This comment by G-man elsewhere a few days ago got me thinking:




There was an incredible pool of talent at Marvel in the late 70's and early 80's, doing some of the best work of their careers:
Michelinie/Romita Jr/Layton IRON MAN
Claremont/Byrne/Austin X-MEN, and the best selling title for 20-plus years after
Duffy/Gammill/Villamonte POWERMAN/IRON FIST
A great run on AVENGERS by Shooter/Perez, then Michelinie/Byrne, then Michelinie/Perez, then Shooter/Bob Hall (issues 141-220 roughly)
Moench/Sienkiwicz MOON KNIGHT
Bruce Jones/Brent Anderson/Armando Gil/Ron Frenz KA-ZAR
Stern/Romita Jr AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
Mantlo/Hannigan/Milgrom SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN
Mantlo/Golden/Broderick/G.Kane/Guice MICRONAUTS
Mantlo/Sal Buscema ROM
Byrne FF
Miller/Janson DAREDEVIL (and later Miller/Mazuchelli DD )
Marvel's Graphic Novel line
EPIC ILLUSTRATED
the Epic Comics line, in particular Starlin's DREADSTAR
Simonson's THOR run
Layton's HERCULES miniseries
Marvel's HULK magazine improved and went from b& w to color, with some really nice color and fun stories.
MARVEL PREVIEW magazine got much better in its anthology stories, and soon the title officially changed to BIZARRE ADVENTURES.
Joe Jusko began doing covers for these magazines, as well as interior work for EPIC ILLUSTRATED


I think in general the stories and creative teams improved under Shooter, and I was certainly buying more Marvel titles on a regular basis --and thoroughly enjoying them-- than I ever did before or since.
Despite strong continuity, I found it much easier to pick up ongoing storylines, and get into them. There were no crossover events that went through every series until SECRET WARS (which ironically, despite Shooter's general pressure for single-issue shorter-span storylines, was the onset of lengthy smothering crossover events that he initally discouraged)

So... in your view was it because of, or in spite of Shooter that this was such a great period for Marvel?


Feel free also to list any great series you like from this era I might not have listed.

I would argue that the moment of Shooter's departure marked the beginning of "the artist is EVERYTHING" mentality, where storytelling ceased to have as much importance, and Marvel's books under Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, etc., just became 22 pages a month of pin-up pages disguised as a story.

I think Shooter's tenure as editor-in-chief postponed the takeover of that mentality, which after stealing the soul of Marvel, then transplanted itself to Image Comics, and largely infected the entire industry.

Sure Shooter was hated by artists like Marv Wolfman, Roy Thomas, George Perez, Doug Moench, Gene Colan and a few others (who all left for DC, 1980-1982).
Sure Shooter was unquestionably arrogant and a jerk in some of his dealings.
But I think overall he was responsible for a general improvement on the runs of titles under his editorship, bringing consistency and editorial vision to Marvel that it really hadn't seen since Stan Lee left the helm.

I mourned the loss of Thomas' CONAN and Wolfman's TOMB OF DRACULA, Moench/Day's MASTER OF KUNG FU and Moench/Sienkiewicz's MOON KNIGHT. But only MOON KNIGHT was still at its peak when these runs ended under Shooter, and I have to agree that the others had stagnated and weren't as exciting.

Like Infantino's tenure as editor-in-chief at DC (1967-1976), Shooter was an accomplished comics creator who, while not always a nice guy, had a good business sense that arguably made him uniquely qualified to take the helm at Marvel. But not without pissing off and likewise driving away some of Marvel's best talent.

The rise in quality occurred under Shooter. The decline began almost immediately after he was fired. That's pretty conclusive, right there.

Yeah, a few guys like Byrne and Miller butted heads with him. But if you look at their work for Shooter and their work after, most of their best stuff occurred while working for Shooter (the only exceptions being Miller's stuff on Batman in the mid-80s).

Shooter seems to have been lacking in people skills (probably because he came up under the legendarily abrasive Mort Weisinger at DC) but unlike the EIC's who followed him, he understood story structure and insisted on it.

I agree. Byrne's MAN OF STEEL and SUPERMAN were a sharp decline from his FF work just previous to it.

I never heard of Miller having clashes with Shooter. I credit much of the playful humor in Miller's DAREDEVIL run and overall quality of the stories to editor Dennis O'Neil contributing to the plotting. But Miller had originally intended to do his RONIN series for Marvel, until DC gave him (my best Marlon Brando voice) an offer he couldn't refuse. At a convention, he disclosed he was making 300 dollars a page for pencils alone! Plus writing, plus inks, plus royalties...

Maybe you know something I don't, but i never got the impression that Miller left Marvel for DC for any reason other than a great offer. And he did come back when Shooter was still in charge (1985-1986) to do DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN (DD 226-233), and ELECKTRA ASSASSIN 1-8, plus a few other graphic novels and other stories.

I recall Miller getting all bent out of shape with DC (circa 1987) when DC wanted to put warning labels on their "mature" material, along with Wolfman, Chaykin, and Moore. I never saw that as censorship, just letting readers know what they were buying, and thought the four of them were being ridiculous about it.

You are probably right about Miller now that I think about it. I was thinking Marvel was the company he butted heads with over the rating system but it was, in fact, DC.

None of this makes up for him giving us Joe Quesada, IMO.

Or Secret Wars II...

Shooter only used him as an artist. He didn't let the guy write. And that was post-Marvel in any event.

Doesn't matter, started career.

Claremont's X-MEN, John Byrne's FANTASTIC FOUR, DeMatties' "Kraven's Last Hunt" / "Who is the Hobgoblin?" era of SPIDER-MAN, and Walt Simonson's THOR are, for me, the very best MARVEL runs in the 1980's.

The Hulk would find its true voice with Peter David in the late-80's early 90's. Captain America's solo book was all over the place in the 1980's due to various political and public sway of Conservatism, Reagan's America, and the (ultimate) end of the Cold War. Thus, no writer really knew what to do with Steve and keep the wide demographic readers happy. Eventually having him quit to avoid working as a crony for the US Government was probably the truest expression of the character in that decade.

The Avengers are known for the "Korvac Saga" and "Kree-Skrull War" that occurred in the late 70's/early 80's of that book. But, after that, they struggled to find their direction. I think the team went through about three or four "leaders" and creative staff during that era. However, the whole "Masters of Evil/Attack on Avengers Mansion" storyline, where Hyde beat Jarvis near to death and forced Cap to watch (also ripping up Steve's only pic of his own mother, thus forcing tears from the soldier....and my young self....at the end of the story) and put Hercules into the hospital can be considered a true classic of the 80's.

Claremont's X-MEN is its own pinnacle, and I don't think I need to point out how extraordinary was Chris's early vision for this book. It went from a canceled book that published only reprints of itself, to becoming the second-greatest franchise (under Spider-Man, himself) MARVEL Comics has ever managed to create.

Spider-Man books have always, always been a crapshoot. I don't know of any single writer who you can point at just say "HE gets it, he gets Spider-Man" in the same way you can say "Claremont's X-MEN" or "Byrne's FF". But, J. M. DeMatteis gave us a really intense story with "Kraven's Last Hunt". The most serious and honest approach to any Spider-Man villain of the time. It actually revolutionized the way writers treated his rogue's gallery after that, implying and retconning sympathetic and nuanced facets into Doc Ock, Sandman, etc. That alone puts this up there as an 80's Classic. The whole "Who is the Hobgoblin?" mystery from the mid-80's era, before the "Kraven Hunt", was just really damn fun mystery storytelling for its time.

Then there's John Byrne Fantastic Four. He took a very tame, one-dimensional concept book and truly defined what we know as the FF today. This was the era we gained She-Hulk as a priceless Marvel character. This was when the Thing stretched out into his own book. This was when Susan Richards went from "Invisible Girl" to "Invisible Woman". This was the era Franklin was born, we saw what lengths Reed would go to in protecting his family. I could go on, and on, and on. But, if you've never read the sublime John Byrne-era of The Fantastic Four, then you've never actually read The Fantastic Four.

Same goes for Walt Simonson's phenomenal opus in THOR. This man was the writer/artist for an era of Thor that stepped him back and away from the Stan Lee superhero stuff, and steeped the character into a fresh approach to Norse lore. Like reading The Odyssey for the first time, I would compare Thor's journey through Simonson's run as a truly definitive tempering of what makes Thor Odinson tick. Who and what is he, beyond his godly position and royal seat. Not to mention, Walt really fleshed out his adversaries, such as the Enchantress and, mainly, The Executioner. Let's just sum it up like this: Walter Simonson is the only...and I mean only....writer that can get away with making The God of Thunder into a fucking frog for multiple issues, and you come away thinking 'Badass.'. Damn, DAMN good stuff! Highly recommended. I just bought the Omnibus from Amazon. Check it out.

P.S. Fuck Jim Shooter. He was a pompous, bullheaded opportunist who rode his wave of fame on the backs of industry greats.

