This is something i've almost worked into an entry or category description on my Marvel Timeline project a few times, but it's too big for the category pages and too general for any specific entry, so i figured i'll just put it here. This is from a coffee table book called Marvel: The characters and their universe, published in 2002 for Barnes & Noble:

In 1987 Marvel was bought by an entertainment company called New World, and that same year Tom DeFalco took over as editor in chief, replacing Jim Shooter. Marvel's fortunes at this time were greatly improved by the success of two movies, but ironically they were not Marvel movies.

"The Batman movie and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie came out and helped to promote comics by bringing people into the comic book stores," explains DeFalco... "Marvel didn't have any movies coming out, so we came up with a defensive publishing plan, figuring that everybody's going to be coming into these comic book stores looking for Turtles and Batman. DC didn't do a lot of publishing behind the first Batman movie, and Turtles didn't have a lot of extra publishing either, but we got a lot of stuff out, so when people came into the comic book stores, having seen the movies, the only thing they could buy was Marvel product."

This flood-the-market strategy may have started specifically in reaction to the Turtles and Batman films, but it clearly remained in effect, with Marvel's output continuing to expand each year. 1987 was peanuts compared to 1992, which saw the launch of over a dozen new titles. There was always something to be "defensive" about, be it additional movies or the new line of Image books. But i'm sure Marvel realized they could use this strategy offensively too. When we wonder why Alpha Flight never got canceled or how Silver Sable or Nomad merited their own books, this is probably a big part of the explanation. This of course wasn't a surprise, but it's nice to got confirmation from the editor in chief at the time.

Did they have to be shitty?

Because Marvel only had a limited number of good creators, yes.

It's a bit like Marvel's original publisher, Martin Goodman, who published as much as possible back in the 40s.

Revenge for DC's distribution strangling Marvel's output in the 60s...

wanyas, you better not be talking about NFL Superpro