Why was Marvel having so much trouble?

I don't know about the financial issues but as to answer your other question, I read 2 reasons. 1st, the producers of Spider-man TAS were having a problem with Saban. I'm not sure what the reason was. And 2nd, the writers ran out of ideas for new episodes

I've never heard anything about FoxKids hating Avi or problems with Saban, but I know THIS actually happened...

The owners of Marvel decided they wanted to sell marvel in the late 80s, much like DC was bought out by Warner Bros. A bunch of Marvel creators banded together to buy the company for around $81 million, but Ronald Perelman stepped in with $82.5 million and they sold it to him. He decided to start cranking out 90 billion different monthly titles of X-Men, amongst others, and began flooding the market with comics. Then he took Marvel to the new york stock exchange and started licensing out the rights to their characters to make a quick buck and the creative force was pushed to the side. A bunch of creators who were selling millions of comics a month defected and formed their own company, Image, and suddenly, the creative types were leaving and forming their own companies to make what were essentially ripoffs of Marvel titles. Meanwhile, Perelman and his corporate suits were more interested in licensing products and began buying out companies like ToyBiz, Fleer, Skybox, Malibu, Heroes World Distributors, and so on. The baseball strike of 1994 killed the trading card line at Fleer and Skybox, so they started releasing these super expensive Marvel trading cards to go along with the triple holographic foil-laiden gatefold cover comic books that cost $7 a pop. Apparently, no one could understand that kids and even the adults didn't have $70 a month to spend on 12 or 13 different X-Men comics alone, and people stopped buying them. Marvel closed Malibu comics and tried to force companies to either get in with their distribution company or get out of the comic business. Marvel tried to sell off their stock directly to comic buyers, but it wasn't happening. Then "Marvelution" came when the company cancelled around 85% of their entire comic line and laid off hundreds of people. With little creative force left, they started killing off characters in an attempt to create an "event" to stir interest like the Death of Superman had few years prior. Dumb things like killing Doc Ock and killing Tony Stark and replacing him with a teenage version of himself plucked out of the past. Perelman only ever saw dollar signs and cared little about creative content. Then Carl Ichon stepped in and tried to take over control of the company. Neither did and both were eventually ousted and Perelman had to pay back trusties for effectively taking millions from them and hiding it in another company account.

Marvel was continuously losing money and Avi Arad ended up saving the company by having ToyBiz (the toy company Marvel bought) actually buy out Marvel in their bankruptcy. Avi's plan to save Marvel involved getting their characters into movies, because, up until recently (and even still), comics have been mainly perceived as a "child's book." With movies, he envisioned reaching a larger audience. But rights to characters were all screwed up. Characters rights like Fantastic Four, Captain America, Punisher had been sold off years ago to make a quick buck. X-Men had been in development hell for something like 15 years. And 11 different companies claimed to own the film rights to Spider-Man. No one wanted to make another comic movie, because the biggest comic franchise (batman) just bombed with Batman and Robin. But David Goyer (who had previously wrote The Crow 2, and would late co-write Batman Begins/The Dark Knight) wrote a script for Blade, a lesser-known character at the time at Marvel. The movie came out and did much better than expected (two thumbs up!) and Fox bit on X-Men and finally moved to make the film. Blade and X-Men ended up being two of the first "serious" comic movies, and Spider-Man's rights were worked out and that film opened huge (largest opening ever at the time). Suddenly, not only were comic movies IN again, but Marvel, a company you would have been crazy to say would have ever had a good movie, let alone one actually being made after Howard the Duck and Punisher bombed, would have the highest selling opening ever would be just crazy. Needless to say, suddenly, Marvel was selling movie rights left and right and because of the movie boom of the last decade or so, Marvel is thriving. And thanks to Disney buying them out for 4 billion a few years back, they aren't going anywhere.


Unfortunately, the bankruptcy led to X-Men and Spider-Man ending as they did, and Silver Surfer ending on a cliffhanger and the Captain America series that was intended for Fox never being made.