MIDAS THE MILLION DOLLAR MOUSE

Real Name: Midas (surname may be Mouse)

Identity/Class: Mouse

Occupation: Millionaire

Group Membership: None

Affiliations: Stan Lee

Enemies: None

Known Relatives: None 

Aliases: Midas Mouse, Midas the Millionaire Mouse

Base of Operations: Unrevealed

First Appearance: (mentioned) F.O.O.M.#16 (December 1976);
   (mentioned in universe) Nova I#5 (January 1977)
   (intended actual appearance) Midas the Millionaire Mouse#1

Powers/Abilities: Midas was an anthropomorphic mouse who was exceedingly rich, and capable of communicating with humans well enough to arrange business deals.

Height: Unrevealed (presumably fairly small)
Weight: Unrevealed
Eyes: Unrevealed
Hair: Unrevealed

History:
(F.O.O.M.#16) - Midas the Millionaire Mouse was the world's richest mouse.

(Nova I#5 - (fb) - BTS) - Midas struck a deal with Stan Lee to have his own Marvel comic based on his exploits, with Stan confident the title would be a big hit, a blockbuster. After Midas signed the contract, Stan assigned John Costanza to draw it and Marv Wolfman to write it. Nova, who had been trying to get his own Marvel comic, was rejected, and departed Marvel's Manhattan offices figuring that it was his typical luck to miss getting his very own comic to a mouse.

(Defenders II#12/2 (fb) - BTS) - At some point Midas also licensed his image rights to a theme park, who erected a statue (or standee) of him next to a bumper car ride named after the rich rodent.

(Defenders II#12/2 - BTS) - His statue remained even after the park shut down, and was present when the Defenders battled the time villain Chronarch in the abandoned facility.

Comments: Created by Marv Wolfman and John Costanza; finally depicted in a story by Jo Duffy, Kurt Busiek, Ivan Reis and Randy Emberlin.

  In 1976 Marv Wolfman began working on two new "funny animal" titles, apparently because a dictate from senior management prompted by the success of Howard the Duck. The first public mention of the projects, as best I can ascertain, was in December's F.O.O.M.#16, where in the "Department of inFOOMation" column that discussed individual editors and the titles they were working on, Marv's section listed both "Midas" and "Super Rabbit" (the latter a revival of a Golden Age Timely character), and confirmed the basic concept for the character and that John Costanza was drawing it. A month later Midas got his first, and afaik last, mention in an actual story, when dialogue in Nova I#5 (January 1977) confirmed him as residing in the mainstream Marvel universe (later dubbed Earth-616), rather than his own separate "funny animal" reality like Super Rabbit or the later Spider-Ham. In March 1977 F.O.O.M.#17 confirmed Marv was still working on the funny animal books as he discussed new characters he was creating to appear in them, though Midas wasn't explicitly mentioned, and since the new characters mentioned all had superhero or supervillain aspects I believe they were for Super Rabbit rather than Midas' title. The same month a reader's letter in Howard the Duck I#10 expressed concern that the new funny animal books he'd heard about might detract from Howard's own success; he was reassured that this wouldn't be the case, as the new books were not intended to be "HtD rip-offs." June's F.O.O.M.#18 revealed Marv had completed writing the first issue of Midas the Millionaire Mouse and John Costanza was busy drawing it, and August 1977's Marvel Two-in-One#30's letters page mentioned that Marv was working on various titles, including "the upcoming Midas Mouse and Super Rabbit mags." But this was apparently the last time Midas got mentioned in any Marvel title; when F.O.O.M.#19 came out in January 1978, the Department of FOOMation column no longer mentioned either funny animal title in Marv Wolfman's section, not even to say they had been shelved. Midas it seemed had been quietly dropped. That's not quite the end of his story though: On 5th November 2011 Kurt Busiek cryptically tweeted "I am the guy who finally introduced Midas the Million-Dollar Mouse into the Marvel Universe." Did he slip the character in the background of an issue he wrote? Update 2026 - and the answer is yes. In 2002's Defenders II#12/2 the Defenders battle an opponent at an abandoned theme park which has a ride topped by a Wally the Wizard head, and statues of Top Dog and an anthropomorphic mouse wearing a top hat and a waistcoat emblazoned with dollar signs. The former two are Star Comics characters, but not the last. In a post to a Google group made way back on December 30th 2001 Kurt Busiek confirmed that this was indeed Midas the Million Dollar Mouse.

   So what happened to Midas the Millionaire Mouse? Why did he disappear from the planned titles so abruptly? The explanation was finally provided by David Anthony Kraft in an interview in TwoMorrows Back Issue#100 (October 2017):
  "the business floor, or '9th' floor as we called them, would issue edicts like 'Starting on Monday there will be an Iron Fist black-and-white magazine. It will be on the schedule three months ago, and it will be coming out tomorrow.' And we would all run around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to pull it together. ... We'd drop everything and run our asses off trying to pull it together to their schedule, and the following Monday, they'd cancel it! Those kinds of decisions were coming down from the 9th floor all the time. They saw the sales figures, we didn't. They would decide something was hot or not and then issue a memo with no understanding of what it took to produce. ... That's one of the many reasons why projects announced in advance in FOOM never actually appeared."

Profile by Loki.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Midas the Millionaire Mouse has no known connections to:

images: (without ads)
Defenders II#12/2, p2-3, pan1 (Midas main (statue))
Nova I#5, p18, pan5 (Stan mentions signing Midas)

Appearances:
Nova I#5 (January 1977) - Marv Wolfman (writer, editor), Sal Buscema (breakdowns), Tom Palmer (finishes, inks)
Defenders II#12 (February 2002) - Jo Duffy and Kurt Busiek (writers), Ivan Reis (pencils), Randy Emberlin (pencils), Tom Brevoort (editor)

First Posted: 08/10/2021
Last updated: 07/01/2026

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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