I think Malice was my first foray into the world of BDSM.

MINE TOO!! I was JUST thinking about Susan Richards possessed by Malice when I was writing about Byrne. Talk about shared childhood memories...

Franklin was born in a Kirby/Lee annual. SHAME ON YOU PRO.

All true, ALL TRUE!!!!!

I meant Susan's second child that miscarried or something....I think? I don't know. I remember Doc Ock and Doom involved. DAMN YOU SWISS CHEESE MEMORY!! NO MORE QUANTUM LEAPING AL(lan1)!! NO MORE!!!!

I know Shooter isn't popular in many circles but Marvel did produce good comics while he was in charge and he gets some credit for that. Without good strong editorial stuff just falls apart. Sure good stories still happen and talented people have more freedom with a weaker editorial hand but as time goes by it just gets to be a messy hodge podge IMHO.

Pretty much. Using Byrne as an example compare his work as edited by Shooter and his work everywhere else.

Shooter was, probably, a good editor-in-chief. Mainly because the more "horror stories" I hear from creators about his tight continuity requirements just means that he was forcing them to do their jobs. I have no beef with that. And, compared to the modern market, appreciate such a (now)quaint idea. But, as a writer, it was absurd he got paid money for anything...

I think it's required that we can't agree on stuff G-man , so I will point out that Byrne did have some good stuff after that. Particullary some limited series like Generations for DC and the one for Marvel that documented the superheroes that appeared before the Fantastic Four. However I concede that for the most part there was a big drop in quality.

As for Shooter, can't help but to admire the guy's talent and hard work. I think he came dang close to making a bunch of obscure Gold Key characters as big as some of the Marvel and DC properties. It was also a treat seeing him back writing the Legion again too. If one of the big two was smart enough they should offer the guy a line of books and let him run with it.

Really? His runs on the Legion and Avengers are really standouts for me personally. Are you thinking more of the Secret Wars stuff?

I am. But, then again, I missed the Shooter-Legion era, and never thought his Avengers stuff was that great. So, maybe I'm in the minority on his writing.

80's Marvel had some of the best stuff but most for me was reading retrospectively because I didn't start collecting until the late 80's with the beginning of the Cap quits/John Walker Cap story,Kraven's Last Hunt and the Evolutionary War Annuals(which really hooked me into the Marvel Universe). I was die-hard Spidey and FF fan first and then branched out as I got more familiar with characters.The first issue of Iron Man's Armor Wars (#225) an issue of Thor in which it was him vs. the Celestials(which made me a fan of Ron Frenz for life). Alex Saviuk was who I preferred as Spidey artist and Romita Jr.s Daredevil was the standard. Byrne was winding down his Superman run before I even knew who he was,but my Dad had given me a huge stack of FF before I started collecting and it was mostly Byrne's take that made me a fan of FF,but I started with the Crystal & Ms. Marvel FF team and still enjoy that run. John Buscema was on Avengers but I loved the West Coast Avengers more.Inferno is the greatest X-Men crossover ever and Spider-Ham is the best back-up feature of all time.

I started with MARVEL back in the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN days when they first introduced characters like 'Hydro-Man' and 'Madame Web'...



But, I didn't branch out into comic books, in general, until I discovered two DC issues at a Kroger grocery store:





Beyond Saturday morning cartoons and "Super Friends", THAT was my introduction to DC Comics and my collecting comic books.



Hell yeah, man! While that's a bit into my collecting era, I totally remember The Captain's run. Walker losing his parents to the White Supremacists (suitably fracturing his already type-a psychological issues and giving Marvel their 'Guy Gardner') was subtly brutal for a Captain America comic. Not to mention, I was constantly waiting for Rogers to just come back and kick his ass. I don't think they fought until...



...right? That was also when they made the Skull Rogers' physical equal, if I remember correctly. Cloned his body, I think? Anyway, it was the kind of progress with the Red Skull that I liked. I mean, I know it's a comic trope to have the hero with the brawn's arch-nemesis be the villain with the brain. But, Batman/Joker is good enough. If Cap is known for being the very best hand-to-hand fighter on Earth, then he should have an arch-nemesis who puts that to the test, every single time. That's why I liked what they did with him in the movie.



Wow. And see, I've always viewed those Evolutionary War issues as some of Marvel's worst annual crossover events. Up there with Atlantis Attacks and World War Hulk. But, each their own. Did you ever read "What If? Vol. 2 #1" from that era? "What If...The High-Evolutionary Won the War"? Where humanity jumped a ladder rung? It was pretty good. Terrible art, though. Probably Al Milgrom.



The Armor Wars was awesome!! Isn't that the run where Tony has the Red-Silver (Centurion) armor and Rhodey has the Red-Gold? Right before that, one of my favorite covers of all times...





Whoa! Memory flashback! That was near when they made Ben Grimm all spiky, right? And didn't that Ms. Marvel chick (this was the one who WASN'T Carol Danvers) also become, like, "She-Thing" or something? I remember Grimm being excited about being able to fucklove another person because she was as ugly as he was. I think.



Amen! Simon Williams FTW!



Insanity! You must have missed The Mutant Massacre...



If Groo the Wanderer never "backed-up" a title, then I agree 100%.

I didn't get into DC until I read an issue of Superman that Byrne wrote and Mike Mignola drew and then the Invasion crossover is what hooked me into the rest of the DCU.

As for Steve Rogers vs. John Walker,the first time they fought was when Walker was Super-Patriot a bit before #332(I think #327 but not positive) but as Captain vs. Captain America,yes #350 was the showdown between the two.Red Skull became major bad-ass and the issue also had a John Byrne drawn back-up explaining how the Skull ended with a cloned body of Steve Rogers.

In hindsight & having re-read the Omnibus,yes the Evolutionary War doesn't hold up that great but for me,all the characters were new and exciting and I had no clue who people were so I still hold it fondly as a story.Yep the What if? issue was better than the whole original story and I dug it immensely.

Red/Silver armor Iron Man is my fave armor hands-down.

I did miss the Mutant Massacre

I don't believe Groo was a back-up and his run in Marvel's Epic line was awesomeness. MULCH!!

My favorite Iron Man armor is the Hulk Buster one, in the sense that its only purpose is to give Hulk something to smash.

Was that the annual? Where the Kryptonite radiation wave was finally reaching Earth, and Supes had to go underground to hope the lead of a mine or something would protect him. He got all fever-induced and beat the shit out of poor Man-Bat. I remember that being a Mignola. I'm sure Grimm could tell you. He has Mignola cataloged in his head like the fucking alphabet. Otherwise, I don't think I remember Mignola & Byrne on Superman. Or at least, I don't remember Byrne writing Superman without drawing him, too.



Just got that in collected trade, as well. Honestly, it doesn't hold up very well. And McFarlane's early art looks dated as hell now. But, it's a near dip back into a DCU that had a more-or-less cohesive universe, with C, D, and E-Listers making A-List status in book plots. The years of Captain Atom being the go-to guy for leadership in the DCU (since Superman was still something of a "newbie").

However, the whole Superman-encounters-The-Daxamites-punch is still pretty awesome.



Right!! Ah memories. I wonder if I still have that issue...hmmm...



Fair enough. That's how I felt about books like CRISIS. I mean, back then, just getting a book with that many "new" characters in it, in a jumping-on point destined to go down in history, how could you not like it?



I just remember humans all get big-brain-heads, and there are panels of ethnic and cultural stereotypes all walking around shaking hands like it's the fucking 'It's a Small World' ride at Disneyland. Neat story, though. Especially for the bullets-over-brains era.



Word. And the movie came so close with the racetrack armor. But, I like the literal "shell-head" design of the Centurion armor.



As a fellow human, I suggest you reading this. It's now considered to be the literal "ending" of the Byrne/Claremont "All New X-Men" era. After that, everything about X-Men changed. And it never quite went back to be the same again.



This is why you are AllanONE and the rest are AllanNONE.

The Byrne/Mignola issue was Superman 20 or something, continuing a short Mignola sequence from Action 600. Mignola also did the World of Krypton mini written by Byrne, which is awesome. This issue is sort of a sequel to that.

Boy I sure hope a famous list comedy website doesn't mock that Captain America/The Captain thing soon.

Yep,it dealt with Superman hitching a ride with Hawkman and Hawkgirl to what looks like a reformed Krypton but turns out to be a buttload of Kryptonite that was pulled back into a planet shape.Supes dons some specialized space suit to check it out and ends up having a kryptonite-fever dream about what would happen if Kryptonians had fled Krypton before the planet exploded.It was a pretty decent "What if?" type story and I rememeber at one panel,Mignola had drawn Jor-El to look so much like a GA/George Reeves looking Superman it was awesome. Anywho,it's what more or less plugged me into the Byrne-era Superman.



(GA=Golden Age)

Pro-I did end up reading Mutant Massacre a long time ago when I was a back-issue huntin' fiend,but I missed it when it first came out so Inferno ended up being my "Gateway"(no pun intended)into the X-Men and therefor my all-time fave X-over.The best thing I did,was to get all the Essential X-Men volumes that collects the whole "All-New X-Men" from Giant-Size #1 up through Inferno(vol. 8 I think).

