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

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.