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Marvel Comics announced today that Axel Alonso is stepping down from the role of editor-in-chief at the company, with Marvel’s VP of international brand management, C.B. Cebulski, stepping in.
Alonso has been editor-in-chief of Marvel since 2011, with his tenure covering event series from Avengers vs. X-Men, Age of Ultron and Death of Wolverine to Secret Wars, Civil War II and Secret Empire. Alonso will be leaving the company.
Cebulski joined Marvel in 2002 as an associate editor, and was appointed to VP of international brand management in 2011, where he has overseen Marvel’s localization and availability on foreign digital comics services and in recruiting non-American artists and writers, according to Marvel’s announcement.
But the biggest thing that Cebulski might be known to fans for directly, is editing the company’s sleeper hit series, Runaways. The series, written by Brian K. Vaughn (Y the Last Man, Saga) and drawn by Adrian Alphona, featured a diverse and compelling cast of teenage children of supervillains rebelling against bad guys and good guys alike. A television series based on it is coming to Hulu next week.
Marvel shared a statement from Cebulski on its Twitter account:
With over 15+ years at Marvel, @CBCebulski has established himself as one of the industry’s top editors, storytellers, and recruiters. pic.twitter.com/izjxmNYELi
— Marvel Entertainment (@Marvel) November 17, 2017
Marvel has had a rocky run in recent years, both financially and in public relations. Secret Empire, a 2017 summer event a year in the making, was so controversial and unpopular that Marvel had to issue a statement essentially promising that it wasn’t going to last. While DC Comics has gone all in with a critically and financially successful “Rebirth” relaunch, Marvel found itself apologizing for an interview in which its VP of sales implied that Marvel’s slump in sales could be blamed on its rise of diversity in characters.
And most recently, Brian Michael Bendis, a major creative architect of the Marvel Universe since the year 2000, signed an exclusive contract with DC Comics, surprising many fans and industry observers — Bendis has never written a DC Comics series before.
The president of Marvel Entertainment, Dan Buckley, described Alex Alonso’s departure from Marvel as a “mutually agreed upon parting of ways,” to the New York Times, noting that he presided over “some of our top two or three sales years of all time.”