Right on Invasion.Much like The Evolutionary War,the actual story is dated and doesn't hold very well but at the time it was soooooooo much fun to read and to get every book that Invasion was in(the whole DC Super-Hero line if I remember). It led me to liking Wally West more than Barry Allen as the Flash,the JLI under Giffen/DeMatteis is better than anything currently JL and all the other coolness that went along with the DCU and turned me from being a complete Marvel Zombie.

yeah, the Man-Bat/Mignola sequence is from Action 600. under Byrne, Action was Superman Team-up and 600 was an oversized issue. the main storyline is Superman and WW and iirc they fought Darkseid? I think Perez inked Byrne on that. interesting but weird mix of styles.

Mignola also did the immediate issue of Superman following Byrne's departure with Roger Stern on the script. they followed up a Byrne plot on the Silver Banshee character. good stuff.

Cap 350! Byrne did the backup feature with Red Skull, revealing how he'd gotten a Steve Rogers clone body. yes. this is mainly significant because Keiron Dwyer, who'd taken over art on Cap not too long before was Byrne's stepson at the time, and was living in the same NY apartment that Byrne had lived in when he drew Cap in the late 70's? that's from a Comics Scene interview with Byrne from this time period.

In addition to Editorially managing Marvel, I liked the way Shooter personally jumped in to do the grunt work to improve a series when he felt it was slipping below standards.

Shooter actually pencilled a few issues of SPECTACULAR SPIDERMAN back in 1980-1981, before it picked up an exceptional writer/artist team in Mantlo/Hannigan/Milgrom in issues 59-72.

Before Shooter became editor in chief of Marvel, Shooter had an exceptional (I would argue definitive) run in AVENGERS issues 150-180, mostly with artists Byrne and Perez, with an occasional fill-in issue by others.

Then Michelinie had another exceptional run with Byrne in 181-191, then Michelinie/Perez had a good run too from 192-202, but declining in quality.

Shooter took over writing the series again and made it a very engaging book again from 203-220, despite some very mediocre art (Gene Colan, Bob Hall) on a number of those issues. Where Yellowjacket was wracked with professional jealously, abusing his wife, and otherwise cracking up. I also enjoyed a two-part story (AVENGERS 217-218) Shooter wrote focusing on Tigra, where she doubted her ability and worthiness as an Avenger.

Shooter, along with like-minded writers of his tenure like Roger Stern, Dave Michelinie, Bill Mantlo, and Claremont at his best, fully capture the Stan Lee-brand of quaintness and normalcy that Stan Lee introduced with Silver Age Marvel, where the heroes had flaws and self-doubt and everyday problems, that bred great ability to identify with Marvel's characters, as well as really fun and humorous quirks.

I liked the way Shooter looked for what he percieved as the weak links in Marvel's line, and personally intervened to improve them.
In several cases just listed and others, Shooter's personal contribution drew warranted attention to greatly improved series (AVENGERS and SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN).

Does anyone else remember this issue? I love this one panel of Hulk literally standing on Simon's head, driving it into the ground with the line : "Oof! I wonder what poor people are doing for fun this year?!"

Even as a kid, I found the line odd. But, the scene itself is awesome...

SPOILERS: Hercules ain't Thor. Simon's simply not tough enough. Iron Man is a guy in a tin can. And that's fucking Namor...King of Atlantis...taking the fight into the Nevada Desert. Where there is no water. At all.

Hulk bitch-slaps every single one of them.

because he's the fucking HULK!!!!!!!!!!!

..as drawn by John Byrne!!! Seriously,back in the 80's and early 90's,it seemed Byrne was all over the place,and his all-too brief run on the Incredible Hulk was pretty entertaining stuff.

I recall Byrne had a brief 6-issue run in INCREDIBLE HULK right before he left Marvel to do MAN OF STEEL, SUPERMAN, and ACTION COMICS for DC.

There was a great HULK ANNUAL Byrne did (inked by Bob Layton, 1978, if I recall)

And around the same time as Byrne's INCREDIBLE HULK run, Byrne did an all-splash-page issue Hulk story in MARVEL FANFARE. Fanfare was another project to emerge under Shooter's reign. And a big part of Shooter's great era was the great crop of editors working under him at Marvel at the time: Dennis O'Neil, Jo Duffy, Mark Gruenwald, Archie Goodwin, Louise Jones, and Al Milgrom.

Some of the credit I give to Shooter surely deserves to be shared with them.

Milgrom and his "Editori-Als" were a very fun part of that era, as a part of the books he edited.

Shooter was also influential in MARVEL FANFARE, and in the line of Special Edition reprints, that were among the first published in a high-quality offset printed format:

STARLORD SPECIAL EDITION (Claremont/Byrne/Austin's first collaboration reprinted)
S.H.I.E.L.D. SPECIAL EDITION (Steranko)
CAPTAIN AMERICA SPECIAL EDITION (Steranko)
WARLOCK SPECIAL EDITION (Starlin)
CAPTAIN MARVEL SPECIAL EDITION (Starlin)
DOCTOR STRANGE SILVER DAGGER series (Englehart/Brunner)
MICRONAUTS SPECIAL EDITION (Mantlo/Golden)

This was a first step that led to other offset-printed series, and Epic Comics.

When Shooter took over Marvel in 1978, HULK magazine was black & white and had stories re-exploring early-Marvel-era, circa 1963.

Under Shooter, HULK magazine (issues 10-up) went to single-issue stories that were more interesting and in line with the HULK tv series, with really nice art by Wilson/Alcala, Mcleod, Zeck, and especially the Moench/Sienkiewicz Moon Knight backups, all unprecedentedly colored by Steve Oliff.
Which led to a separate MOON KNIGHT comic book series, that gave us 30 increasingly beautiful issues by the Moench/Sienkiewicz team.

MOON KNIGHT went direct-only in fall 1981.
As did KA-ZAR (Bruce Jones/Brent Anderson).
And MICRONAUTS (Mantlo/Broderick).
All great additions to the emerging direct market, another breakthrough during Shooter's reign.

Yeah, I always felt with whoever was inking him at the time (Austin?) that his stuff was always more....solid, than when he tries to ink himself. I might be misremembering that.

Either way, personally I always enjoyed Byrne's take on comics. Especially when he started taking stabs at the corporate nature that began in that era. I'm sure that plays a part in his lack of spotlight these days (that, and he's a pompous ass at times who burned too many bridges)...

Byrne's inks over his own pencils always seemed rough and sketchy(though to hear him or his "Byrne Victims" on his web-site,nobody does it better than Byrne himself). Inks by Austin or Giordano seemed to complement his style much better. Yes,Byrne delivers a pretty good yarn 90% of the time and you can see he loves old-school super-heroic type adventure when you read his stuff. He also feels he can "fix" characters....sometimes yes(Fantastic Four and Namor),sometimes no(Doom Patrol & Spider-Man:Chapter One).His IDW stuff has been pretty good reading and I enjoy his Star Trek work immensely because he loves TOS and that's always been my preference for Trek. I do think that,although he's been off the radar since he doesn't do any work for the Big Two anymore, Marvel is trying to sway him back without coming out and asking directly.Look at all the Byrne TPBs they've released in the last year or so. She-Hulk,Marvel Team-Up,Spider-Man:Chapter One,Alpha Flight and soon X-Men:The Hidden Years(this is the one that upon being cancelled,Byrne swore he would never again work for Marvel as long as Joe Quesada was in charge)amongst so many others. I can't help it,while I think he is a bitter kind of guy and a bit assy,I'm a sucker for his art so I buy just about anything he works on.

RE: Byrne coming back to Marvel. Right or wrong, he's thirty years past his "hot" era. I don't see him making a comeback now any more than, say, Dick Sprang could have made a comeback in the 1980s.

Oh most certainly it wouldn't be a comeback.Back when him and Claremont did their arc on JLA there was a little fanfare but nothing major about the two of them back together since Byrne left X-Men.

I think Marvel would certainly hype it a bit if Byrne came back to draw,say,Uncanny X-Men or FF but that's about it.

P.S.
Sprang did make a slight comeback in the 90's during a 3 issue arc of Detective Comics,where he did covers and interiors on parts of the story......'twas awesome.

My Dick Sprang!

My John Byrned!

My Peter is Gross!

It's like the names of comic book professionals were made entirely for Lothar's enjoyment.

In THE ART OF JOHN BYRNE, Byrne says that he liked Dan Green the best of those who inked him, because it was closer to Byrne's own rougher inking style. But at his absolute peak in the 1977-1981 period, I'd agree that people like Austin, Layton and others added to Byrne's work by giving his pencils a sharper, cleaner look than Byrne himself would.

But in 1981-1982, Byrne proved how well and how cleanly he could ink his own work, on FF 232-242. And after that point forward his work gradually became looser, so that by the early 1990's I no longer cared what Byrne did.

