|
|
Post by humanbelly on May 22, 2010 19:17:40 GMT -5
Y'know, you do these historical read-throughs, and you start to see a larger picture sometimes. Or think that you do.
Jim Shooter, love 'im or hate 'im, was a delightful, personal presence on the Bullpen Bulletin pages for much of his tenure as EIC. And, much like Franklin Roosevelt, really seemed to revel in the position he had-- a position that he held for 9-1/2 years, when the average tenure for that position (post Stan Lee) looked to be about a year or so at the most.
Now, when he developed and introduced his New Universe, he invested the majority of his space on the BB page in shilling for this baby of his. Aaaaand then the NU faltered almost immediately after lift-off. Aaaaand suddenly JS wasn't nearly so prominent a presence to us readers--- often we didn't hear from him directly at all. Then the NU was effectively euthanized. . . and JS quietly stepped down from the EIC position-- replaced by Tom DeFalco.
Was the inside story that directly cause & effect? Was JS that deeply disillusioned and/or mortified? Was he forced out? Heck, where did he go after that?
Or was the New Universe not really a factor at all?
I'm sure there's folks out there with the inside story! Anyone? Anyone?
HB
|
|
|
|
Post by starfoxxx on May 22, 2010 19:52:14 GMT -5
Interesting, and i remember the running joke that Shooter was a giant, always drawn towering over everyone.
But this discussion reminds me that there were plenty of turds being sold back in my 80s glory days. I remember picking up several of the NU #1s, man, they sucked, and i think they were 75cents to add insult. I picked up a few more issues of DP7, though, but not many, why did that giant dude wear a skirt? Interesting that NU was Shooter's baby. They did hype the heck out of it, and it was just bad, IMHO. But i agree, the story behind it would be nice.
|
|
|
|
Post by freedomfighter on May 22, 2010 22:49:37 GMT -5
Y'know, you do these historical read-throughs, and you start to see a larger picture sometimes. Or think that you do. Jim Shooter, love 'im or hate 'im, was a delightful, personal presence on the Bullpen Bulletin pages for much of his tenure as EIC. And, much like Franklin Roosevelt, really seemed to revel in the position he had-- a position that he held for 9-1/2 years, when the average tenure for that position (post Stan Lee) looked to be about a year or so at the most. Now, when he developed and introduced his New Universe, he invested the majority of his space on the BB page in shilling for this baby of his. Aaaaand then the NU faltered almost immediately after lift-off. Aaaaand suddenly JS wasn't nearly so prominent a presence to us readers--- often we didn't hear from him directly at all. Then the NU was effectively euthanized. . . and JS quietly stepped down from the EIC position-- replaced by Tom DeFalco. Was the inside story that directly cause & effect? Was JS that deeply disillusioned and/or mortified? Was he forced out? Heck, where did he go after that? Or was the New Universe not really a factor at all? I'm sure there's folks out there with the inside story! Anyone? Anyone? HB Shooter himself blames it on other factors and not the New Universe...read the first few paragraphs of this interview... www.valiantcomics.com/valiant/joe/shooter/ |
|
|
|
Post by humanbelly on May 23, 2010 10:14:01 GMT -5
Interesting, and i remember the running joke that Shooter was a giant, always drawn towering over everyone. But this discussion reminds me that there were plenty of turds being sold back in my 80s glory days. I remember picking up several of the NU #1s, man, they sucked, and i think they were 75cents to add insult. I picked up a few more issues of DP7, though, but not many, why did that giant dude wear a skirt? Interesting that NU was Shooter's baby. They did hype the heck out of it, and it was just bad, IMHO. But i agree, the story behind it would be nice. Yep, I picked up nearly the entirety of it-- just out of Marvel Zombie-ish habit-- but even then I couldn't understand why most of the books were so dreadfully sub-standard. Star Brand (the flagship NU title) was pretty good, although it was just absolutely directionless as far as long-term storytelling went. DP7 was definitely my favorite book, and was the one that outlasted the rest of the NU by many, many months. I also recall that some of the titles completely changed their creative teams and/or basic overview after just the first issue or two (Spitfire & the Troubleshooters, for instance). I mean, could there be a clearer indicator of a book getting off to a bad start? I wouldn't be surprised to find, though, that a driving force behind all of this may have been Jim Shooter's admirable goal of getting a much more reasonable benefits/royalties package for the creators themselves. Perhaps the NU was pushed along to set that precedent? Strikeforce: Morituri was released at about the same time, wasn't it? Just adding to the confusion of Marvel's non-continuity titles. . . HB |
