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Marie Javins has plenty of reasons to smile. As the editor-in-chief of DC Comics, she’s overseen some big wins for DC this year, including the Superman/Spider-Man crossover and the MAD about DC special. Chip Zdarsky, who edited MAD about DC, saw all the hard work Javins did during that period, noting how everything seemed to be happening at once.

“Marie was editing Superman/Spider-Man issue at the same time [as MAD], and [Superman/Spider-Man] went to press the week before MAD. And so, everything just collided and I think it was probably the most stressed she’s been,” Chip Zdarsky says during an appearance on Direct Edition.

Matt Fraction, who contributed a story for the Superman/Spider-Man crossover has a pretty good guess at what was causing some of her stress – lawyers notes.

“And those were some truly spectacularly stupid notes that she was getting,” Matt Fraction says. “If my experience was indicative of what everybody else was going through, there were some dumb fucking notes. That was difficult.”

“I did the previous one,” Zdarsky adds. “I did the Batman/Deadpool one and I’m not going to say they were stupid notes, but they were definitely like, 'Okay, these companies are just really trying to make sure each one is on equal footing.'”

“It felt like Marie and C.B. [Cebulski] came to an accord and said, 'Let’s do it.' And then it got handed to a room full of lawyers, who had no idea what it was,” Fraction says.  

 “It gets harder and harder because there are obviously more lawyers and kind of corporate interests involved. The fact that they put these out is amazing. And the quality is also amazing,” Zdarsky says.

If Marvel and DC really want to make things interesting, they should publish the lawyers notes in the collected edition. Then again, those would probably have to be cleared by lawyers too, resulting in more notes.

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