Jim Shooter: From Comics Superstar to Outcast 

and the comics under his editorialship did have noticeably better stories in my opinion, which is part of why this story about Shooter is so frustrating. Why can't the writers just accept Jim's editorial direction, it was obviously working!?

@@pricedownproductions9851 maybe ego.

Matthew Davey Creative types tend to have an ego about what they do and feel their vision is the only correct one not realizing that their insanity typically needs a filter to be widely consumable.

Kept an eye on continuity too, something Marvel sorely needs these days

When you are so unlikable people burn a fucking effigy of you like its a lovecraft story despite all of that, maybe it doesn't matter how good your ideas are because eventually you'll be losing everyone who makes those ideas happen.

You don't have to like the guy who tells you what you can and can't do; but never bite the hand that feeds you, especially one who feeds you with a silver spoon.

@@ianmaluk1 Now the hand wears a white glove and feeds you with a mickey mouse spoon

By god comics need a man like this now

Tony Webb Except less homophobic. We need someone as talented as Jim Shooter was at editing but with the morals of a decent person

@@ravenfrancis1476 just cause you promote homosexuality does not make you a moral man and just cause you don't make you immoral not everyone has to have the same values as you

Marvel went bankrupt and Valiant and Akklaim comics went out of business because of the post speculator crash of the late 90s. Every comic company was on the ropes then. The only reason DC was fine then was because DC is owned by WB, who bankrolled DC through that mess. Valiant and Defiant both were started in the late 80s and early 90s when the speculator market and comic sales were taking off. They were successful because all decent comics publishers were succeeding then, including the brand new Image comics...and Marvel was the most successful during the early 90s(without Shooter). Shooter is great, but don't give him credit he doesn't deserve.

@Danny Williams Luck stops working as an explanation when you have as many successful runs as Jim Shooter. I am not sure how much of a say one has in their temperament. but his removals are not exactly surprising. He fought hard for his writers and did his best to insure that they were fairly compensated. Top talent still fled for a lot of reasons, including stress. He is notoriously combative. He would fight management without any allies. It's admirable in a way, but I would not describe luck as having a lot to do with Shooter's career in the Comic Book industry.

These failures has nothing to do with Jim Shooter leaving. Jim Shooter just alienated to many creators to be worth keeping.

The majority of comics that came out under his lead were mostly meh.

dude.... you've just described ALL HUMAN HISTORY!

Wow!

Tony Isabella who?

Damn, I wasn't even a minute into the video when I made that comment when who do I see @8:11 ? And of course he's the guy who ruined Ghost Rider the first time.

Character

I'm halfway through and I see an EiC who is fighting for his creators against budgetary constraints on one side and on the other, "alienating" certain writers by quite frankly fixing their shitty ideas.

While I do agree, her dying held a better story, the reason behind it, his personal feeling, wasn't a good reason. If an editor is going to impose a story change, they better be doing it because it makes a BETTER story. Right now we're suffering through an era where editors of various media are imposing their political and personal bias upon writers, and the results are people becoming dissatisfied with long running franchises.

@Lord Kuuga And to be clear, she was NOT possessed at the time of the original. That was a retcon. In the original, she *became* the Phoenix entirely on her own. It was 100% her. Only after her resurrection did they play "wasn't me" with it.

@@AC3handle His feeling is one that would have been mirrored by readers of the comic. His feeling was that killing her off would have made a better story and leaving her alive would have been bad. He definitely made the right choice there

@Lord Kuuga Pretty much. There was some degree of "accident" to the incident, she basically warp gated in an emotional panic, then "ate" a star to replenish herself, causing it to supernova and destroy that planet. It wasn't done out of deliberate malice, but she had done various other things out of malice, and that was a pretty big "oops" to just wipe away.

bringing back JEAN GREY totally negates the DARK PHOENIX arc and the emotionally cosmic roller coaster ride of the characters and X-fans.

I already liked the guy but just the fact that he took the time to encourage you as a child just upped his stock with me.

Do you remember what the letter said?

@@viderevero1338 I still have the letter to this day.

@@richsingleton5677 what does it say

Guess what? I have a similar story! When I was 15-16, he came back to Pittsburgh to talk about the New Universe titles at a local comic-book store, and I took some art samples I'd drawn of proposed MARVEL house ads. He seriously considered them, and even had a follow-up conversation with my mother about them a couple weeks later. I'll never forget that he wasn't dismissive of me or my burgeoning talent, which went a long way towards me staying on a creative path.