But up till Byrne left Marvel in 1986, he described himself in editorials up to that point as a proud cog in the Marvel machine. And Marvel was glad to have him. But from the point he announced his contract with DC, Byrne said he was editorially harassed at Marvel, that compelled him to leave earlier than he had planned. He wanted to stay on FF through issue 300 regardless of his Superman contract with DC. But left early because of editorial nit-picking he said never existed before he announced his DC contract.

I recall his INCREDIBLE HULK run was also cut short by this pre-emptive departure.

And his unfinished "Last Galactus Story" in EPIC ILLUSTRATED 26-34.

And I always got the impression Byrne felt this editorial nit-picking was orchestrated by Shooter.

Yep. That's why I used his name as my example. Sprang was still talented and the people who knew comics history were impressed, but the average reader was, like, "who"?

Byrne said he's gonna "leave the planet" in the year 2020. It's on Bleeding Cool. People think he's gonna kill himself, but I like to imagine him raising his arms and flying into space to rejoin his race.

The first two are 80's prime Byrne. The latter are "now"...

(clickable)

I love Byrne art. Is the Doom/JLA pic from some story I somehow missed?

superman lost the drug war

SUPERMAN YOU FUCKING IDIOT, PAY ATTENTION TO THE DRUG WAR

I like how, by the 80's, Superman had dealt with all the "crooks, spies, and weirdos" using his "supernatural" powers. Cause, he shits magic. And gift cards to Banana Republic...

Also, ever notice when Byrne had Jerry Ordway inking, it was the only time his characters looked like they had a soul?

He does commissions, I believe...

And RE: the JLA/Doom pic, let's be clear here. If that's actually Superman, the Flash, Wonder Woman, AND Green Lantern lying beaten (and in Barry's case, converting to Christianity), then Batman's ten seconds from instant-death. Fact.

Only people like Rob and John Byrne like Batman.

Pft.

I vaguely remember the 50th birthday special on TV when I was a kid.

batman is responsible for their beatings.

doom just stopped in to prop up wonder woman, ask her what happened.

the flash is trying to warn doom that batman is coming back.

Jim Shooter also started the Marvel Graphic Novel line.
http://www.comics.org/series/2658/covers/


Although I believe Eclipse's SABRE (by Moench/Gulacy) in 1978 was the first actual U.S. graphic novel, followed by some collections from Heavy Metal, before Marvel released Starlin's DEATH OF CAPTAIN MARVEL in late 1981.

I was equally if not more blown away by the second Marvel graphic novel, ELRIC (by Roy Thomas and Craig Russell), in early 1982.

And likewise Starlin's painted DREADSTAR graphic novel later in 1982.

These three set a high benchmark. And there were other great graphic novels from Marvel after, but beyond that they were not as consistently good, and became more hit-and-miss.


Graphic novels were another nice innovation on Shooter's watch, that was contracted with creator ownership on any new characters created in their graphic novel stories.
(At that point many creators were flocking to Pacific and Eclipse to do creator-owned work. And I don't know the precise order, but Shooter may have presented creator rights through EPIC ILLUSTRATED and the Marvel Graphic Novels because he believed in creator rights, or just because he was was struggling to offer competitive royalties.)

It was also on Shooter's watch that the best Marvel/DC crossover was published, the July 1982 X-MEN/TEEN TITANS book by Claremont/Simonson/Austin.


A great finale to an incredible summer of material from Marvel.

including:

Layton's first HERCULES miniseries,
the first WOLVERINE miniseries by Claremont/Miller/Rubinstein,
some great work on DOCTOR STRANGE with Roger Stern, Marshall Rogers and Michael Golden,
a particularly good Fu Manchu storyline in MASTER OF KUNG FU 114-118 by Doug Moench and Gene Day,
a building greatness in Stern/Romita Jr's AMAZING SPIDERMAN run, just before Hobgoblin was introduced in issue 238,
a wonderful Mantlo/Hannigan/Milgrom run on SPECTACULAR SPIDERMAN that had just produced Cloak & Dagger in a few sporadic appearances (but pre-miniseries),
continued perfection in EPIC ILLUSTRATED, having just concluded Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey.

And tons of other great stuff.

I'm giving you genuine points for that one, Robert. Now kiss me.

Time magazine claims it was Will Eisner's "A Contract with God." Others claim it was Arnold Drake's It Rhymes with Lust, from waaay back in 1950. Others argue it was Gil Kane's Blackmark

I've heard of all but Arnold Drake's graphic novel.

I think Eisner's A CONTRACT WITH GOD came out in 1978 also, and I have heard it said that it was the first graphic novel. It was Eisner who coined the term "sequential art", and he may have coined the term graphic novel as well.
I honestly never liked either of those terms, that I always felt were the beginnings of terminology that by the 1990's transformed comics from a fun and playfully inventive but under-appreciated art form in the 40's, 50's, 60's, 70's and early 80's, into a much more somber, dark, pretentious and much less fun medium by the 1990's.


They also used to call them "European graphic albums", where Moebius, Druillet and the like were producing 9" X 12" graphic albums in the 70's, before others in the U.S. followed and began publishing in that format.

I recall in late 1981, the first of that type in the U.S. I purchased were called "British albums" reprinting Steranko's CAPTAIN AMERICA, and Neal Adams' X-MEN, in 9 X 12" hardcovers.


Regarding the beginnings of Marvel Graphic Novels under Shooter, as I recall, Starlin approached Marvel about doing "Death of Captain Marvel" and doing it as a special graphic novel, and instead of just a one-shot, became an ongoing line of graphic novels.

Another by McGregor/Russell was to be a serialized Killraven story in EPIC ILLUSTRATED, but was instead collected and done as a one-shot graphic novel instead. You can pick up on the serialized original format in the very clear chapter divisions in the KILLRAVEN graphic novel.

Not the way Byrne says it. He hated the way ordway inked his work.

Well, sure. From Byrne's perspective, John Byrne was the best artistis choice for John Byrne's style of art. Personally, I like it. It screams "DC Byrne" to me in a way his Marvel work doesn't. Who was inking his FF run? Himself or Austin? Because, even compared to his X-Men era, FF and Man of Steel remain his absolute solid art runs for my money...

I think Austin and Ordway inked most of his FF run.

Ah. I never remembered Jerry Ordway doing much work for MARVEL. But, then again, I smoke pot.

Does anyone know the true story of why Byrne left SUPERMAN? His runs never seem to end "properly". Except, I guess, his X-Men run. But, he quit West Coast Avengers almost immediately (still don't know why) and for rebooting the most important comic book character ever, he only stayed...what...two years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byrne_(comics)

I may be wrong but I think Byrne himself inked most of his FF issues, and then Ordway came in at the end when he couldn't be arsed to finish them. Also, when did Ordway ink him at DC? Ordway was the artist in Adventures of Superman when Byrne was writing it, but I don't think he ever drew an issue.

This is the laziest conversation ever because any one of us could go to comics.org and verify this information.

I was talking about that TIME magazine cover up top. Looks like Ordway inks. If I remember correctly (?) Jerry O did some inks on John B's somewhere in the middle there between Actions, Adventures of, and the annuals and such. I could be wrong.

I was working on this tonight. This is my favorite Johnny B era. When he was fresh starting on Superman. Lot of energy in his work...

Under Shooter, there was a greater sense of fun at Marvel, not just of the writers and artists, but also behind-the-scenes editorials and interviews that gave a feel for the personalities of editorial staff at Marvel, as well as the writers and artists.

Books like KA-ZAR and MOON KNIGHT had behind-the scenes photos of the staff in their offices, along with humorous versions of their conversations in preparing the stories each issue.
Likewise with Al Milgrom and his "Editori-Al" one-pagers in MARVEL FANFARE, WARLOCK SPECIAL EDITION, CAPTAIN MARVEL SPECIAL EDITION and so forth.

Likewise also in Dennis O'Neil's editorials in BIZARRE ADVENTURES and elsewhere.

And in Archie Goodwin's illustrated editorials for Marvel's Epic Comics line.

I think this was the first time I really got a feel of what it was like for writers and artists to get together in an office with an editor and have a plot conference, and work together to fine-tune an issue through various stages of production.
And how fun it could be.

I think the photo-features that went on for years in various direct-market Marvel comics and magazines finally reached their peak with the one-shot MARVEL FUMMETTI BOOK.



One of a number of humorous releases that put a spotlight on Marvel's staff, and the atmosphere behind the scenes at Marvel. And the resultant good times.

I wish this had been printed on glossy paper. Because a lot of these photos, printed on the usual comics newsprint, lost clarity they otherwise might have had.
But fun regardless.