|
|
|
Post by humanbelly on May 23, 2010 10:20:10 GMT -5
Y'know, you do these historical read-throughs, and you start to see a larger picture sometimes. Or think that you do. Jim Shooter, love 'im or hate 'im, was a delightful, personal presence on the Bullpen Bulletin pages for much of his tenure as EIC. And, much like Franklin Roosevelt, really seemed to revel in the position he had-- a position that he held for 9-1/2 years, when the average tenure for that position (post Stan Lee) looked to be about a year or so at the most. Now, when he developed and introduced his New Universe, he invested the majority of his space on the BB page in shilling for this baby of his. Aaaaand then the NU faltered almost immediately after lift-off. Aaaaand suddenly JS wasn't nearly so prominent a presence to us readers--- often we didn't hear from him directly at all. Then the NU was effectively euthanized. . . and JS quietly stepped down from the EIC position-- replaced by Tom DeFalco. Was the inside story that directly cause & effect? Was JS that deeply disillusioned and/or mortified? Was he forced out? Heck, where did he go after that? Or was the New Universe not really a factor at all? I'm sure there's folks out there with the inside story! Anyone? Anyone? HB Shooter himself blames it on other factors and not the New Universe...read the first few paragraphs of this interview... www.valiantcomics.com/valiant/joe/shooter/That was very interesting! I mean, it's really one man's point of view (albeit the guy right there for all of it, and to whom it was happening), so I'm sure that's a reasoned opposing viewpoint-- but still. He doesn't even mention the New U, either. But, boy, clearly I'm naive to think that simple matters like serious errors in artistic judgment would bring about the ousting of an EIC. It sounds like all of the turmoil was taking place up at the corporate/power-shifting/investor-fooling levels. Yick. HB |
|
kidcage
Reservist Avenger
Posts: 167
|
Post by kidcage on May 24, 2010 15:45:37 GMT -5
hehehehe. Mark Harrzard: MERC happens to be one of the short-lived series I love to read. It's not a classic by any means... but it does have that whole 1980s cheesy action feel to it.
|
|
|
|
Post by humanbelly on May 24, 2010 20:33:51 GMT -5
Hey y'know, I'm looking a little more carefully at the Monthly Checklists & what-not, and I was surprised to see that, along w/ DP7, the NU books Justice & Psi-Force were still being produced several months after Shooter's exit. So was THE PITT special.
So my conclusion was incorrectly jumped to even with the available data! Heh-- ol' MERC, though. . . how many issues did he last, bobc?
HB
|
|
kidcage
Reservist Avenger
Posts: 167
|
Post by kidcage on May 24, 2010 20:45:57 GMT -5
MERC ran for 12 issues and an Annual, HB. I found the entire run at a used bookstore that sells all their comics for 50 cents. Heck, I nailed an Incredible Hulk #131, 136, and most of my Avengers West Coast run there too, lol.
|
|
|
|
Post by humanbelly on May 25, 2010 5:13:26 GMT -5
MERC ran for 12 issues and an Annual, HB. I found the entire run at a used bookstore that sells all their comics for 50 cents. Heck, I nailed an Incredible Hulk #131, 136, and most of my Avengers West Coast run there too, lol. Yeah, the New U does seem to be a staple of the 4-for-a-buck bin at most places. They must have just done enormous press runs of those books. They'll invariably pop up in antique shops in a box or two of "collectible" comics, usually for- HA!- $3 to $5 each! Geeze, Hulk 131 & 136 for fifty cents? Those are 40 year old comics! 136 was a particularly good issue, in fact--- albeit a forgotten one. The first of a two-part Moby Dick-based story-- and it was YEARS before I picked up 137 to see how it had turned out. . . HB |
|
kidcage
Reservist Avenger
Posts: 167
|
Post by kidcage on May 25, 2010 17:29:46 GMT -5
Yeah, New U does seem to be everywhere. You make mention of the antique shop thing and it reminds me I've seen them there. With little stickers saying "collectible."