No Shooter, No Transformers.

No, his staff didn't like him because he was being a high-handed dick. I've dealt with different writing bosses enough to know that if you push your own ideas rather than make the ones on the table as good as they can be, people will resent you. I know this may be hard for non-writer types to understand but there's a difference.

@@johnathonhaney8291 I can see that point to a degree but writers can be triggered easily at times too. I can see the writers problems being amplified by people on the top to help push decent among the writers. I didn't see the writers nor artist trying to get rid of Stan Lee at his over the top behavior (taking create for their work and pushing ideas too).

@@johnathonhaney8291 I know what you mean to a degree. If I provide an approved outline, and they come into the middle of it, and say, "We can't mention anyone from Batman", and the story is in Gotham City, you can work around that, but if they come in after the story is done and they say something like, "yeah, you need to add more characters because they just made a toyline of so and so." That gets challenging.

Except he was actually being a dick, and using the writers like slaves. I understand a boss is a boss, he is in charge for everything, but you can't just be a dictator and make your employees into slaves. they also deserves a freedom. what's the point in being a writer when you can't even bring your own ideas.

Dictator or no, he actually did what he was hired to do: try to get the books out "on time" as much as possible. He did what the rest - even Marv Wolfman - wasn't able to do: successfully managed to keep the line of books on schedule (ending the widespread practice of missed deadlines), add new titles, and develop new talent. If you look at what was common AFTER he left, you'd see that just about every time where he was fired or whatever for the most part, they floundered after he was gone - or worst: closed down. In essence, they shot themselves in the foot when they fired him. Maybe Shooter needed an intermediary buffer between him and the people above and below him - because say what you will, he was one of the few writers that actually insisted on consistency/continuity for the whole "universe" he was handling at the time. Some artists/writers can be prima donas themselves - so I get that there were a TON of creative differences - but Shooter can see both sides of the fence and knew what a fan might like to see in a story rather than the writers/artists who don't know jack shit about business acumen and just write whatever they felt like it regardless if it will sell or not. I'm actually one of the few that liked the Shooter era at Marvel - everything was "consistent", and the stories weren't a headache to follow.

Too bad he couldn't keep from pissing people off on the bottom as much as he did on the top or he might not have been marginalized.

In the late 1960s at DC a bunch of old time writers that had been there from the start and either created or contributed significantly to DCs stable of characters tried to form a union to negotiate with management about a pay rise and health plan because they could retirement on the horizon - they were all fired en masse. People like Gardner Fox who had been the #2 writer on Batman in the 1930s and '40s when Bill Finger was late and came back in the 1960s and kickstarted the DC Silver Age were all just thrown out. A lot of these guys died by the end of the 70s/early 80s in quite poor circumstances.

@@kentallard8852 I didn't know Fox was fired. He was at DC. I don't know if he died poor but he wrote a lotta non comic stuff so I think he was ok. Great writer.

I loved Shooter for one thing - he had Spider-Man whip the entire X-Men team in Secret Wars. Jim was a great leader in that he maintained control over the process. The problem with him was that, when he was a kid, he wanted to learn the formula that made Marvel so great and then get work for DC, employing that formula because, as he said, they (DC) clearly needed help. But when he finally came to Marvel, he tried to turn it into DC - multiple editors all reporting to the EIC, doing away with dynamism in favor of neatly arranged panel grids with only long- and medium-range eye-level shots. If you look at his history at Marvel, he wasn't perfect at getting books out on time. And he tried to implement creativity-killing measures such as the "can't/Must" moments at the beginning of every comic (look it up). With Stan Lee, he took what the artist gave him, and added narration and dialogue to make it better, a synergistic collaboration. Shooter was more tyrannical in his approach, making an artist redo an entire cover because a character's shoelace was not exactly right. Shooter also drove John Byrne and Frank Miller to DC where they created a rejuvenated Superman and 'The Dark Knight Returns'. There have also been clear evidence that his claims of fighting for the rights of artists and writers was more bluster and bravado than actual success at that endeavor. Lastly, Shooter leaving didn't result in Marvel going bankrupt. In fact, Marvel had its greatest financial success well after Shooter left when comics were selling many millions of copies per issue. The funny thing is that Shooter was the one who originated the idea of replacing all the major characters with new versions in what he wanted to call a 'Big Bang'. But when it proved that the reception of such a thing resulted in negative feedback from fans and comic zines, he denied that he had ever said such a thing. Now Marvel has done pretty much that and it has resulted in nearly killing the industry.

