Reporting from Marvel Entertainment HQ, New York City, June 4, 2013. Note, all images below may be enlarged by simply clicking them once. New image will open in a separate window/tab.

“My good friends, after a great deal of thought and deliberation,

I have decided next year I will not seek a fifth Congressional term . . .”

The first 24 words of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s May 29, 2013

remarks announcing she would not seek re-election in 2014.

Her video was broadcast while she was in Russia with puffy actor Steven Segal and

other House Members engaging in Boston Marathon bombing conspiracy theories by,

among other things, interviewing officers of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation,

i.e. the KGB.

[Full transcript of her announcement here]

The Sighting

After hearing the first 24 words of Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann’s swan song last Wednesday, Mr. Isaac “Ike” Perlmutter called out for his executive assistant. “Get Michele Bachmann on the phone!” Why would he, an astonishingly successful media mogul worth billions, want to talk to Michele Bachmann? The answer makes for a wonderful tale of innovation and leadership, as I learned during an exclusive interview this afternoon.

Ike, Marvel Entertainment’s CEO, understood the talent hunt as well as anyone with a corporate office on 50th Street directly across from Rockefeller Center. As the man credited with bringing Marvel Comics out of bankruptcy in 1998 after fighting off the savage resistance of Carl Icahn and Ron Perelman, Ike sold Marvel to Disney in 2009 for something in the tony neighborhood of a billion and a half dollars. Now, as the CEO of Disney’s Marvel subsidiary, he and Disney stockholders were eager to bulk up their vast universe of assets, especially after the billion dollar success of Marvel Studio’s Ironman trilogy.

Accordingly, in 2010, following the mid-term elections, the combined Marvel/Disney creative teams had an idea, an initial concept. They noticed, like most of us, the GOP presidential primaries and their numerous debates had huge entertainment value, for all the wrong reasons, but amusing nonetheless to large numbers of American and, indeed, worldwide viewers. A unanimous “Hmmm” moved through the creative minds at Disney and Marvel. Following the November 2012 general election, the “imagineers” confidently briefed the Disney Board, and, so well was their now fully grown concept received that the creative team earned a go-ahead and a bankroll.

Mr. Perlmutter continued:

“Our brain trust of writers and marketers felt that some of our longstanding Disney and Marvel franchises, although very successful, could be supplemented. Joe Quesada, Marvel Entertainment’s Chief Creative Officer, convinced us there were entertainment niches that we and Disney had not yet sucked dry. We liked Joe’s ideas and gave him a big green light to create a new product line of comics, movies, and action figures based upon the lives of washed-up, craven, and deranged politicians. We just needed to own the rights to their names and images and etcetera. That’d be easy. They have no shame, and love the dollar bill, and we’ve got millions of them.”

The Hunt

So Perlmutter explained that when he first heard last Wednesday’s news of Michele Bachmann’s decision to retire from Congress in 2014 after her present term ends, “it was like a fireworks show went off in my head,” he explained. “Imagine! We might bag Bachmann! No. I knew. We must bag Bachmann!”

Perlmutter also knew that she was, in hunting terms, big game; competition for this trophy would be wide, deep, and furious. Surely, FOX News would try to dominate the field, packing big bore rifles loaded with millions of dollars. Others lurked too, like K Street lobbying firms and evangelists eager to cash in on Bachmann’s name and mouth. Also, Perlmutter imagined out loud, “Barnum & Bailey could cash in with Bachmann On Ice!” And Trump: Celebrity Hacks! Serious competition.

He had to move on this faster than asap. And last Wednesday when her retirement announcement aired in the USA she was in Russia boondoggling and witch-hunting with a Congressional low-wattage brain trust led by washed up actor Steven Segal. Would the Ruskies make her an offer?

“Ruskies have circuses, and Ruskies hunger for amusement,” thought Ike Perlmutter, again out loud, looking straight into my eyes with increasing – palpable – urgency.

Bagging Bachmann

He continued,

“It’s a tough fight for talent. But we knew up front Marvel’s deal with Disney maximizes synergistic energy to vitiate competitive entropy. This competitive advantage can help score franchise-builders like a Bachmann or a Gingrich (who we covet).”