The best of the playful one-shot titles under Shooter was FANTASTIC FOUR ROAST, written by Hembeck, and with art by the creative teams of all the Marvel titles at that time, including:

Miller/Janson DAREDEVIL
Byrne FF
Sienkiewicz MOON KNIGHT
Romita Jr/Layton IRON MAN
Duffy/Gammill/Villamonte POWER MAN/IRON FIST
Jones/Anderson KA-ZAR
Moench/Gene Day MASTER OF KUNG FU

And many others, including several gorgeous pages by Michael Golden.

It's a nice slice of Marvel's entire monthly line at that time, capturing the creative atmosphere at Marvel. I'm sure everyone involved had a lot of fun doing it.

but in that two year period, he wrote and drew two monthly Superman books, then took over writing duties on the third book as well. he did a shitload of Superman stories in that two year period.

Any particular reason for hijacking a topic about Shooter's editorial reign at Marvel, to talk for several pages about Byrne's work at DC, and constantly changing the title to "Marvel in the 80's" ?

A better alternative might be to talk in this topic about, y'know, stuff created at Marvel under Jim Shooter here. And create a separate topic to talk about Byrne's work at DC.

Just sayin'.

I have to agree. A guy who (in 1965) studied what he considered superior writing techniques for several months in the competing Marvel comics, then submitted work in that style to DC, and began working professionally writing the Legion series in ADVENTURE COMICS and other Superman titles for editor Mort Weisinger when Shooter was still only 13 years old. That alone is amazing.

Then to work again for DC and Marvel in the 1970s, write popular runs of SUPERBOY/LEGION, AVENGERS and other titles, then manage Marvel so well from 1978-1987.
And then to repeat the magic at Valiant.
And then repeat it again at Defiant...

This is not a guy who like Bob Kane or Stan Lee has ridden on others' coat-tails and stolen the glory. This is a guy who has repeatedly done the hard work and delivered the goods.

But when you look at how he was similarly leveraged out of Valiant/Acclaim and Defiant, it does manifest a certain pattern of resentment for his personal style, despite his clear talent.

No one "hijacked" anything, David. Just turns out that everyone is interested in talking about other things. No one is stopping you and G-Man from talking about old, obscure comic things. Topics evolve. And, since I know you have me on "Ignore" () I'm sure you didn't realize we were participating IN your Shooter discussion. It just kept going without you.

Now, stop and join in the topic at hand. Or be ignored. Your choice.

Another fun book from Shooter's era, the NO-PRIZE BOOK.



Looking back with humor at 25 or so years of continuity and editorial errors in various Marvel titles up till that time.

Each worthy of a Marvel No-Prize from the reader perceptive enough to catch them and write a letter to point them out.

Oh, yeah, the "no prize" book. All of Marvel's biggest goofs in one issue. I still remember this classic:

I didn't know Captain America's secret identity was actually the suicide-prone Colonel Flagg from M.A.S.H!

Yeah, I 'hear' Flagg's voice whenever I read those panels too.

That is true. I always forget about Adventures, and consider that (primarily) Ordway's book. I remember there was a real kinetic disconnect between Adventure and Action. Not always, but right at first. I kind of liked it, to be honest.

BTW, Amazon has the John Byrne Fantastic Four Omnibus on sale for $75 right now.... http://www.amazon.com/Fantastic-Four-Joh...id=9P11DMVE4QA6

I've been told by many that SECRET WARS written by Jim Shooter (the first limited series) was well done.

But that Shooter's second series was a disaster.

I wouldn't know, since I never liked the whole crossover thing where you have to buy every issue to know what's going on, and it's by all different writers and artists and therefore not consistent. It's not my thing, the whole crossover event mentality.

But for those who like that sort of thing, everyone I spoke to who's into that seems to have a good opinion of the first SECRET WARS. And that again speaks for Shooter's editorial ability, that he could conceive and pull off something like that. Something that has been imitated year after year as an annual event for decades now, at both Marvel and DC.

The entire Valiant universe was one big crossover, and I loved it.

Yeah, you've been "told that" by my initial posts in this thread that you pretend you're ignoring, and that everyone else responded to which allowed us to have a conversation about the subject which wasn't dictated by your nostalgia-wank of obscure crap.

Oh and CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS by Marv Wolfman and George Perez is what actually created the crossover industry. SECRET WARS was there, too, but not as prominent of an impact. Mainly because SECRET WARS was a toy tie-in and CRISIS was a necessity of story and content. Both accomplished something. But, CRISIS is always the one referenced as the title that changed the industry. SW is referenced as the title that showed marketing tie-ins can make cash...

Speaking of how crappy Jim Shooter could be, I noticed no one's brought up NEW UNIVERSE....

Kickers Inc. RAWKED!!

I was TOTALLY going to mention KICKERS, INC. in the joke!! Personally, I was a STABRAND kind of guy. Nothing like Romita Jr.s blocky-ass art to remind you his dad got all the talent in that family...

Well to be fair,I enjoyed the Romita Jr./Bob Layton team on Iron Man and to me Romita Jr. is my definitive Daredevil artist.His run on Amazing Spider-Man with JMS was good and his run on Thor with Jurgens was awesome.However I have not enjoyed him on Avengers since it's relaunch.Win some/lose some I suppose.

Some New Universe stuff wasn't all that bad,but is so rooted in the 80's that it's like reading Secret Wars II over and over(see how I snuck in that Shooter reference? )

Finally:


JOHN BYRNE!!!!

Fair enough on the Romita Jr. He's never been my cup of tea, but I respect his run on Daredevil with Ann Nocenti. Everything else, though, just brings me memories of over-inking.

Fact: John Byrne once punched Jim Shooter in the mouth.

Thanks for the Shooter reference!

The Michelinie/Romita Jr./Layton run on IRON MAN (issues 115-156, with a few issues pencilled by Bingham in there) was my favorite run in the 1978-1982 period, even over the Claremont/Byrne/Austin X-MEN run.

In the early years I really liked Romita Jr's style a lot. His work was tighter and cleaner, and it continued that way when he worked on AMAZING SPIDERMAN from 1982-1984 (issues 224-250, with Roger Stern)

Why these books haven't been canonized in hardcovers yet is a mystery to me.

After that, Romita Jr's style began to mutate and get looser, when Romita Jr. began runs on X-MEN and DAREDEVIL. And I like that looser style by Romita Jr. too, arguably better in some ways. But the IRON MAN and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN runs are the Romita Jr issues I treasure.

Nocenti really proved herself as a writer on her issues with Romita Jr on DAREDEVIL. Particularly a 3-issue storyline where Daredevil, in a sureal dream-like story, went to a Hell frozen over (issues 290-292? Somewhere around there) where all his nightmares and childhood fears became monstrously real and attacked him.
Although I thought Al Williamson's inks were rather lackluster over Romita Jr's art. (Equally lackluster on SOLOMON KANE 3-6, and over Mignola on FAHFRED AND GREY MOUSER 1-3).
But Williamson when inking himself is one of the best in the business. See the FLASH GORDON movie adaptation (1980), the Star Wars (EMPIRE STRIKES BACK and JEDI) and BLADERUNNER movie adaptations in MARVEL SUPER SPECIAL (1980, 1982, 1983) and the collected Dark Horse trades of his STAR WARS comics and newspaper strips.


Of the New Universe stuff, I liked STARBRAND the best, written by Shooter, with art by Romita Jr. The character was possibly Shooter writing himself as a superhero. It was a guy who was unnaturally tall, (like Shooter) who was from Pittsburg (like Shooter). Not the best effort by either Shooter or Romita Jr., but still fun reading. And at the end of the run, John Byrne (just back from DC/Superman) took over the series and took the series in a different direction up till the series concluded. As I recall, it didn't come to a full conclusion, and appeared to be cancelled abruptly, unresolved.

The other New Universe stuff was a bit too trendy for me, a lot of bad attitude, big guns and mediocre art.

In that period, I was more into Marvel's Epic Comics line, books like MOONSHADOW (DeMatteis/Muth), BLACK DRAGON (Claremont/Bolton), DREADSTAR (by Starlin, at this point moved over to First Comics), SIX FROM SIRIUS, I and II (Moench/Gulacy) and GROO (Evanier/Aragones).

And the occasional Marvel Graphic Novel here and there.

After Shooter's departure, Peter David's INCREDIBLE HULK was the only monthly series I was still buying. And for a little while THOR, but I think Simonson's run ended shortly after Shooter left. And GROO from the Epic line, both of which (HULK and GROO) lasted till 1994 or so.

How hard are you having to work to talk around me? It makes you look crazier, you know that right? Replying to nobody...

The crossover-continuity thing works well when its a publisher with only 10 or so titles. That's why Silver-Age Marvel was so successful, when Marvel only had JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, TALES TO ASTONISH, TALES OF SUSPENSE, STRANGE TALES, FF, SPIDER-MAN, AVENGERS, X-MEN, SGT FURY, and a few other titles.

Likewise, I've enjoyed many small-publisher crossover events, because it's easier to keep it all cohesive. Such as TOTAL ECLIPSE, or the inter-connected Defiant titles.

When it expands to 40 or more titles a month, it becomes less manageable and consistent. When Marvel doubled its line overnight in the early 70's, continuity began to fall apart.