The Beatles said "Paul was ALWAYS right... so that's WHY we hated him!" (!!!!!) and Pink Floyd said "Roger was ALWAYS right... so that's WHY we hated him!" SEE ANY PATTERN?

The flip side to that can be a headstrong person telling his staff things like "You know how long I've been doing this? You know when I started? I know what I am talking about" and not taking on board anything they say, I work in hospitality and there are people in it who behave like that going on about when they started their apprenticeship and how many hours they've worked, and maybe they're right but they're also in a team and other members of the team have a perspective.

​@@dumpygoodness4086 that nobody likes people who think they are always right.

I guess you havent watched the Irishman

Yeah wiv U on that one Wanderer

Working isn’t a right. Having the ability to do so is. No company, no workers. There’s a reason communism always fails.

@@firemarshal2629 And then there's this guy and his bait.

@@firemarshal2629 How many bailouts has American capitalism had since the 1980s?

I look at all the players on that particular field, I see no good guys, Colletta least of all.

I haven't talk about good guy, I pointed out the ones who say that Shooter was a dictator were called dictators by the various Lee, McFarlane, Claremont…

@Numinous123 Have you worked for Marvel? Condolences.

It's made even funnier when you start to consider how many benefits Marvel employees lost after Shooter was kicked to the curb. You don't have to like the guy who tells you what you can and can't do; but never bite the hand that feeds you, especially one who feeds you with a silver spoon.

Shooter later ran into Chris Claremont later after he was fired from writing X-Men after 16 years. Claremont told him even though they disagreed at least Shooter never took his book away from him. Sad.

Valiant comics I don't believe he was not involved with Image.

@@Dimythios I think what Michael Connor was getting at is that Shooter was sympathetic to creator rights and had he still been around at Marvel the Rob Liefelds would not have felt the need to start up their own comic.

steve Q hanson exactly... I’ve heard this sentiment expressed multiple times. Dude was actually VERY big on fair(re) compensation for and recognition of creators, as well as giving them an avenue created, publish & retain the rights to their own works. Incidentally, these were some of the first things to go once he got the boot. They also happen to be the very things that drove MacFarlane, Lee, Leifeld, & Larsen to leave the company and form Image. So I don’t think it’s a stretch to argue that had he not been fired, Image likely never would have been formed.

@@steveqhanson6835 it goes deeper. He actively helped independent creators. Often giving advice and helping them find people willing to back them. He viewed them as potential future employees. He also felt, if there was healthy competition, the quality of all would rise. This would increase the exposure of the medium. Increasing readership. A readership he could then pull to Marvel.

You can see it if you go through the comics at that time. There's a huge quality drop.

Vandal Savage: "Yes. Yes, you are."

oh right, that weird letter

NO ONE had his back. Vince:....aww

Vuoto Pneumatico Non Non random vandal savage I like it

Yeah ... Vince seems like a freaking nutty loyal to shooter .

LOL, yeah, get rid of all those good writers

Willis Warren you mean the ones who infuse their leftist politics in the stories? Yeah, those.

@@orangehillcomics7830 yeah, man, we need more scenes with harmful stereotypes like the one Shooter wrote, right?

Fancygoblin how about neither? Win-win.

@@fancygoblin9362 No, we need those fantastic Snowflake and Safespace comics. they're so great.

Now I'm just imagining Jim Shooter strung up like Mussolini.

@L Franco Yep. Says it all.

@@Girthon1 And John Byrne hated him. For the record: I like both Jim & John's work, but I'd prefer to work with/for Shooter than for Byrne.

@@mistahwolfie John Byrne hates everyone though

@@prestontucker6579 Yep, if your biggest hater is Byrne, then it's not too bad.

Byrne was (and probably still is) a big fanboy of Marvel. He probably was jealous of the career of Shooter at the time. Shooter first was a successful young (very young) writer that turned editor and then EiC in a very meteoric fashion. If you believe the rumors he even was apointed by a tipsy Stan Lee in a party in front of everybody in Marvel. Add the poor manners of Shooter and you had a recipe to become a gut punch to everyone.