Even though I drew a blank on much of his vocabulary, I kept listening, and transcribing, mostly spelling phonetically, leaving the clean-up to my editors. Onward I pressed:

“You see – and here’s synergy – in 2010 we put up a Disney Channel in Russia, so, consequently, we had bribed nearly the entire Russian executive branch. So you know Marvel/Disney has some real clout in Moscow. With one phone call and a few minor bribes we reached Bachmann’s cellphone at a Vladivostok toilet paper auction. A few minutes later, a few million bucks thrown about, and boom, I nabbed Bachmann! She came surprisingly cheap, even after I nixed a separate deal for her meshuggah husband. ”

Marvel/Disney has Michele Bachmann under their creative control for twenty-five years, the first twenty of which are probationary, although she can avoid that, Mr. Perlmutter disclosed,

“if she wises up and drop kicks the husband. We also understand she may find herself in legal difficulty with campaign finance shenanigans. Moreover, we believe it’s fifty-fifty a medically certified declaration of clinical insanity may attach to Bachmann at any moment. We’re not very sanguine about the husband either. For all these reasons we acted out of scrupulous caution when we added the probationary period.”

From Michele Bachmann . . . to . . . Bachmahntu

Despite the probationary clauses, I learned that Marvel/Disney studios will quickly bring their new star to market with a comic book series. In it, Bachmann will have the Marvel moniker Bachmahntu [Bahch-mahn-TOO], and portray the founding member of a new Marvel group, the Humbuggernaut Crew.

The Humbuggernauts

According to Mr. Perlmutter . . . over time the Humbuggernaut Crew will grow to twenty-five or more

failed,

disreputable,

berserk,

or failed, disreputable and berserk legislators

from far-flung black holes. As a consequence of their

knee-jerk lying,

unapologetic pandering,

craven self-interest, and

clinically berserk legislative hijinks,

these lawmakers were permanently exiled,

so toxic to their civilizations had they become. Thus forced to roam multi-universes seeking new life forms to mercilessly humbug and deceive, these exiles, led by Bachmahntu, chose to pool their resources.

Thus is born the Humbuggernaut Crew

MISSION STATEMENT:

“to establish a universe-wide voting constituency

permanently mesmerized and dumbfounded

by Humbuggernaut lies and manipulations. The Congress of Humbuggernauts will establish galactic legislative dominance

where all enacted laws will exclusively benefit Humbuggernauts

and their overseers at Mammon Industries

and render all other beings mere wage slaves.”

Ike Perlmutter, seated throughout our interview above my pillow on his platinum armchair upholstered with Kilimanjaro mouse shrew hide, was visibly pleased with himself:

“Bagging Bachmann made my last Wednesday! She’s a model for Humbuggernauters: a unique combo of clinical insanity and mind-numbing imbecility who’s angered by facts. She’s a manipulative compassion-free zone. She’s toxic to her fellow citizens. As a legislator she proposes policies based on Biblical verses. We thought we had something big with Ironman, the Hulk, the Avengers, and we were right, but this Bachmann . . . I’m thinking she’ll dwarf those other successes!”

The Roll Out

Marvel will premiere its first comic book devoted to the Humbuggernaut Crew this year, on July 4th. Perlmutter reported that Joe Queasada will endow Bachmahntu with attributes that will set the tone for the group’s additional members who will arrive in November 2014, immediately after the midterm elections.

Neither he nor Quesada, who had now joined the conversation, would reveal all the characteristics of Bachmahntu‘s persona, except that Bachmann’s Marvel doppelgänger will mirror her real-life personality traits. Nevertheless, Quesada offered a more detailed “teaser”:

“Just like the real Congresswoman, Bachmahntu cannot tolerate facts, figures, or logic. Unless she feels “truth” in her gut, or she can’t verify incoming information in sacred ancestral writings, she reacts to rational thought. like Hulk, will uncontrollable and violent physical reactions. She’ll . . .”

As a Hulk fan, I bounced like a seven year-old on my pillow, and interrupted: “How will she be like Hulk? How will she be like Hulk?”

“Well, we can’t reveal everything, but Bachmahntu won’t grow huge or green like Hulk. She’ll be just as dangerous, though, and even more violent. Here’s one thing: her hair will overheat and sprout ‘fire curls’ that’ll shoot ‘spirit lasers’ at rational thought bubbles that attack her, and other members of the Humbuggernaut Crew. As new crew members arrive you’ll see Bachmahntu as the group’s most powerful protection from incoming rational thought or compassionate impulses.”