Shooter's editorial reign was an attempt to reign in that lack of editorial cohesiveness. Marv Wolfman and Roy Thomas (each editor/writers of several titles) almost had their own separate companies within Marvel comics.


Conversely and undermining my own argument, I loved DC in the 70's, where instead of having one single "DC universe" there were a wide array of separate worlds, all interesting:
a Kirby Fourth World universe;
a Kamandi universe;
a Demon universe;
a Bob Haney BRAVE & THE BOLD/Murray Boltinoff universe;
a loose Julius Schwartz-edited heroes universe;
a Joe Orlando-edited DC mystery titles universe;
a Joe Kubert edited World War I and II universe;
Earth-S for the Shazam heroes,
Earth-X where the former Quality Comics heroes like the Ray, Dollman, Uncle Sam, and Phantom Lady were still fighting Nazis in the 70's,
and a few other universes.

So lack of cohesion can be interesting too!

But I liked the renewed cohesion that Shooter was striving for during his reign, that I thought worked quite well and brought new energy to Marvel during most of his tenure.

I love the fact that the entire universe exists as it did because one guy wished that he was a superhero.

Ohhh, right. You can even see Ordway's signature in there.

Also, I'd never seen this before:



Apparently the magazine came with a comic supplement. And who the hell invited Lex Luthor to Superman's birthday? They're like "you can come, Luthor, but you have to stay in the kitchen".

Also, the smashed wall probably made the total cost of the surprise party skyrocket.

"Honestly, Aquaman, I guess you're invite just got lost in the mail."

-Everybody

Five seconds later the room collapsed from the structural damage Superman caused.

What the fuck is he smiling for? It's like he already knew. Probably either a) saw the party through the wall with his X-ray vision or b) was told about it as Clark Kent. Either way, he's still a dick for breaking through the wall.

Batman looks like he hopes noone noticed the nasty fart he just left.

On a side note,that issue of Time is what prompted me to look into the Superman books.I figured I should at least check 'em out with the 50th thing going on.

Martian Manhunter also has a weird look on his face. Guess we know why Robin's eyes are so big.

Fucking. Gold.

BTW, who's the guy in drag playing the part of "Lois"?

And, what a bitch. Love of his life, and she won't even join in with the "Happy Birthday" welcome...

Unless that's HER apartment he just wrecked. And she's like, "Where's Clark? I want to abuse a man..."

That picture also brings into question how anyone knew it was his birthday.

Super: "I was born on the 43rd day in the 4983rd cycle of the Kryptonian calendar."
Lois: "Um... okay, March 14th it is."

Lois is an idiot, she should have guessed his identity from the fact that Lana and Pete Ross are there for no reason. He was never Superboy in this reality.

And the fact that Superman has the same birthday as Clark Kent.

Byrne drawing Superman while still at Marvel (Dec 1982)





...and revisiting in 1987.

http://fantasy-ink.blogspot.com/2011/06/where-is-lois.html

From PLOP # 5

Marvel under Shooter's reign was filled with people who grew up on the Silver Age material from both Marvel and DC (Roger Stern, Bill Mantlo, John Byrne, Walt Simonson, Frank Miller, Chris Claremont, etc.) who all did work that was tribute to what they grew up with, while also a creative expansion of the Lee/Kirby/Ditko-era material, and arguably the definitive runs on the titles they revitalized in a Silver Age direction (Byrne's FF, Claremont/Cockrum/Byrne X-MEN, Mantlo/Hannigan/Milgrom SPECTACULAR SPIDERMAN, Stern/Romita Jr. AMAZING SPIDERMAN 224-250, Simonson's THOR, Stern/Rogers/Golden/Smith, etc. DOCTOR STRANGE 46, 48-73)

Shooter is of one mind with these guys, in the way he revitalized Legion in a Lee/Kirby Marvel direction in 1965-1970.

When these retroactive revitalizations began at Marvel, similar treatment spilled over into many DC characters.

Levitz/Giffen's LEGION 285-306 followed in a similar revitalization, that likewise manifests a simultaneous recapturing of the series' earliest roots, while also injecting new direction and energy into Legion.
And Levitz/Giffen arguably did it as well or better than the guys doing the same at Marvel.

All these series remain among my all-time favorites.

And the fact that they look like each other if the other one wasn't wearing a pair of glasses.

Also, consider this: He's Superman. The greatest hero Earth has ever seen.

There are a total of 12 people at his birthday party. His 50th, at that. Talk about lonely? He's going to rape half that room in the next ten seconds. And only Flash will notice...

Batman never attends a surprise party unprepared. He is fully prepared to rape back.

Byrne ripped off Dragonball!

"Shooter Under Oath!", the poster-worthy wraparound cover of COMICS JOURNAL 115, that transcribed the court testimony from Michael Fleisher's lawsuit against the COMICS JOURNAL.





By Don Simpson, with a nice Silver-Age Marvel flavor. And the widest range of mainstream and underground/alternative and international characters I've ever seen in one drawing.

A larger view of the back cover:




Fleisher sued because of a Harlan Ellison interview in COMICS JOURNAL 53 (1980), where Ellison described Fleisher as "crazy as a bedbug", which was actually praising Fleisher's off-the-wall imagination of his ADVENTURE COMICS (Spectre) and JONAH HEX/WEIRD WESTERN stories. It turned out Fleisher was seeing a psychiatrist 3 times a week!

Fleisher alleged that the defamation had hurt Fleisher's writing career. Shooter testified on behalf of Fleisher, against the JOURNAL. But regardless, Fleisher lost his case, because it turned out his wages doubled during the 1980-1987 period of the defamation lawsuit!

I actually think Gerry Conway and Don Heck were the two most savaged in the interview, who should have been suing.

From EPIC ILLUSTRATED during Shooter's reign...




I highly recommend DREADSTAR:THE BEGINNING hardcover, reprinting Jim Starlin's very nice painted artwork from "Metamorphosis Odyssey" in EPIC ILLUSTRATED 1-9 (1980-1981), THE PRICE graphic novel from Eclipse (Oct 1981), and DREADSTAR graphic novel for Marvel (1982), along with a 24-page painted story in EPIC ILLUSTRATED 15 (Dec 1982), that served as a lead-in to the DREADSTAR comics series in 1982 (which was a return by Starlin to pen-and-ink comic art and abandonment of painted art).

About 225 pages, and exceptional story and art.



It gains a great deal in this collected hardcover format. My only complaint is it's 7" X 10", and I would have preferred it in slightly larger 8" X 11" size, as the original EPIC and Graphic Novel stories were.

In hindsight as much as I loved Byrnes Marvel work, he was the worst thing to happen to. Superman since kryptonite

Byrne's Superman work for DC is more pleasant if you think of it as an Elseworlds storyline.

And it didn't have much impact on Superman or DC after Byrne left.
Although I think what followed was far worse. Superman with a ponytail, and the whole pretentious "Death of Superman/Funeral For a Friend" wankery. I don't think Superman was ever less interesting.

I liked all the Superman titles up through the electric Supes stuff. After that it started going down hill just got worse wen Johns came on. I gave up the titles for a few years.

I'm more of a Swan/Anderson Superman reader myself. I especially liked the "Kryptonite no more" story (Superman "Sandman" series, beginning in SUPERMAN 233, by O'Neil/Swan/Anderson).

I also love Superman in the Kirby JIMMY OLSEN run (133-148), that with a lot of action and humor, played all the elements that make Superman exciting, both the science-fiction/time travel/interdimensional travel, as well as the more charming down-to-earth Superman/Clark Kent dynamic with all the characters at the Daily Planet. Kirby played both aspects well.

Kirby's FOREVER PEOPLE # 1 was especially effective in detailing Superman's dual identity.


Shooter's issues of SUPERBOY/LEGION with Mike Grell (issues 209-224, circa 1975-1977) were an interesting approach to Superman(Superboy). He left to edit for Marvel very abruptly, and left a storyline unresolved.




I was a huge Roger Stern fan on AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 224-250, and DR STRANGE 46-73.

And I would have been into his Superman run as well, except that they took the 4 superman titles after Byrne left, and smashed them together as one incongruous weekly series with 4 creative teams, instead of (as it was before 1986) 4 separate titles with 4 separate and unique creative approaches.
I would have loved to see Stern's vision alone, without it being diluted as one monthly chapter of a 4-part never-ending storyline.

I've periodically bought issues of the Superman titles over the last 20 years, and despite some nice art, the stories have been consistently disappointing. The new crop of writers don't seem to have a grasp of what to do with Superman.




One of the most interesting versions of Superman I've seen was in 1982-1985 by Marv Wolfman and Gil Kane (starting in ACTION COMICS 539-541), 544-546, and 552-554, and in several more SUPERMAN SPECIAL issues 1 (1983) and 2 (1984) issues with story and art by Gil Kane, and DC COMICS PRESENTS ANNUAL 3 by Roy Thomas and Gil Kane). A very interesting and unconventional Superman rendition.