Ravi Shankar as I hear it he also insane he accused Peter David of running around a comic convention and giving away xeroxed copies of the ending to one of John Byrne's Alpha Flight comics. Peter David claims that he was never even at the convention and claims Bryne is crazy because there isn't any way he could have gotten those pages from Byrne to begin with. Which is true everyone check He also made a joke on Joe Quesada Mother Who Died He yell at Mark Waid at a convention for liking any part of superman 3 and he was 17 at time

Yeah, but it's worth mentioning that Byrne was very much one of Shooter's loyal supporters earlier on. That whole thing where he said he was proud to be a 'company man' and criticized Jack Kirby for suing Marvel is one notable instance of him making an unusually public display of support for the regime. Both Byrne and Shooter have long histories of falling out with people. We'll probably never know the truth of it. Perhaps one contributing factor might be that I've noticed in interview that both seem to have a very black and white comic book style sense of morality! it can be very easy to see someone who disagrees with you or crosses some line only you know about as a 'bad guy' with that outlook...

toxic creator

And he's just as guilty of doing what Shooter was accused of too. If not even worse, for example he would retcon other peoples stories. In the Uncanny Xmen Story where they meet doom for the first time, the doom they meet is retconned to be a doom bot in one of his FF stories, purely because he didn't like how he was written.

Lees troubles came from treating people like shit, big difference. Shooter did have mandates for how stories were to be done, and did interfere in the Jesus story, but he also seems to have tried to get better pay and royalties and health benefits.

@@kentallard8852 tbh these are company-owned characters, the writers don't have autonomy over them, plus Shooter was an assistant editor or assistant to the editor at that time so its highly unlikely he did that all on his own mandate. And going back and actually reading what the original was, it was better for the company and character.

Absolutely. Creativity thrives under pressure, structure, and limitations, but unfortunately (speaking for myself as well), many creative people often don't know what's good for them and don't respond well to demands for discipline and restraint.

That's actually an amazing result. Godbless.

Vince Colletta, right?

I started in 87-94. I was there at the tail end of his era. I think Marvel from Contest of Champions thru Amazing Spiderman #300 was a golden age.

I was the opposite of you; I collected from 69 to 80 ish and stayed away until 91. So I only saw the early Rise of Shooter and missed the destruction. In the 90's it was expensive to get all the back issues for those years I missed, my interest waned again 96ish until it became easier to acquire everything through getting TPB's. So now my collection is Silver- Bronze age works bagged and boxed, Modern age are TPBed and everything Platinum? 2010 is all digital files.

When I see the name Jim Shooter I think of my old Marvel Transformers comics. Since that was just a side income to help Hasbro hawk their toys I think Budiansky and Furman had pretty free reigns except for one typical Shooter rule. Whenever the Autobots killed Decepticons they had to argue or ponder about their right to take lives.

Supposedly at one point during the 80's, GIJOE was Marvel's highest selling book. I think the tv commercials for both GIJOE and Transformers comics brought in many new readers.

He was always pushing the boundaries. Graphic Novels. Limited Series. Crossovers. Creator owned, more adult imprint (Epic Illustrated) was all him.

Its a good idea, one of those "why didnt anyone think of that already?" Kind of ideas. The guy was and is never short of ideas, alot of them good. Valiant Comics is good stuff, Superman Racing The Flash is good stuff, Chris Claremonts X-Men titles were good stuff. Jim Shooter is almost equal to Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

​@@michaelross778 Actually Marv Wolfman instituted that policy before Shooter. It was on the schedule and managed as if it was an actual title named Marvel Fill-In Comics and mostly done by Bill Mantlo. John Verpoorten and Wolfman would pick which characters were most likely to miss deadlines and have Mantlo do a story for him. That's why you see so many Mantlo fill-ins in 75-76.

Stand alone or at 2 part stories, or at least a longer arc told within standalone stories, are much better than the trend since the 90s of writing everything for the eventual tpb collection.

Delays were used by larger artists as leverage, smaller creators could never get away with them. Shooter was enforcing a “my way or the highway” regime and saying it was to prevent delays but the “delays” were occurring because of his editorial interference.

@@Luminousreign How were the delays a result of Shooter's interference? Before he took over Marvel was plagued with delayed titles. After he'd been in post for enough time to establish himself the comics consistently reached the shelves on schedule.

Any reason not to believe Weisinger's excuse tho? Maybe not that specifically, but just generally not trying to rile up the south ect.

Wow, what a fucking Chad

@@DSan-kl2yc I believe that, under his years, there was a storyline that established that all Black people in the future moved themselves to Antarctica and became isolationist. Yeah, the dude was probably just racist.

I met him at Buffalo ComicCon a cpuple years ago. He's actually a pretty cool guy and has some great stories. His problem, it seems, is that he thinks his opinions are immutable laws. He's not exactly right but the dude does know what he's talking about.

