Steven Grant on Avengers

[Tana Nile]

Wasn't sure where to post this really so I just started a new thread. An interesting column by Grant regarding the issues of Avengers he wrote. There's some nice tidbits about Marvel inter-office relations here, and insight into some things like the evolution of back story for Wanda and Pietro.

www.comicbookresources.com/columns/?column=10

[sharkar]

Fascinating article, thanks for the link. It's always great to get a picture of what's in a creator's mind and how he/she comes up with ideas and how these are then fleshed out.

I enjoyed the entire interview, but I was especially intrigued by what Grant said about the editorial tendency to make the "implicit explicit" (here specifically about Wanda and Pietro's connection to Magneto).

From what I know, Marvel did not immediately capitalize on this development; that is, the Maximoffs' parentage was "revealed" to readers though not to the principals in 1979 (Avengers #185-187/X-Men #125).... but the characters themselves didn't find out until a few years later, in the first Vision/Scarlet Witch series (1982/83).

I know I have asked this before, but does anyone know if, after 1979 and prior to the reveal to the characters in V/SW #4, there were any references in stories (captions or dialogue) to this development? Or was it largely unacknowledged (as Grant felt it should be) until it resurfaced in V/SW #4?


EDIT: clarity

[Tana Nile]

Just to add a little more on this whole Wanda and Pietro thing: in Grant's latest column, he responds to some email he got. The writer says that Neal Adams had suggested that Magneto was the twins father, citing the fact that Neal designed Magneto's hair to look like Pietro's! I haven't had any time to try to check this ( or that Adams was the first to draw Magneto helmetless). Any info regarding this?

[sharkar]

The part about Adams being the first to draw Mags helmetless and looking very much like an older Pietro (IMO-- and in hindsight, of course!) is true. I do not think it was deliberate, because you know we would have heard ol' Neal take the credit for it if it was his intention, and there's never been any indication--in print, anyway--that this was Neal's idea. Neal has never hesitated to take credit; he's not exactly the modest type.

The first sight of the helmetless Mags occurred in X-Men #62. The Angel has been dealing with a seemingly benevolent white-haired man called the Creator, who convinces Angel that he (Creator) is doing good work on behalf of mutantkind. Angel leaves to find the rest of the X-Men to tell them that the Creator is one of the good guys. Once he's alone, the Creator laughs. The last panel shows Magneto's helmet and the Creator saying --"Pehaps it's true what they say--perhaps clothes do make the man!"

I know I have posted something about this on this very board, so I'll look around for it later when I have some time.

[sharkar]

Here's what's posted in Grant's column, addressed to Grant:

"Before you go claiming the idea that Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch were Magneto's children all for yourself, you might want to check with Neal Adams, who was the first one to have that idea back in the final X-Men story arc in the 1960's before it was canceled. He hinted at it by the coloring of Magneto's hair when he revealed his face for the first time: White, just like Pietro.

Apparently in interviews, he has claimed that it was his intent to make the Twins Magneto's kids from that point."

I find this hard to believe, especially the last sentence; I have read dozens of Adams interviews and I have never seen an assertion about this in print. I'm not saying Adams privately didn't think this...just that I have not come across this in any written material about Adams.

This is not even mentioned in the X-Men Adams Visionaries tpb, which contains commentary by Adams; or even in the Comic Book Artist interview in which he speaks at length about his collaboration with Roy Thomas on the X-Men. In fact, in the CBA interview he even talks specifically about Magneto being shown without his helmet and the Thomas line "clothes do make the man" I posted earlier. Nowhere does he mention that he drew Magneto with the idea of Mags being the twins' father. I doubt Neal even knew very much about the twins, though they did appear in a few panels in X-Men #59-#60 (as did most of the known mutants at the time). Back then the twins were not major players in the Marvel Universe. They'd left the Avengers back in 1968 (#53) and didn't rejoin until 1970; in the interim, they'd only popped up a couple of times, in Spider-Man #71 (1969) and X-Men #59-#60 (also 1969).

Adams is not shy when it comes to claiming credit for ideas (Vision=original Human Torch) and plots. In CBA and other interviews, Adams states it was his idea to place Magneto in the Savage Land, to bring Professor X back from the dead, to bring back the Sentinels, to make Cyclops' brother Alex a mutant, etc; in short, Adams claims nearly everything that happened in X-Men #56-#65 was his doing. Since the X-Men book was slated to be canceled, Neal says that Roy let him have free rein (this changed when the two later collaborated on the Avengers; Roy imposed more restrictions on Neal).

So if the seed for the Magneto-twins connection was supposed to be planted here, in X-Men #62, I'm pretty sure Neal would have mentioned it in, at the very least, the CBA interview.

Of course, this is just based on what I've read. Has anyone here read anything different about this?

######
I thought I had posted more about this (maybe on another board? ), but here's something I came up with that's somewhat related, I posted this recently in the "A Small Favor" thread:

sharkar said:

Fitting (and from what I've read, entirely coincidental) that Neal Adams (in X-Men #62) drew a helmetless (for the first time) Magneto looking very aristocratic, with strong, defined features and a full head of thick white hair...an older version of Pietro.