I wondered what was different about Kane's work in this period, but the difference is he was inking his own work. And looking at Kane's BLACKMARK from about 10 years prior, his work was not different, he was just showing his long-established magic when doing complete art himself, without an inker getting in the way!

Some of Gil Kane's other interesting series work in this early 80's era was SWORD OF THE ATOM, and 1981-1982 run in CONAN THE BARBARIAN 127-130, (and inked by others in 131-134) and a CONAN ANNUAL 6 (1981) in the same period. Although the CONAN writing on those issues by Bruce Jones was unspectacular.
Jones really broke out in that period with his 1981 KA-ZAR run, with Brent Anderson (issues 1-19), and the magic of Bruce Jones' run continued was if anything even better with Bret Blevins art (issues 20-26).



In the late 70's/early 80's Marvel was way outperforming DC under Shooter's reign. Then there was a steady exodus of people from Marvel who hated Shooter, like Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, Marv Wolfman, George Perez, Doug Moench, Gene Day, Gil Kane, that were revitalizing DC with Marvel-style storytelling. By 1987, DC was out-marvelling Marvel!
For a while, the magic was all over at (driven to) DC.
The Shooter giveth, the Shooter taketh away...

Although possibly much of that talent wasn't fleeing from Shooter, but fleeing to self-publishing at Pacific, Eclipse, and First, to competitive offers at DC (certainly the case in Frank Miller's defection to DC), and later to Image Comics and elsewhere, where they made a ton more money.

Money being the most powerful force in any comic universe.

Master of Slap-Fu. You don't want to see his devastating Windmill attack.

A 3-part retrospective of Shooter's reign at Marvel, that clearly argues the "great BECAUSE of Shooter" POV, and deconstructs some of the negative stories aimed at Shooter.

http://www.hoodedutilitarian.com/2013/01/jim-shooter-a-second-opinion-part-one-the-best-job-he-can/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Isabella




Man, if that's just one of three incidents, I'd love to know the other two!

I don't know too many people who wouldn't need to be restrained from violently attacking someone after being wronged like that.

And this kind of treatment by editors seemed pretty common at Marvel in the 1970's period:
* I recently quoted one by Wrightson, at the hands of Roy Thomas.
* Another I can recall is Craig Russell, regarding a DOCTOR STRANGE ANNUAL he labored on for 4 years, where Marv Wolfman was the writer/editor assigned to script it, who arbitrarily butchered the final book without even telling Russell about it.
* Jim Starlin left Marvel in 1977 after a similar clash with Shooter.
Kirby in his 1976-1978 return to Marvel was widely mocked behind his back by editors, and as Kirby said in interviews, felt the editors selected overwhelmingly negative fan letters to run in his books to undermine him.
* When Dave Cockrum resigned from Marvel because of the backstabby atmosphere, some prankster ran his resignation letter as butler Jarvis' resignation letter to Tony Stark in an IRON MAN story.

Which pretty much explains the exodus of talent from Marvel to DC in the 1980-1985 period.

Although DC in those years had its share of similar incidents.

Isabella was/is an angry little shithead in real life.

I met Isabella and another writer R.A. Jones at San Diego Con years ago, and spent the better part of an hour talking to them. They were both very friendly and enthusiastic guys, I didn't get that vibe at all. They've both done work that I really enjoyed.

What did I miss about Isabella that indicates otherwise?

I did a little looking on my own:

https://boundingintocomics.com/2018/08/0...n-twitter-rant/




Okay, that definitely qualifies...

https://www.cbr.com/most-epic-comic-book-creator-feuds/

http://www.byrnerobotics.com/FAQ/listing.asp?ID=3&T1=Questions+about+Aborted+Storylines#64


Just happened to run across it in my internet travels.

Byrne did the MAN OF STEEL miniseries 1-6, then SUPERMAN 1-22 story and art. (issue 18 was Byrne story, Mignola art. Issue 23, the issue after Byrne left, was Roger Stern story, Mignola art). After that Stern wrote the series for a year or so.
Byrne also provided story or art on many other Superman series and miniseries, especially notewrthy on ACTION COMICS 584-600, and LEGENDS miniseries 1-6. I wasn't in love with everything Byrne did on Superman, but I'll say this, he did come up with a wide range of original ideas, however well (or not) they were carried out. And it was an extremely prolific two years of new series and concepts from Byrne on Superman.

Earlier in the topic I said that Byrne's run on Superman works better if you think of it as an "Elseworlds" storyline. From Byrne's own answer, it turns out that's how DC's management saw his run, for the entire duration that it was conceived and published. . For all the heralded pretense of changing and "re-booting" Superman, it turns out that for DC management, they had a complete loyalty to the licensed version of Superman that preceded Byrne's run, and they never had any plans to make Byrne's version have any meaningful permanence. I still think it was a worthy effort on Byrne's part, regardless of DC not believing in it. But I felt after roughly 2 years, it has run its course. And while I liked some of it, I felt Byrne's work on X-MEN, AVENGERS, CAPTAIN AMERICA, and especially his one-man show on FANTASTIC FOUR were all miles above his SUPERMAN run.

I quite liked his Superman run. It seemed fresh:

* Superman was depicted as capable of being in genuine danger. Metallo would have killed him in the very first issue but for the intervention of Lex Luthor. Bloodsport would have shot Superman in the back of the neck with a sliver of kryptonite but for lucky intervention by Bloodsport's brother. Superman was capable of being beaten up. It was in stark contrast to the omnipotence of the character pre-Byrne.
* Clark Kent wasn't a dork: he was a big ex-football player from the mid-West who attracted women like Cat Grant.
* Cat Grant herself was a new character who was sort of a foil to Lois Lane.
* Lex Luthor's motivation to hate Superman wasn't the loss of his hair in his teens. It was driven by hubris - Superman embarrassed him by causing to be arrested and fingerprinted like some common crook. It was realistic.
* There wasn't kryptonite lurking behind every fire hydrant. There was only one shard, and Luthor had it.

Byrne's run on X-Men was actually mostly Claremont's run with some creative input from Byrne (the two ended up hating each other). I never read Byrne's Cap or Avengers other than that weird story where Scarlet Witch's kids become fiery devil hands. But yes, Byrne's FF was excellent. There was a sense of adventure which had been missing from the title for a long time.

As to the re-boot, there was a ceremony where "the Superman pen" was formally handed from I think Julius Schwartz or Curt Swan to Byrne. Maybe I read too much into that at the time, but it seemed like a real changing of the guard. Byrne is a little wrong on his analysis: many of the concepts he introduced into the Superman comic book were perpetuated: Superman was trounced by the Fearsome Five, for example, and Superman's execution of the pocket universe Kryptonians had very long-lasting repercussions including mental illness and going into exile in space (Dan Jurgens i think ran with this).

Oh and I see you've started looking at the Comicsgate shitshow. I had thought it had died off, but some recent Twitter activity suggests otherwise.

If nothing else, it has made Ethan van Scriver a fucking truckload of money. His comic Cyberfrog is pretty much funded by Comicsgate supporters. Cyberfrog is a TMNT rip-off with lovely art and a mediocre story about a cybernetic frog and a salamander flighting an alien wasp invasion, delivered a year late. But Van Scriver so effectively harnessed the Comicsgate community that he apparently raised about $1m by way of crowdfunding.

I'm pretty cynical about what that means - an average book raises an enormous amount of money from the creator's ideological followers, who refer to him using the words "Hail Caesar!".

There was some weird stuff in that wiki-index of Byrne's Superman titles, but at least it gives an overview and index of the issues he did.

I like Van Sciver's art (I think he's a Mormon from Utah), but I'm a bit repelled by him as a cog completely embedded in the DC machine, similar to people like Dan Jurgens or Geoff Johns or Dan Didio, where their stories are basically fan fiction that is completely derivative of work by people who preceded them, where they're just milking what others have done better, and all they offer is a re-tread of stories done better by others.

I like Van Sciver's art, but I'm hard pressed to recall a story accompanying Van Sciver's art that was actually worth reading. That's my complaint with most of the industry over the last 25 years or so, not just Van Sciver or DC. The characters now are corporate assets, and there's vvery little change or innovation permitted with these now-very-valuable and established characters. And they re-boot the continuity every few years with some new marketing campaign, with very little concern at this point to preserving the long-time continuity and history of the characters for longtime readers.


On the Byrne-Superman front and passing the pen, I haven't heard of that before, I like the concept of a reverent passing of the creative torch. There's a Moore/Swan SUPERMAN: WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE MAN OF TOMORROW? trade (1997), that has an introduction with photos of Julius Schwartz with Jerry Siegel, John Byrne with Curt Swan, and a third with Curt Swan, Kurt Schaffenberger, Julius Schwartz and Murphy Anderson together, that for me was as worth purchasing for these as for the story itself!