Rocketboy 1313 I’ve seen him twice at comic cons in the last few years and he was pretty nice (downright chatty) both times. He really seems to enjoy talking comics. At one of the shows, I sat in on one of his panels about creating comics and it was very informative... much more than I expected it to be actually.

12:45 looks like VICTOR VON DOOM and ran MARVEL Latveria with an iron fist.

Saw him give a talk at Montreal comic con last year. Seems like a very serious dude. Fair and balanced, but definitely not somebody who would be the life of a party.

@@joncarroll2040 This exactly, had a pretty long convo with him when no one was at his table awhile back at a con, he's got a ton of great stories he'll share with anyone who's interested but he'll kind of hilariously drop a line or two here or there that makes you go "wait a second". I didn't challenge him on anything he said though because well, what would there be to gain from that? Plus he brings along photo albums of his time at Marvel to cons and just leaves them there to peruse if you're interested, the mans a wealth of information whether it's been clouded by years of resentment or not

Y'know, if you put aside the misogyny and homophobia.

Joe Francis awww, did Jim Shooter make you have a whittle cry?

Dafuq

Didn't Rai & Bloodshot were the same character

@Devil Man The new Valiant is pretty good too, but it suffers here and there with what I can only figure as bigger ideas than budget (mostly thinking of the Shadowman comics, but true with a few others as well) in which they set up great concepts and the the actual execution ends up being one or two issues less than the subject really needed to come to a natural conclusion.

@Devil Man I feel ya. They are doing it Hellboy style, only publishing stories when they have one, so most characters/teams have less than 10 trades or at the most 20 (XO and Bloodshot) for the entire run so far

Valiant took off fast! They could have become much bigger had they not deposed Shooter.

@@jmen4ever257 I can not agree with you more. I read an interview once about what he had planned for the Valiantverse and it sounded amazing. I think it was in Wizard magazine, but I"m not really sure. He had such a vision. It is a shame he never got the chance to realize that dream.

FACTS!

It's too bad that Axel got burnt out. I think he let too much go. This CB guy seems to be very hands off too.

let it go man, they are never going to hire anything resembling a white man to get on charge, I say let them die

@@ALDAL I did. I lose interest in things when they get all ham fisted with the politics. I did with Funimation, and Mortal Kombat too. I don't like when they change things around to appease activists. It doesn't matter if Pat Robertson is doing it, or Gloria Steinem. It ruins the charm because you think it's all about their politics over story

Dead Pilled it ruined it for me too :(

@@ALDAL I was unaware that CB isnt white interesting

I thought Secret Wars 2 was pretty terrible, but, love the Valiant Comics, tho

X-O Manowar was great in the beginning.

I love any comic where Spider-Man has to teach a cosmic being how to go to the bathroom.

Nowdays Valiant runs by a bunch of amateurs, their comics lineup is going mediocre for a while now. I bet if Shooter would return he will change the whole company into the ground and probably bring back the classic charm

@@KTF0 The only issue of Secret Wars 2 I recall being good was when The Thing took on like every supervillain and won.

kinda agree.. he was editor of a company that had a shared universe, and control of their characters, and asked the writers to do good work while confining themselves within the rules he/the company set, and paid them better than other companies for doing that. He had issues, not going to deny that, but Marvel comics was probably better in the Shooter era than it was before or after then as a company. (I mean Quesada's years was a joke... only editor in chief worse than him was Didio... both of which forced their editor ways onto returning back from an evolving line to the product they produced... it's weird how both DC and Marvel got two regressive morons to take over at relatively the same time and force their companies back to the "silver" age )

Well there’s also the fact he stubbornly refused to let Claremont depict a wlw relationship but yeah let’s go with your made up deification instead and pretend he was a flawless god that was martyred for his oh so excellent writing skills

@@ravenfrancis1476 jackass

@@ravenfrancis1476 You're fundamentally an awful person. You should go away and change that before speaking in public again.

@@ravenfrancis1476 put it in context. Alot of people in society were aggressively homophobic. It would have been a scandal that would likely have turned people away as customers. I'm gay and even I know thia. It's not hate. It's not bigotry it BUSINESS. And at the time, that decision made good business sense. I don't think you are being realistic about 5he level of homophobia at that time I was there- let me tell you, Marvel would have been CRUCIFIED if they had gay characters at that time. Grow up

It is always touchy going that way. If the writer had built it as ambiguous. I think it would have felt more natural and the awkward change wouldn't have felt weird. Done well, readers would been, "Hey, that's Jesus..."

