan to reboot Microface. with her of Planet Money's plan to reboot Microface.

Are you going to use this somehow in connection with your program? So go on, Kenny. Oh, go ahead, Robert. I was going to say, so we are doing this radio series where we're talking about public domain and about how characters got lost. So we explained how we'd found Microface and about how we were going to reboot him as the grandson of her father's version of Microface. Make a new comic book,

maybe a limited selection of Microface merchandise, which would not bring in a ton of money, to be honest. And it would go to NPR anyway. Yeah, really. It's a nonprofit. So what do you think about that? I think it's great. Oh, that is wonderful. Yeah. I gotta be honest. That's a relief to hear. We were worried your reaction would be,

call my lawyer. Oh, now I'm beyond those years. Way beyond. I think it's great. I really do. And I'd like to be the first one to get a T-shirt with this photo on it. Okay. And with that last piece of business taken care of,

we call forward the Planet Money comic book team to assemble. Alex Segura, story. Jerry Ordway, cover artist. Taylor Esposito, lettering monkey. Lettering monkey is too mean to yourself. And Peggy. Peggy Lauchs, retired librarian. Now we gave the team a few weeks to come up with a rough outline of the new Planet Money version of Microface, the comic book.

Jerry, the artist, sent the new look of Microface. The mask is much more streamlined. There's less, how would you say? Canine, less doggy. Yeah, less dog looking. Plus now you see a chin, a little emotion behind the mask. Taylor, the letterer, he designed like a brand new, almost 80s video game logo for Microface. And Alex, the writer, sent over a story outline.

He told us he really connected with the legacy part of this story. Alex is from Miami. His parents are Cuban. And he came up with this brand new character, inspired a little bit by his upbringing. The character is Sam Salazar. And here, for the very first time, is our version of Microface. And a taste of the story that will be in Planet Money's comic book. It begins with Sam Salazar, an investigative business reporter, which obviously we love.

Love it. And he happens to be investigating the bad guys who happen to be a private equity firm. Ooh, I see some learning in there. Now, in the new origin story for Planet Money's microface, we see Sam Salazar in his closet, finishing up a radio story. But still, no one knows why the Golden Age private equity group is buying and gutting these beloved old companies. For Financial Radio, I'm Sam Salazar. I'm so sick of recording in this stupid closet. Hello? Hello?

I can't tell you who I am. But Golden Age Private Equity is going after Wood Family Inventions. That's my grandfather's old company. He invented something that they're after. I don't have time- What? What? Sam Salazar? What? Sam Salazar?

Yeah? Somebody paid a lot of money to send this to you, kid. It says it's from my grandpa. He's been dead for ten years. I don't know what to tell you, kid. It's some kind of... A... Mask?

Mask? What's going to happen next? Well, you're going to have to pay to read the comic book. Hmm. I hope this works. We're very bad at selling things. We can do it. Okay, let's do it. Planet Money's Microface comic book is available at a special pre-order price starting right now.

At npr.org slash microface. One second, I'm getting a pen to write that down. What was that again? npr.org slash microface. Should I put a hyphen in there? You can put a hyphen in it or not. What? It'll all take you there. npr.org slash microface. Got it.

I think it'll take a few months to fully write and produce and print this comic. We're going to follow the process and tell you all about it in a few months. Again, that is NPR dot org slash microface. Also, you know, we did think that a comic book was all we would be selling today. Sure, that's a lot. But when Peggy

Lauchs told us, and I'd like to be the first one to get a t-shirt, we were like, oh crap, we really probably should make a t-shirt. Yeah. And I'd like to be the first one to get a T-shirt. We were like, oh, crap. We really probably should make a T-shirt. Yeah. And we did. Three of them. What?

Including one shirt that you can completely steal and resell, featuring the public domain, wonderfully weird face of Al Ulmer's micro face. In fact, you should tell us if you can double our price. Yeah, let us know. And sell it someplace else. We actually want to know. And, Kenny, that's Microface. In fact, you should tell us if you can double our price. Yeah, let us know. And sell it someplace else. We actually want to know. And, Kenny, that's not all. Over the next couple of months,

we want to crank up the merchandising opportunities for the new Microface. We want to learn all of the ways that you can license a superhero and then follow that process. We're now in the superhero business. Do you own a toothpaste company? A movie studio?

Yeah. A Broadway theater? Do you want to license Planet Money's microface? Well, we're in business now. We own it. Seriously, we're taking all meetings. Give us a call. You can contact us, planetmoney, at npr.org.

We are serious. We want to talk licensing. Please call us. At this point, I should take off my capitalist top hat. Yes. Take out my money-making monocle. Yes. And put back on my journalist baseball cap and say that all proceeds from the Microface

project go to NPR to support the programming that you know and love. And as a journalist, we would love to hear what you thought about, you know, the actual learning and ideas in this series. We are planetmoney at npr.org. We always love to hear from you there or on any of the socials at planetmoney. We're on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and the TikTok. If you know a comic book fan who would love this series, you can send them the entire series at the website npr.org slash superhero. That is npr.org slash superhero.

Planet Money buys a superhero creative team. Project Manager, James Sneed. Sound Designer, Maria Paz Gutierrez. Engineer, Gilly Moon. Narrator, Amanda Aronchik. Series Editor, Liza Yeager. Micro-Consulting, Dan Germa. Planet Money Editor, Brian Erstadt.

Supervising Producer, Alex Goldmark. Comic Book Team. Writer, Alex Segura. Cover Art, Jerry Ordway. Interior Art, Alex Segura. Cover art, Jerry Ordway. Interior art, Peter Krause. Letterer, Taylor Esposito. Colorist, Ellie Wright. Planet Money staff.

Mary Childs, Nick Fountain, Sarah Gonzalez, Jacob Goldstein, Alexi Horowitz-Gazi, Emma Peasley, Greg Rosalski, Darian Woods, Karen Duffin, Dave Blanchard. Visual team. Keith Jenkins, Nicole Werbeck, L.A. Johnson, Sienna May, Bronson R. Curry, Searing Bista. Marketing team, Kristen Hume, Jane Scott, Rachel Buzzi, Julan Cleveland, Carly Ingersoll, Kelsey Page. Web and digital team, Stacy Goers, Patrick Cooper, Allison Hoffer, Ryan Paitzel, Vic Krishnaswamy, Todd Wellstein, Grant Dickey. Special thanks... Special thanks... And introducing...

And WLRN's Danny Rivero as... I'm Key Grip, Robert Smith. I'm best boy, Kenny Malone. This is NPR. Thanks for listening. Thank you. Meanwhile, back at Golden Age Private Equity Headquarters. Sir, I have some bad news. We weren't able to find the mask. It seems to have fallen into the hands of a reporter named Salazar. I don't know why I even employ you. You had one job. Luckily, I knew you were going to fail.

That's why I've developed a robot to take your job. The master business ass kicker. The MBA 2000. Follow me on LinkedIn or die. A robot who will do what you can't do. Commence micro-mask acquisition. A robot you may notice... Has no ears.

Has no hearing. The micro-mask is useless against him. I love it, boss. It's amazing. Yeah, well, you're fired. And a special thanks to our funder, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, for helping to support this podcast.