Neal had drawn Pietro in just a few panels in X-Men #59 and #60, and yes--even apart from the white hair, and even though Pietro is shown in only a few panels, Pietro and Mags' profiles and bones structure look similar. Pietro's profile doesn't resemble the profiles of Scott or Bobby or Warren, and (older man) Mags is drawn very differently than, say, Judge Chalmers.

So in retrospect, it looks like Adams planned this....but as stated above I just have never read anything that has supported this. However, I have long wondered if any subsequent artists/writers were influenced by Adams' Mags depiction in X-Men #62.


Now, I have read in a couple of places that Byrne says it was his idea (and not Grant's)--and that Byrne just "decided on his own" to draw Magda as Magneto's lost wife in X-Men #125...the same Magda who'd just been shown as the twins' mother in the Avengers Yesterday Quest (also drawn by Byrne).



EDIT: removed repeated words

[Tana Nile]

Thanks for consulting your awesome memory banks, Sharkar! It seems likely that the idea may have been arrived at independently by different people at different times. It's also possible (since nothing was explicitly stated during Adams' run) that later artists and writers may have picked up on the way Magneto resembled Pietro and run with it, either consciously or not.

This is not the first time creators have had conflicting memories over who came up with what. Just recently (at the time the movie was due to come out), Ghost Rider creators Gary Friedrich and Mike Ploog, as well as Roy Thomas, all had different versions of how that character was born. Of course, the debate over who came up with what between Stan Lee and his various collaborators (Kirby, Ditko, etc) is well known.

With so many more contemporary, documented interviews available now than in the past, I wonder if we will see less confusion years from now over who did what?

[sharkar]

tananile said:

It's also possible (since nothing was explicitly stated during Adams' run) that later artists and writers may have picked up on the way Magneto resembled Pietro and run with it, either consciously or not.

Right, that's my contention...you summed it up perfectly, Tana; and you used, oh, about 10,000 fewer words than I did!

tananile said:

Of course, the debate over who came up with what between Stan Lee and his various collaborators (Kirby, Ditko, etc) is well known.

The latest Comics Buyer's Guide contains a lot of Stan material (because of his birthday). In one feature he's asked about the character he's most proud of creating (or something like that) and he answers: the Silver Surfer.

That answer really surprised me. It's well known that Kirby on his own just drew this character in the Galactus saga, the character- -or even the notion of a herald for Galactus- -was nowhere in Stan's story synopsis (which would have just been verbal at this stage of his working with Kirby)...so it's pretty clear this was a Kirby creation. The story goes that Stan even asked "What is that?"

I know Stan was the one who re-named him the "Silver Surfer" (Kirby had named him the "Surfer"); and that Stan fell in love with this character, so much so he didn't allow other writers for a long time to use the Surfer in their stories; and that Stan developed the characterization (or changed it, much to Kirby's chagrin) for the later Surfer series with Buscema, but wow...I thought that was a pretty nervy answer.


EDIT: corrected name of CBG

[dlw66]

Roy Thomas also tells the anecdote (in The Marvel Vault) that Stan's original plot for the FF with characterization was so changed due to Kirby's pacing in the first issue that a lot of it had to be changed. So while The Man felt things would head one way (ie Sue being a model, Johnny a star athlete), Kirby nudged it a different way.

But I think we have found ourselves in the Silver Age Artists thread (again)... ;D

[Tana Nile]

sharkar said:

tananile said:

It's also possible (since nothing was explicitly stated during Adams' run) that later artists and writers may have picked up on the way Magneto resembled Pietro and run with it, either consciously or not.

Right, that's my contention...you summed it up perfectly, Tana; and you used, oh, about 10,000 fewer words than I did!

just call me the Condenser!! ;D

tananile said:

Of course, the debate over who came up with what between Stan Lee and his various collaborators (Kirby, Ditko, etc) is well known.

The latest Comics Buyer's Guide contains a lot of Stan material (because of his birthday). In one feature he's asked about the character he's most proud of creating (or something like that) and he answers: the Silver Surfer.

That answer really surprised me. It's well known that Kirby on his own just drew this character in the Galactus saga, the character- -or even the notion of a herald for Galactus- -was nowhere in Stan's story synopsis (which would have just been verbal at this stage of his working with Kirby)...so it's pretty clear this was a Kirby creation. The story goes that Stan even asked "What is that?"

I know Stan was the one who re-named him the "Silver Surfer" (Kirby had named him the "Surfer"); and that Stan fell in love with this character, so much so he didn't allow other writers for a long time to use the Surfer in their stories; and that Stan developed the characterization (or changed it, much to Kirby's chagrin) for the later Surfer series with Buscema, but wow...I thought that was a pretty nervy answer.


EDIT: corrected name of CBG

I noticed that too and thought pretty much the same thing. Stan may have developed the Surfer but he certainly didn't create him!

[Tana Nile]

dlw66 said:

Roy Thomas also tells the anecdote (in The Marvel Vault) that Stan's original plot for the FF with characterization was so changed due to Kirby's pacing in the first issue that a lot of it had to be changed. So while The Man felt things would head one way (ie Sue being a model, Johnny a star athlete), Kirby nudged it a different way.

But I think we have found ourselves in the Silver Age Artists thread (again)... ;D

Right again, we three seem to wind up talking to each other quite a lot.

Although I haven't finished the Vault, I did read the synopsis for FF1 and was struck by how different the characterizations initially were. I'm glad that version didn't see print!