As for the Hulk comics, yeah, it was a steal. The thing about the bookstore is when they put out more stuff, you can usually get a run on stuff. Aside from those two, I picked up an issue in the 170s, a few low 200s, and I'm not even much of a Hulk fan. But hey, any issue where you've got Hulk fighting Abomination in an amusement park and classic art of Iron Man standing over a downed Hulk telling the army behind him to stand down since the Hulk's down is always a plus.
|
|
|
|
Post by Shiryu on May 26, 2010 8:09:54 GMT -5
I've never read a single issue of any New Universe book  BUT I've read something on the topic, it's mentioned in virtually every book on Marvel's history and in some interviews. Romita SR and others pretty much say that Shooter tried to do too much too quickly, moving big names to the new books and having many of them published almost at once. Shooter lays blame somewhere else, and often says he was "backstabbed" by people he considered friends and it led to both the failure of the NU and his exit from Marvel. Having to hazard a guess, I'd lean more towards Romita's explanation, but I suppose truth is somewhere in the middle. |
|
|
|
Post by sharkar on May 26, 2010 18:58:10 GMT -5
Ed.-in-chief Shooter was charged with coming up with a big event to celebrate Marvel's 25th anniversary (1986, using the 1961 FF as the starting point). I've read in various periodicals and online that his initial idea was that Marvel's existing characters--FF, Spidey, Hulk, Cap, X-Men, Avengers, DD, et al.--would somehow be streamlined/updated in terms of history and continuity(shades of DC Crisis on Infinite Earths/reboot!), with only certain elements retained. The updated characters would be the basis of the "new Marvel Universe." For various reasons, the reboot idea was turned down...and as we know, the back-up plan--a New Universe comprised of new comics/characters--was greenlighted instead. ...i remember the running joke that Shooter was a giant, always drawn towering over everyone. Pretty apt, as he's close to 7 feet tall in real life. |
|
|
|
Post by humanbelly on May 26, 2010 20:29:18 GMT -5
...i remember the running joke that Shooter was a giant, always drawn towering over everyone. Pretty apt, as he's close to 7 feet tall in real life. A buddy of mine was eking out a living as a struggling actor in NYC in the very early 80's, and one of his gigs was doing birthday-grams dressed in a gorilla suit. As such, the Marvel office pulled him in for JS's birthday once. My friend said he was the tallest person he'd ever met, and that he was really cute, but had a pretty rough complexion (my pal was very happily & comfortably gay, and that was always the sort of thing he noticed right off). He had no idea that this man was a giant in my personal world! HB |
|
|
|
Post by owene on May 28, 2010 17:31:50 GMT -5
Ed.-in-chief Shooter was charged with coming up with a big event to celebrate Marvel's 25th anniversary (1986, using the 1961 FF as the starting point). I've read in various periodicals and online that his initial idea was that Marvel's existing characters--FF, Spidey, Hulk, Cap, X-Men, Avengers, DD, et al.--would somehow be streamlined/updated in terms of history and continuity(shades of DC Crisis on Infinite Earths/reboot!), with only certain elements retained. The updated characters would be the basis of the "new Marvel Universe." For various reasons, the reboot idea was turned down...and as we know, the back-up plan--a New Universe comprised of new comics/characters--was greenlighted instead. It's a long time since i read anything about any of this stuff but I remember reading on some Kirby fan groups ages ago that round about 1986 or so Marvel had a brief panic about losing some sort of copyright issue on a lot of Kirby (or maybe silver age in general) characters so there was a rush to change the identities and looks of a lot of Marvel characters so that they would be able to keep some aspects of them even if they lost the rights to others that were based solely on visuals. It was a byproduct of the fight during the 80s to return artwork and define silver age work for hire and worry over what would happen if some judge somewhere ruled that a visual contained in artwork returned to an artist belonged to that artist. Remember that Marvel really didn't want to return any of that art and it got quiet nasty for a while. So they tried some sort of contingency where they could feasibly give up the Kirby Thor design but keep a new Thor identity based on more recent (definitely owned) visuals and so on while also looking at creating a new universe away from those concerns. When Marvel got a better handle on how the ownership thing was panning out it faded away although you still saw a lot of replacements for older heroes and (possibly) some sort of use of some of the contingency plan book ideas. I dont know how true it was, but quite a few people from that period talk about Shooter wanting to phase out Lee/kirby characters and slowly replace them or go down some company wide reboot line. I think by the time the New Universe actually debuted the problem had abated (although you then see a lot of replacements for mainstay characters being introduced anyway) Again this is largely from heresay on Kirby fan groups, not sure how much i believe |
