10 Little-Known Comics Industry Facts That Shocked Fans

2. DC And Marvel Used To Literally Spy On Each Other

There's nothing wrong with a bit of friendly competition. For Marvel and DC, this can mean anything from encouraging the other to do better by innovating in a certain direction, luring talent to a different home or - in a particularly weird case - spying on each other for ideas.

As recounted in 8 Times The Marvel Vs. DC Rivalry Turned Ugly, rumours persisted for a long time that the House of Ideas and the Distinguished Competition were trading blows via surreptitious means, and it was only when Reed Tucker took a deep dive that those rumours became more clear.

In a conversation with Newsweek, Tucker detailed the intricacies of one spying operation headed up by DC, designed to flush out a supposed mole in their offices:

"The head of DC launched an honest-to-God counter-espionage operation, code-named Blockbuster, in which he created a fake memo about the company’s plans to publish gigantic 500-page comics. He then left it in his outbox. Sure enough, the spy took the bait, and soon there was talk over at Marvel of doing 500-page comics."

It honestly sounds like the premise for a perfect comic.