CCL Messageboard

I gotta disagree. I've had the pleasure of meeting Jim Shooter during a "Creating Comics" seminar he hosted here in Seattle 10 or so years ago. He's not a dummy and knows his stuff. If he has a flaw it's that he trusted those closest to him at the time (of Valiant comics).

As far as his Marvel years, I enjoyed a lot of the books he put out in the 80's. Not so much the New Universe stuff but the mainstream books were great IMO. I'm also glad that he put artists and writers in their place when they tried to go "superstar". If anything helped bring about the demise of comics I think its the inflated ego of the paid talent. (that does include Jim Shooter to a degree).

Very astute and all points well taken. Even I very much enjoyed the 'Michael Korvac Saga' and the controversial 'Ms. Marvel impregnation' that Mr. Shooter wrote. But was his over-all plight to deflate inflated egos or to impose unreasonable terms of micro-management!

This is a topic I can sink my teeth into.

THere was a lot of speculation about Jim Shooter and his handling (and mishandling) of Marvel operations as EIC. There are some absolute truths, and opinions of his work, and they should be addresses here appropriately:

GOOD:

He invented the mini-series, pretty much single handed
His early work is actually quite good (Avengers) and his run as the EIC reflected some real direction on his part (Uncanny X-Men's most critically acclaimed run was during his term)
His views of the CCA cast Marvel in a conservative light, which for the most part helped establish a maturity for readership and build a reputation for attracting talent

BAD:

He is the reason John Byrne moved to DC comics
Dazzler (and everything she represented. Corporate greed, and a misogynistic approach for some of Marvel's premiere super-heroines: Ms Marvel's abduction and impregnation is an example)
His artistic merits were going down the toilet, and in rapid fashion.

THe crowning achievement as it were, was his putrid effort at a serious mini-series that woold shake-up Marvel continuity and establish a new direction for the major characters. If this sounds like you've heard it before, you have: DC's Crisis on Infinite Earths was a harbinger of this trend of storytelling, but done much more effectively. I am of course referring to the Marvel Superhero Secret Wars, which had the virtues of a 2nd grade reading, replete with all the nonsense and bad writing that even I would never have expected Shooter was capable.

I think at the end of the day he actually did more good than harm, but unfortunately, his misguided efforts are more telling of his short compliance with what readers at the time were looking for.

"...ripe for all the inexperienced and crappy editors and artists that would tear-up Marvel after his firing" is a pretty good way of putting it.

It has been argued that the addage "No One Really Dies At Marvel" may have been ushered by High Pockets Shooter himself. Originally, Jean Grey was not supposed to die, but Shooter wanted it so. Yet, she returns in Avengers (#263?)/Fantastic Four (#286) which to me implies a change of heart, leading to a reduction in credibility for climactic "deaths".

Well there are different aspects to this subject that must be considered. Jim stepped in as Editor and Chief After Roy Thomas, Len Wein, and Gerry Conway left the post. It seems that it was a very difficult position to hold and Jim was one of the few to hold it and keep it. He also implemented policies that supported creators rights. Under him Epic was implemented. Frank Miller had his amazing run as well as Claremont's X-Men and Byrnes FF. A lot of cool stuff happened. On the other hand I have heard creators like Tony Isabella complain about him? So who knows? It seems to me that it was after Shooter left Marvel that things started to go down hill (1990 or so.)

Let me first say that I started collecting comics smack-dab in the middle of Shooter's tenure, so I'm automatically biased into thinking he oversaw a great time at Marvel.

I'm not going to rattle off several points/thoughts, but here's one: didn't several of Marvel's top talent leave during the early-to-mid seventies to form Atlas Comics, the same way McFarlane & Co. left to form Image years later? So what's this "Shooter ran out all the great talent" talk?

And didn't Stan Lee himself wind up alienating Steve Ditko, and eventually his long-time collaborator and friend Jack Kirby as well?? Nobody seems to be mentioning that, unless I totally have my facts screwed up (which is possible!).

So some great talent left at Marvel during Shooter's run. Big Deal. A lot of the great talent also stayed. Someone always winds up not liking the boss.

My two cents...maybe more later.

Okay, one more: someone already mentioned it, but it needs to be repeated that before Shooter, Stan Lee himself was the only one capable of handling the editorial duties at Marvel. Several editors before him tried it and failed. And some of Marvel's output during that time suffered as a result of those failures (well-intentioned as they were).

This is true, but most of those still freelanced for Marvel after that. There was a mass exodus from Marvel to DC in the early 80's due to Shooter; Marv Wolfman, George Perez, Gene Colan, Roy Thomas, Frank Miller, John Byrne, Doug Moench, there are lots more that don't come to mind as yet. Good point about Lee, Ditko and Kirby, but those are only two guys, the cornerstone of early Marvel, yes, but the mags didn't really suffer. They went from strength to strength. Lee - Romita Spidey, anyone?

"scourge of marvel comics" I don't know why, but that is hilarious.

I don't know much about Shooter's era at Marvel other than the back issues I've collected. I was a small child at the time. But from what I have in my collection from Marvel in that era; I'd say there's some good stuff that came from then:

-Black Costume Spider-Man stories
-Original Hobgoblin Saga in Spider-Man
-Claremont's Uncanny X-Men
-Marvel Super-Hero Secret Wars
-George Perez on Avengers
-Iron Man Alcoholism issues
-John Byrne on Fantastic Four
-Marvel's first Star Trek run

-Nate-

Thanks for mentioning this! I don't see a fair (or logical) comparison between Shooter's history and Lee, Ditko and Kirby's history either. Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby (and not to forget mentioning the great Bill Everett either) had become like 'The Beatles' of the known comic book world very nearly overnight. And a lot of the reason that Kirby left in 1971 is because Marvel wouldn't give him back his original art work or give him partial rights to his creations either. And even at that rate, when Stan and "the lads" split it was pretty much on the down low and the Marvel Bullpen was still quite strong and braced against the change.
But Shooter (I mean really), sure he did a (very) few good things there, but mostly he was a micro-managing ass-clown who really DID drive all of Marvel's great talent (egotistical as they may have been or not) to the other side (and you better believe that I own nearly every issue of the Byrne 'Superman', the Wolfman and Perez 'New Teen Titans' and Frank Miller's 'Batman' too). The enormous string of successes at DC after the "mass exodus" speaks for itself (a lot of us old-timer "Marvelites" ended up jumping the fence to DC as well).
Shooter screwed things up BIG-TIME! Like I said, after they fired him Marvel was little more than a steaming mass of decimated poop. The movie projects (as much as I hate all the media-fiend fall-out that they create), the cartoons and the toys are the only things keeping Marvel in the money these days. Even that freak Mickey Mouse wanted a piece of that action!