RKMBs Forums .::Robegories::. Comic Books Marvel, 1978-1987: Great BECAUSE of Shooter? Or in spite of Shooter?

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...

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.

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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.