The Major Lands a Role in the DC Documentary

Earlier this year DC/WB announced their intention of producing a documentary on the 75th Anniversary of DC Comics. The good news is that DC/WB decided to give Major Malcolm Wheeler Nicholson a small cameo and it’s at the very beginning so that’s quite nice. Hooray! However, it is a slightly awkward situation. If this were a dinner party, the Major would be the ghost of Hamlet’s father who sat down to dinner with the rest of the guests. And you are?

The party line I’m hearing is that it was a Damon Runyon period and everyone including the Major was a crook. That’s not factual. Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson may have been making a lot of promises and ducking bill collectors as this was the Great Depression but he certainly didn’t have ties to bootleggers and other illegal activities.

He and his family suffered just as much as anyone going without. If he had been a so-called crook, our family would own DC and not the other way round. The man had a history of knightly behavior and taking it on the chin for the underdog as in his championing African-American Buffalo troops serving under his command in the Philippines. The corporate spin, “let’s paint everyone with the same brush,” doesn’t speak to historical accuracy even though it’s a nice PR gambit.

How do you explain the founder of the whole thing being forced out of the company by his own partners and at the same time say, he was a great guy and we’re thrilled he started it? That’s an interesting problem the filmmakers have and I’m intrigued to see how they solve it.

Several of the eternal optimists in our family were so excited that there was some loose talk of canonization. Much as I champion our grandfather, St. Nick doesn’t quite ring true to me. As Aunt Toni said to me, don’t whitewash. The rest of us took the news with varying degrees of the gimlet eye ranging from out and out cynicism to middle of the road–well maybe things have changed.

In all fairness Diane Nelson, current head of DC Entertainment evidently wasn’t aware of the Major or his role nor is there any reason why she should have been. Her background is in film not comics. To her credit she seems to be doing her best to connect with the historical aspects of DC along with the small task of running a very large corporation.

I can sympathize as my background is not comics history either and if you want to hang out with the comics guys who have been at this from their early years of collecting as kids, you’d better begin a learning curve just in order to be able to speak the lingo. It’s not a chore. I’m having a great time doing so and most of the guys are the greatest.

Sean Welch, the producer and Mac Carter, the director of the DC doc proved to be absolute gentlemen and seemed genuinely interested in the Major’s story, which is quite a tale. From his military exploits, to his pulp writing, comics and later as a gentleman inventor with patents, it’s a colorful story of one of the founders of modern comics.

Partner Jason Brown and I spent some time getting photos for the doc, providing them with biographical information as well as some pulp covers from my collection. Jason, who has a background in film, found them easy to work with. In the film business that’s a high compliment.

I was glad to contribute to the cause celeb as I’m always happy to promote MWN’s life and accomplishments. And even more importantly, Aunt Toni seemed pleased by the acknowledgement and Uncle Douglas quite thrilled. For that reason alone, I was willing to jump through the DC/WB hoops, provide my volunteerism to the WB Charitable Foundation and pay the necessary lawyer’s fees to ensure that at some future date we didn’t agree to provide limbs or internal organs along with a few photos.

New Fun #1, 1935. Cover: Lyman Anderson

It’s tricky providing media people with information. You don’t know how they will ultimately use it or how it will be slanted especially in a corporate situation that has mega layers of lawyers whose sole focus is protecting the corporate personhood. Up to this point there has been little information on the Major coming from DC and what there has been is not close to an accurate picture.

The documentary is to be premiered in a rough cut at this year’s Comic Con so we’ll see how the Major’s 2 minutes turns out. In spite of my cynicism, I’m hoping for the best for everyone’s sake. It would be nice to get on an even keel with DC/WB. As far as I can tell we as a family have nothing to gain by being adversarial but given the past it is important to be cautious.

Image from 50 Who Made DC Great

Sean Welch and Mac Carter had the proverbial job of cleaning out the Stygian Stables with this project. Putting together a documentary of this length in such a short period of time is indeed Herculean. And the fact that they took such care with our very short sequence speaks well of how they must have approached the entire piece.

Sean, the producer, also produced the Oscar nominated film, Spellbound about the National Spelling Bee which won all sorts of awards. He and director Jeffrey Blitz just completed a new documentary on lottery winners called Lucky that was shown at Sundance this year. I’d love to see that.

Mac, the writer/director developed a comic book arc with Jeffrey Blitz called The Strange Adventures of H.P. Lovecraft. It appears to be optioned for a film by none other than Ron Howard and has a great look to it. When I spoke to Mac, he seemed quite knowledgeable about comics and pulps.

Although I’m not siding with the family eternal optimists on the possibility of St. Nick arriving at Hollywood and Vine neither I am going with my own worst cynicism leading to Ophelia throwing herself in the river. I’m opting for All’s Well that Ends Well.

Image from the film Lucky