At this point I said, “I want more,” because, as you readers know, when I like something, I want more. Kindly Joe Quesada obliged:

“OK, OK. Here’s another tidbit. Bachmahntu will come equipped to emit ‘ultra-primal screams’ made up of sounds and frequencies that permanently block incoming information and authentication of anything contrary to the Humbuggernaut Crew’s selfish interests or those of their galactically self-serving overseers, Mammon Industries, another group of unthinkably wealthy gold-bug amoeboids who infect and seek to hollow out the Milky Way. We’ll introduce them in October 2013.

“I want more.”

“I know you do. So, Bachmahntu‘s ultra-primal screams will make all normally sentient beings and CNN journalists within a five hundred meter radius hopelessly stupefied, responsive only to Bachmahntu‘s and Mammon Industries’ evil directions. It’s ironic, but remember presidential candidate Bachmann? She used a real-life ultra-primal scream, and used it often, in Iowa, at the GOP convention, and at CPAC, her people’s Lord of the Flies re-enactment.”

A Gingo at Marvel?

CEO Perlmutter jumped in to the gabfest, and smiled at me, a big toothy grin (he has but two teeth, uppers):

“I’ll let you in on something else. It’s strictly not for publication, OK?”

“Of course, Mr. Perlmutter.” Rules are rules.

“Good. Well, we’ve had discussions with another washed up political humbug artist. He’s the acknowledged world leader, far more destructive to civilization than Michele Bachmann. I’m referencing Mr. Newt Gingrich, of course. Off the record, the former House Speaker has a rather high opinion of his marketability – way too high – so talking contract terms and money isn’t a walk in the park with this schlemiel. . . We’re at impasse.”

I’m thinking, “He’ll want Callista in on the deal, or more accurately, she’ll want in on the deal . . .” Perlmutter read my mind:

“And – again, this is background, not for publication – he wants Callista included in the deal. . . Me? I think it’s her idea, Donald Trump told me so. As for me again, I don’t need another shiksa on board. I’m already stuck with Bachmann! But to bag Gingrich, maybe I’ll deal the wife in. Right now Callista’s a bargaining chip.”

Callista, Schmallista, I wanted to hear about Newt! I asked, “How will Newt fit in the Humbuggernaut world?”

Marvel’s CEO continued:

“Well, as a Humbuggernaut we see Newt as Gingo, a multi-galactic bull-puckey machine, and he’ll literally be part machine, like Ironman. Gingo’s the man who produces the “bull” in bull-puckey. It’s simply type casting a virtuoso of skating by on obvious lies and distortions, a man at ease tossing out irresponsible nonsense. . . He’s a schmuck. Period. Paragraph. But he could help our Marvel enterprises. So, you make allowances. Just imagine his Marvel personality! Can you visualize that personality in Marvel comic book form? Gingo might do anything, he has no self-control whatever. Our fans love that! So, watch out, Hulk! Head for the hills, Wolverine! Avengers? All aboard the midnight train to Georgia! I tell you, , and bless his heart, Stan Lee is beside himself picturing Gingo haphazardly catapulting around Marvel Universe.”

He turned toward Joe Quesada, “Aren’t I right, Joe?”

“Absolutely, boss. But,” Joe looked at me:

“I know you said we could live with it to bag Newt, but what if Callista finds a way to horn in on the deal, what’ll we do with her? She’s yelling at execs already that she must go with Gingo wherever he travels in Marvel Universe, especially when he’s within twenty feet of Storm. I mean, knowing Newt, I understand her concerns, but business-wise I think a footloose and fancy free Gingo works best for Marvel, our shareholders, our readers. Imagine Gingo without Callista – or anyone! – riding shotgun on him! Wow!”

I can imagine that, I thought. And I want more. I want more.

And More Will Come

With that final and astonishing bit of news and controversy, Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter and Creative Director Joe Quesada announced our pleasant interview concluded. We shook hands, I stole a pen, and replaced my pillow on the couch nearby. Off they went to a meeting with Michele Bachmann’s attorneys and her mental health team to sign off on the Bachmahntu deal. Off I went to file this report, sell an authenticated (by me) Ike Perlmutter pen on eBay, and buy some Disney stock before this story hits the internet. Most of all, though, I yearned to dream of a long comic book relationship with Bachmahntu and the Humbuggernaut Crew.

Boy, do I want more. Don’t you?

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