It would have taken away the mister of Ghost Rider away.

@@leighfoulkes7297 I don't even know what to say to that? Ghost Rider fights angels and demons on the regular, he's even been a lord of hell and an angel of vengeance, Jesus showing up just seems like something people would or at least should expect at this point.

The concept sounds good though, it could had worked with right writers

Jesus helping Ghostrider sort of makes sense but it’s hard to pull off without being religious Or cheesy.

There is also George Perez, leaving aside his DC work with the New Teen Titans and Crisis on Infinite Earths, he was hailed in mainstream culture as giving new life to Wonder Woman to the point where Patty Jenkins considered him on par with the character's original creator, William Marston.

Man, I wish modern Marvel and DC took better care of their characters like Shooter did. While I get not liking the idea of losing two paychecks, the separation between writer and editor is essential. Most people don't know how to critique their own work akd are too married to their own ideas. I'm generally in favor of erring on the side of the writer, but editors exist to take care of the bigger picture, to provide obstructive criticism, and 5o maintain healthy creative boundaries. Good creatives thrive where there is discipline and limitations.

the more I hear about these writer's terrible ideas the more I side with Shooter

Why didn't he just ask Byrne to take the panel out before it was published? I feel like that would've been less complicated.

@@GREENWIZ6 IIRC, Jim has stated he simply missed that detail in that issue. Because he knew Claremont and Byrne knew their stuff he felt less of a need to keep a hawk's eye on them. And that during that particular month maybe he had 8 other books requiring hardcore attention. Point is, he trusted them so kept less of an eye on them and he missed it.

@@JakobNoone People who haven't read that era of comics might not realize how much a mess the Editor control was at Marvel before Shooter took over. Marvel went through 5 editors in 6 years and missed deadlines was so common (forcing either fill-in issues or reprints in the middle of a story arc or huge printer fees). Plus the growing number of titles was becoming impossible to manage without an Editor actually putting some structure to the process. Without it you got creators leaving in the middle of story arcs without finishing it and no one knowing where the story was going, so the new guy would just wrap it up in 2 pages and reset back anything they didn't like.

@@dolphycj You can bet that there had to have been thousands of pissed off fans who had bought a book advertising a new story, but with a reprint inside, who simply said, "I quit!".

Granted John Byrne seems like a low key na*i- having a Jim Shooter effigy burned in his lawn?

Is that really that different than Kirby coming up with Funky Flashman as a swipe at Stan Lee?

He's still alive

Considering I shook his hand just over 24 hours ago this is a hell of a shock :)

AesculapiusPiranha Disney has made Marvel a bigger name than it’s ever been.

@@tanuki01 He is talking about the comics division. The movies are thriving, the comics are not and the writing and art quality has declined a lot.

Disney also hired people for Marvel that called Stan Lee a pos right after he died, so Disney can get fkd

@@deadpilled2942 Stan had...a large amount of flaws, and a lot of what he's said and done in the past can be, at best, laughably awkward and I feel like scrubbing him clean of all of those faults would be disingenuous to what the man himself would want. I agree it's fucked up to start talking shit about Stan Lee right after he died but the fact that he died should not make him immune to criticism.

@@ravenfrancis1476 true but the ones that criticize Stan Lee after his death was completely uncalled for as they literally insulted and praise that he died. True criticism of a dead person is okay but do it with some decency and respect

this just is not true, he was like this before he got the position of editor in chief and he maneuvered himself into the position with scummy business politics. he wanted the position, and he wanted it because he wanted more control. also having a mount Rushmore of corporate leader ship is truly vile.

You can't put a guy like Joe Quesada who doesn't support good comics within the same rank as Stan Lee and Jim Shooter (I don't have as much information about Jeanette Kahn tho).

🥁Ba, dum-dum🔔🤣👍

Jeff Whitmore 3 now. You jinxed him

4 now

And we're up to 8.

33 now

@@calmgoodfire4662 I cant tell if its people liking or hating Shooter, cuz chris was pretty even handed If SHooter made the video though everyone would dislike it

@Revan Drag No, Secret Wars was just a continuation. Everything continued on with no one but the heroes realizing that the universe ended for around sixty years while Doom played god. The only time there was a reference was in Jessica Jones where she tracks down a serial killer who it turns out remembered everything and was slaughtering people since he knows life and death don't matter if people can come back via tech/magic/cosmic powers. Jessica has to stay silent and let the police think he's just a lunatic so the public won't learn the crazy SOB is pretty much right.