|
|
|
Post by humanbelly on May 28, 2010 18:21:28 GMT -5
Ed.-in-chief Shooter was charged with coming up with a big event to celebrate Marvel's 25th anniversary (1986, using the 1961 FF as the starting point). I've read in various periodicals and online that his initial idea was that Marvel's existing characters--FF, Spidey, Hulk, Cap, X-Men, Avengers, DD, et al.--would somehow be streamlined/updated in terms of history and continuity(shades of DC Crisis on Infinite Earths/reboot!), with only certain elements retained. The updated characters would be the basis of the "new Marvel Universe." For various reasons, the reboot idea was turned down...and as we know, the back-up plan--a New Universe comprised of new comics/characters--was greenlighted instead. It's a long time since i read anything about any of this stuff but I remember reading on some Kirby fan groups ages ago that round about 1986 or so Marvel had a brief panic about losing some sort of copyright issue on a lot of Kirby (or maybe silver age in general) characters so there was a rush to change the identities and looks of a lot of Marvel characters so that they would be able to keep some aspects of them even if they lost the rights to others that were based solely on visuals. It was a byproduct of the fight during the 80s to return artwork and define silver age work for hire and worry over what would happen if some judge somewhere ruled that a visual contained in artwork returned to an artist belonged to that artist. Remember that Marvel really didn't want to return any of that art and it got quiet nasty for a while. So they tried some sort of contingency where they could feasibly give up the Kirby Thor design but keep a new Thor identity based on more recent (definitely owned) visuals and so on while also looking at creating a new universe away from those concerns. When Marvel got a better handle on how the ownership thing was panning out it faded away although you still saw a lot of replacements for older heroes and (possibly) some sort of use of some of the contingency plan book ideas. I dont know how true it was, but quite a few people from that period talk about Shooter wanting to phase out Lee/kirby characters and slowly replace them or go down some company wide reboot line. I think by the time the New Universe actually debuted the problem had abated (although you then see a lot of replacements for mainstay characters being introduced anyway) Again this is largely from heresay on Kirby fan groups, not sure how much i believe And that, Owen, is why we comparatively newer (if not actually younger) folks are glad to have an old, knowledgable vet such as yourself return to this board. Very, very interesting post (even with its dubious authenticity). The layers and levels of Machivellian machinations that appear to have been taking place during Shooter's term seem to be nothing short of mind-boggling. Especially considering that I, for one, do think that JS was completely sincere in his straightforward desire to put out solid, entertaining comics come heck or high water (albeit regardless of casualties, perhaps. . . ) HB |
|
|
|
Post by scottharris on May 28, 2010 19:24:14 GMT -5
Drilling down to the whole truth behind this is kind of hard, but what I have heard in the past sort of meshes with a lot of this. The version I heard was that Shooter -- whether for the 25th anniversary or out of his own hubris -- decided to replace heroes like Cap and Thor, give Spidey the new black costume, etc. Basically what he was going to do was what the Ultimate Universe ended up doing only it was going to be the "real" marvel universe. How much of the impetus behind this was caused by the Kirby legal situation I'm not sure, but I think all these versions have some truth to them.
Anyway, people in the anti-Shooter camp (someone in particular, but I'm blanking on who it was) ended up spilling all these plans to the comics media at the time and it caused a big uproar among fans ebcause it was kind of taken out of context (sorta anyway) -- it was presented like, here's all the crazy crap Shooter is planning to do to your favorite characters! He's going to ruin them all!
So what I heard was that in order to minimize the fallout, he ended up backtracking from his big reboot plans, and came up with NU instead; but those plans still ended up taking place in slightly watered down forms in the mainstream MU anyway, like The Captain and Thunderstrike and whatever.