My point either with mentioning Byrne, or mentioning other creators' troubles with Shooter, is for whatever fun and creative aspects of comics, it's still a business, and whether making tough intellectual property-related decisions, or just having someone in charge who has an ego or doesn't play well with others, it can also be argued that they did what was best to protect their business interests and preserve the company and the jobs of everyone with what they did.
And obviously, others will hotly disagree.

And that Shooter is far from alone in having bad-blood accounts of his being difficult to work with. Even the likes of Bob Kane, Stan Lee, Jack Liebowitz, Joe Simon, Jack Kirby, Mort Weisinger, Julius Schwartz, Murray Boltinoff, Steve Ditko, Roy Thomas, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway and many other stars in the firmament have been both the ones who complained of being mistreated, and had others complain they were they were the ones who wronged others.

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Jim Shooter: From Comics Superstar to Outcast


It's amazing how many times Shooter has been fired as head of a company, or how many times a company he has led went bankrupt. And each time he comes roaring back with new investors, another company, or another line of comics and characters. He must be a remarkably confident guy, to have endured those kind of failures, and be able to so quickly re-group and come back with a different set of ideas to market. And certainly has had many remarkable successes as well. Sometimes replaced despite his success (Et tu, Bob Layton?)

I missed the symbolism at the time of blowing up Philadelphia (Shooter's hometown) in STARBRAND (scripted by Byrne).
And Byrne's outdoor cookout with Marvel staffers where they burned a life-size Jim Shooter in effigy, just prior to his being fired as editor in chief at Marvel.
Wild stuff.

I admire his talent and hard work ethic but can see the other side of the story. From what I understand he wasn’t treated with kid gloves when he was working at DC when he was 14. I remember a Legion story where Matter-Eater Lad’s parents lived off of Tenzil’s monthly stipend and always wondered how much Shooter was drawing off his own home life. Sort of surprised that John Byrne had a barbecue where they burnt a Jim Shooter effigy. I always had the impression that he was very much a company man during that time period. I like Roy Thomas’s take on Shooter’s time in charge. When Shooter did the Legion the last time there was still apparently lots of bad blood out there but he was still telling great stories. Would love to see him on the title again.

Jim Shooter was editor in chief at Marvel from Jan 1978 till he was fired in Feb 1987. Byrne definitely was a company man as you accurately describe in his 1975-1985 Marvel years, and probably would have been forever in other circumstances. In particular I recall an editorial Byrne wrote in FANTASTIC FOUR CHRONICLES (from Fantaco in 1982) where Byrne was very happy at Marvel, and said he felt like Marvel (or any comics publisher) was entitled to a larger share of the profits, because Marvel takes on the greater risk of publishing a title, and if it sells or doesn't sell, he as a writer/artist gets paid regardless, and if it doesn't sell the publisher takes a loss.

The problem began in that, while he loved being at Marvel, Byrne wanted to do a Superman run, while maintaining a friendly relationship with Marvel during his absence. Even after announcing he was leaving to do Superman, Byrne planned to draw FF through issue 300 regardless, and gave very far ahead notice, to leave amiably and presumably return to Marvel after. But then his editor at Marvel kept making nit-picky revisions to harass him, which had never been requested before, so Byrne saw what was happening, took the hint and abruptly quit, with issue 292 or 293.
And Byrne also abruptly stopped his writer-artist runs on INCREDIBLE HULK, and on the "Last Galactus story" in EPIC ILLUSTRATED 26-31 or so.

A similar jerking around happened with the George Perez-illustrated JLA/AVENGERS planned crossover special, that was delayed and delayed, and finally scrapped in 1983-1984, that Dick Giordano wrote about with anger in his monthly DC editorial, in 2 parts over 2 months, concluding with "apparently someone or several somebodies at Marvel don't want the project to be published."

So yeah, there was definitely some bad blood between Byrne and Shooter, and it followed a pattern. And I guess when Byrne was frustrated with DC over his Superman work, and Shooter was no longer editor in chief at Marvel, Byrne was willing to come back to Marvel under new management. And incredibly, took over Shooter's personal signature book STAR BRAND, and injected some brutal metaphoric stuff to Shooter's downfall within the story.

.

I just ran across this lengthy overview of Shooter's 1978-1987 tenure as Marvel's editor in chief, that cites numerous sources and legal facts about Shooter and his interactions with others at Marvel during that era.

http://rsmwriter.blogspot.com/2016/06/jim-shooter-second-opinion.html


Interesting that in the struggle for Kirby to reclaim his original art, Shooter is blamed by others, but Shooter is cited by the legal facts to have no interaction or jurisdiction over the return of Kirby's art, that it was legally done work-for-hire in the 1960's, and that was the realm of publisher Michael Hobson and Marvel's attorneys. That Shooter had little if any say or involvement in the matter.

I don't know if there is any legal difference regardingKirby's 1959-1970 Marvel work, as compared to Kirby's later 1975-1978 work on his return to Marvel, on CAPTAIN AMERICA 193-216, ETERNALS 1-19, 2001:A SPACE ODYSSEY movie adaptation treasury edition, 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY 1-10 series, MACHINE MAN 1-9, DEVIL DINOSAUR 1-9, and BLACK PANTHER series 1-12. As cited in the article and comments below, Kirby left in 1978, and probably already announced his planned departure and was on his way out the door in the opening months Shooter took over as editor in chief. So not only was Kirby barely a blip on the radar while Shooter was in charge, but the law governing Kirby's past original artwork was outside Shooter's jurisdiction.

It's remarkable in the comments section how people lash back at his article with absolute certainty, allegedly sourced, and then the writer of the piece comes back at them and corrects with actual cited sources to detail what the true known facts are.
Interesting that Kirby never sued Marvel while he was alive, to try and claim his unreturned original art. Kirby only threatened to, but threatened for many years, to the point that even Shooter believed there was a longstanding lawsuit. But without a lawsuit, only the threat of one against Marvel, they handled all correspondence with Kirby through Marvel's attorneys, as a precaution, for a suit that never came. It was only after Kirby died that his family actually sued. And only after sued that Marvel counter-sued.

Also interesting how early into his reign that Shooter began measures to bring greater pay and creative rights to Marvel staffers. The negotiations for expanded creator ownership and "european-style" formats that became the Marvel Graphic Novel line (launched in 1981) began pushing for in 1978, months after Shooter became editor in chief.

Also that Hobson had warned Shooter in 1978 that Marvel's sales up till then were low enough that the entire comics line was in danger of being cancelled. And that Shooter's measures as editor in chief generated such a dramatic rise in sales that the threat of ceasing publication was eliminated.
That in addition Marvel expanded into other forms of publishing.

I know that some of the biggest critics of Shooter (not named in the article or comments) were Roy Thomas and Marv Wolfman, both of whom were writer/editors with their own little kingdoms within the Marvel line till Shooter took over (Roy Thomas was writer/editor of the CONAN line, Marv Wolfman was writer/editor of TOMB OF DRACULA and a DRACULA magazine, beyond their other series writing assignments) . They both left Marvel in a huff and defected to DC, rather than remain at Marvel with reduced stature. But Shooter did what he did because of low sales, and to bring more uniformity to the Marvel line. There were also a lot of missed deadlines and fill-in issues before Shooter took over as managing editor. These are two "critics of Shooter" not named.

Doug Moench, who was named in this article as a vocal Shooter critic, had a similar established status at Marvel over many titles, such as MASTER OF KUNG FU, DEADLY HANDS OF KUNG FU magazine, THE HULK magazine, and the MOON KNIGHT comic that spun off from originally being a backup in HULK magazine. Moench quit Marvel in 1982 (described as "in a tantrum" in the article) and went to DC. Shooter wanted to re-vamp all these Moench-scripted titles, and despite that I loved all these titles, it can't be denied that they were declining in sales. HULK magazine was cancelled in 1981, MOON KNIGHT was in danger of cancellation in 1981 but thrown a lifeline by becoming an experimental direct-only title (along with MICRONAUTS and KA-ZAR) and MASTER OF KUNG FU was also low in sales, and was finally cancelled just 5 issues after Moench quit the series.

This linked article makes a strong case for Shooter actually acting in the interest of those who were employed by him at Marvel, and whose editorial decisions actually saved their jobs, and Marvel itself.
It's stated that "if Marvel went out of business, DC likely would have followed." And there is certainly a strong case for that, regarding the "DC Implosion" that simultaneously happened in Oct 1978, within months of Shooter's promotion to head Marvel, and Hobson warning Shooter that the entire Marvel line was in jeopardy of being discontinued. Where a third of DC's titles were cancelled overnight by Warner Communications. Post-implosion in 1978-1979, freelancers with no available work at DC fled to an expanding Marvel under Shooter (including future editor Al Milgrom, Bob Layton, Jerry Bingham, Michael Golden, Bob Mcleod, Bob Wiacek, Dave Michelinie, and many others who became visible talents at Marvel ) where they took over Marvel titles and became the defining creators on series for years, whereas they had previously struggled to find random assignments at DC. They benefitted from the changes Shooter brought to Marvel.