Bigger than Stan Lee perhaps?

@@jC-kc4si I don't know if I'd say that. But very accomplished, and a major figure in comic book history, for sure

@@jC-kc4si yes bigger than stan lee, stan lee was more a brand than a writer or artist

@@lkcdarzadix6216 stan lee is overhyped

Having not been able to finish the original Secret Wars for its terrible writing, I question that narrative. Crossover events are another part of his legacy that has become toxic. Beyond that, I'm wondering if the great things happened DESPITE of Shooter, not BECAUSE of him. The creators who worked under him went on to bigger and better things. Shooter kept failing.

@@johnathonhaney8291 The writing for the original Secret Wars was great. Literally my first comic purchase and got me into comics. The only flaws with it are the same flaws in the writing style of all comics in that type period with being overly expository and unsophisticated. But Shooter taking all those heroes and giving most of them character arcs and page time in the first SW was incredible.

@@thehmc Sorry, no, don't agree. When I contrast Secret Wars with Jim Starlin's Infinity Gauntlet a few years later, the quality upgrade is obvious. Secret Wars was just boring, especially when you contrast it with Crisis On Infinite Earths.

@@johnathonhaney8291 Infinity Gauntlet wasn't just a few years later, it was seven. Also, it wasn't very well written either. But remember IG was post Watchmen and post DKR. Also, the lead in, Thanos Quest, also by Starlin was much better than IG.

Johnathon Haney You can question the narrative, but he’s right. Do you think that it really happened in spite of him twice? That would be an incredible thing. And just look at where Marvel is now, it definitely didn’t go in a better direction.

Wait, for real?

​@@ratedr7845He's a big boy.

I had read that the owners of WIZARD were stockpiling Valiant books, basically attempting to corner the market, then cashing in. Similar to a 'pump and dump' stock scheme. I remember inside an issue of Wizard, they printed they were fans of the DC title 'The Demon'. So why didnt the Demon Etrigan get the cover on an issue of Wizard?

Possible... but those book were very high quality, and really deserved the attention. At least in 1992.

That would have been great to have a 'comics guy's own and run Marvel instead of a bean counter or real estate speculator who is only looking at return on investment and not the health and growth of the industry.

@Lord Kuuga Look at the history of 20th Century entertainment a little closer and you'll find the bean counters are USUALLY in charge. One need only consider the story of Hollywood collectives like United Artists and Zoetrope to see how thinking otherwise is a fallacy.

@@jC-kc4si Ike Pearlmutter is legendary for his cheapness. The only millionaire that I know that would take a broken tv set out of someone else's garbage, and fix it rather than buy a new one.

@@deadpilled2942 Aren't you glad Feige has him effectively sidelined these days?

@@johnathonhaney8291 yeah. After 1973, they pretty much had things locked up because the creative studio heads would eventually make a bomb, and the bean counter was their to tell the stock holders, etc, "You should've hired me.". It was a no win situation for guys like us.

He might have had a point though. Northstar being gay was clearly implied, but not the most interesting (or even central) thing to the character. He was a superhero, who might be gay, instead of being GAY, and might be a superhero. do you see the difference?

Daniel Ball wasn’t implied sexuality pretty much par for the course in TV and movies at this time?

@@danielball959 Why not a character thats both clear cut gay AND a clear cut superhero?

@@matthewbibby8921 I don't see a problem with that idea, Matthew, I see a problem with retconning someone else's work to check a box. First rule of a truly iconic hero is that you build the CHARACTER first, and if gay is part of that original build, then it's not forced or token-as long as it's also not the only character trait you give them. It's a basic part of storytelling that if your character only has one interesting or defining trait? (especially something that the character can't control and didn't have the choice about) then they're not interesting. 'Gay' or 'straight' or even 'bi' isn't somehting you get to pick, you don't have to train for long hours to want to sleep or have sex with someone, it's about as interesting as shoe size or eye color. There's no accomplishment there and nothing to be either ashamed of or proud of, it's just 'what is', like 'how tall are you' or 'what's your shoe size' or something. The more interesting things about a character are the things that make them noble or ignoble that are NOT things they're born with, like generosity or greed, kindness or callousness, willingness to sacrifice for strangers or unwillingness to tolerate them. THOSE are the things that make someone interesting. Powers are just another tool, and things like gender, race, sexuality are just bits and pieces that might provide CAUSES for the interesting traits, but they're not in and of themselves worth much except as macguffins.