As far as the NU, the first year of DP7 in particular is definitely worth a read. I love it. It starts to get wonky (stop me if you've heard this one before) when the big company-wide crossovers began to interfere with the storyline, particularly when PITT happened (this coincided with I think half of the NU line being canceled). DP7 is still worth a look anyway, there's some odd stuff in it that you would not see in a regular mainstream Marvel or DC book because the NU had the conceit where the stories happened in real time -- so when a year had pessed in the real world, a year had passed in the comics. Because of this, character changes happened much faster than in the Mu and, for the reader, more abruptly because often writers would have to skip months at a time since they only had 12 issues to work with to tell their stories. Some pretty odd stuff happens in DP7 as a result.
Psi-Force is kind of interesting as well, it featured early art from a fairly young Mark Texiera and a concept that seems like it would have worked a lot better a decade letter (the five people with minor powers combining their energy to form one super hero is very Power Rangers-esque to me and might have worked better with audiences more used to that kind of Japanese conceit). Justice had its moments -- again, with some pretty unusual storytelling from what I recall -- and I thought Nightmask was a really interesting idea/character that kind of went nowhere.
The other titles, well... Star-Brand went out with a literal bang; you don't often see the main character of a superhero book accidentally blow himself up in a holocaust that destroys an entire city. Whoops! But Spitfire, Kickers, Inc. and Merc (despite the fact some people swear by it) all kind of sucked from where I was sitting.
DP7 is the only one I can recommend actually spending money on, though. The first 12 issues and annual #1, which is one big arc, still holds up today and, in fact, is basically the same story the first season of Heroes told, only done better by Mark Gruenwald and Paul Ryan, the team that did Squadron Supreme.
|
|
|
|
Post by owene on May 29, 2010 4:07:51 GMT -5
[ Especially considering that I, for one, do think that JS was completely sincere in his straightforward desire to put out solid, entertaining comics come heck or high water (albeit regardless of casualties, perhaps. . . ) HB I agree, I think that he intended and largely got well plotted storytelling from stable, ontime books. While he clearly fell out with people and there were people he treated badly I would say that he actually managed to keep a lot of talented people who even at the time weren't HIS biggest fans on key books. Whereas previously (and since) Editors in chief appear to have made writing assignments largely based on friendship issues from fan circles (Thomas, Wolfman, Conway etc) or being in Marvels Editorial (Early 90s) together or stunt casting of people from outside the industry (more recently). Shooter seems to have genuinely gone largely on 'can they tell a readable, interesting story on-time' and employed a lot of people to do good work even while they weren't happy with him personally. David Michelinie and Bob Layton apart I can't think of many marvel mainstays from his period who are seen as being 'shooter people' yet the books remained very stable once he had put people into place. He doesn't seem to have had much time for writers who were at the company before him, and he really seems down on all the interesting but chaotic 70s hippyish experimental stuff that lasted 5 (often delayed) issues in minor titles. But i'd guess that even those 70s heads actually got quite a bit of work from him, often in the epic line where they could actually see if they could produce something special rather than just slip moments of maturity into a super hero or horror strip. He was actually (in a hiring way, which possibly pales next to returning of art issue) quite positive for older artists. You saw people like Jim Mooney being used to smooth out and help along new pencillers; Sal and John Buscema got long runs on key titles, Ditko got handed quite a bit of work even though there was presumably little fan enthusiasm for it. By putting clear writer based storytelling first he was actually all for clear unflashy storytelling artists. Not really sure how Pro-shooter I am, it's a period that fits my own interest in the MU, but i also read a lot of anti-shooter stuff from a lot of talented creators. I think the final word is that the books were largely very good, that of course the creators think that was largely down to them not editorial, and that along the way Shooter's priority had to be to the company not the freelancers and that ultimately that will lead to unpopularity. |
|
|
|
Post by Shiryu on May 29, 2010 14:26:10 GMT -5
I wonder how much of a bad feeling is still there in the industry against Shooter. Does anybody know what he is doing in these days?
|
|
|
|
Post by sharkar on Jun 3, 2010 19:25:10 GMT -5
I wonder how much of a bad feeling is still there in the industry against Shooter. Does anybody know what he is doing in these days? He's kept busy. In 2008-9 he returned to his roots, DC and the Legion of Super-Heroes. He wrote several LSH issues (collected in the books "Enemy Rising" and "Enemy Manifest"). And he's currently working on a project for Dark Horse that involves several classic Gold Key/Valiant characters, including Dr. Solar, Turok and Magnus (publication is scheduled to start in July or so). Check out online comic book preview sites for more details. |
|