One should read his introduction to the Legion of Super Heroes when they were reprinted in trade paperback a while back. Most interesting.

It's rare but it happens. Robert Bloch, who'd go on to write Psycho, got his first professional story written and published at THIRTEEN.

I believe his first printed story, was an issue of action comics that hit the stands on February 13th,1966.

i imagine that Simpsons Groundkeeper Willy Sketch wehn he was Born his father Yells: "Get a job!"

Aren't there child labour laws?

@@mikekennedy5879 I think publishing is different. It's regular work that get in the way of education that's an issue. But as long as you are in full time education and work is not seen as an obstacle then you are allowed.

I recently read parts 2 and 6 of a 7 part saga because I read Miles Morales Spider-Man and not any of the other titles in the Carnage crossover. Thank god for the text recap every marvel book has had for awhile now. I didn't feel like I missed anything. Helps that Miles himself wasn't around for half of what went on. I think Carnage himself was the only character in all 7 parts.

Yes, that did me in, too. When it started to seem like you had to buy every comic they publichsed just understand the one you really were interested in, I said "I'm out". Of course, I was also in my early 20s, and I was naturally growing out of them as well.

It makes Jim Shooter look like a decent guy IMO and probably made Frank alot more money at DC.

Sounds like the right call to me. It likely did get Miller more money, got amazing DD stories for marvel, and let Miller really establish himself in a way you just can't do in only a few months. Does Miller disagree that it was a good call?

@@devent10n Only a lot...Miller has never had a kind word to say about Shooter that I ever heard. He even claims that the royalties thing was something Shooter FOUGHT AGAINST.

Johnathon Haney Considering Miller would go on to write “The Holy Terror” when given complete control of a project, IIIII’mm going to have to stick my neck out and side with Jim Shooter on this. I mean, a man who doesn’t want to listen to people about why writing a blatantly bigoted book like that probably doesn’t work great with others to begin with, so him of all people would most likely hate any editor Exercising even the slightest bit of control.

@@Popcultureguy3000 Miller's failings as a creator came because he eventually lost anyone who could keep him honest. Shooter failed because he never bothered learning how to talk to subordinates like they were people as opposed to peons. I have zero sympathy for either.

b-benis!?

@@kullenberg Benefits, I think, but still hilarious anyway.

You can't talk to people, you got no business being a leader...fact.

Maybe he talked to people, but he wasn't good at it.

Pretty sure. Disagree with that idea, made reading comics really drawn out to start the book. "yes Jim I know who bloody Wolverine is, dammit!"

It wasn't Shooter who came up with that. Google believes it was Stan Lee... but I think I heard it from some other veteran. Anyway, I feel like that is a big part of making comics accessible. Otherwise, you end up with the current decompressed comic-books that you have to wait years to read because some writers are not very good at pacing. This is something that was abandoned in the eighties and then Marvel brought back on inside covers. I think it was nicely done (and better than wasting a page of the new issue). Many publishers still do that (like IDW and Image).

You really don't know someone until you have to live with them or travel across country with them or work for them.

@@scockery so true.

And the sexism?

@@tanuki01 Neither the video nor I ever mention sexism. So, what are you referring to?

Rob Boyte The video *DID* mention the sexism, Avengers 200, forcing John Brynn to keep Northstar in the closet, and that scene he wrote in Rampaging Hulk magazine where two gay teens at a YMCA try to rape Bruce Banner in the showers(holy shit was the gay panic strong with Shooter in that issue, kind of pathetic he could be so afraid of a group of people he had probably never met at that point of his life before).

@@Popcultureguy3000 Avengers 200 makes me physically ill to think about.

You're probably right. Mort W. was a total A-Hole, but he did know the audience.

They should have listened to jim and kept her dead

Agreed. It added a really nice emotional toll to it that really wrapped it up

HetLedie which time? She really lives up to the Phoenix monicker

That's more of a problem for comics then. Actions should have consequences. If a villain destroys a planet, well, they're a villain so it's not like the action is being endorsed. But if a hero (brainwashed or otherwise) destroys a planet, there should be some very real consequences. If there's not, or if the action is treated like some trivial un-important matter then that's some seriously shitty writing.

I believe Len Wein felt she should stay dead as well. That if they wanted to replace her, Jean has a sister, and that could have driven some great story. Don't quote on it being Len. Been awhile since I saw the video.