Why isn't Jim Shooter more popular with Marvel fanboys?

[boomtown]

I have read several creators of that era say that Marvel was doing a lot of good stuff then not because of Shooter, but in spite of Shooter.

Who?

Was it Roy Thomas who made a living rewriting Robert E Howard and Stan Lee stories?

Was it Gary Groth and his anti-mainstream comics agenda ?

I want names.

A lot of the suspects who didn`t like Shooter turned out to all have their own agendas as well. When we dig deeper we will find that none of these suspects smelled like roses.

 

I believe most of that comes from that most of the quality books were coming from a single persons vision, such as Miller on Daredevil, Simonson on Thor & Byrne on the Fantastic Four. These guys stuck with Marvel as long as Shooter stayed out of their playgrounds. Once he started to exert his control Miller & Byrne bolted.

 

To be expected, many of the creators had there on agendas, but the more I read on the topic it really seems to boil down to Shooters ego. Creators aren't real big on having their work mucked with & Shooter liked putting his footprint on everything. If you need the job, you put up with it. If there's a better option you move on. That's what most of Marvels top creators did.

 

 

[Prince Namor]

I have read several creators of that era say that Marvel was doing a lot of good stuff then not because of Shooter, but in spite of Shooter.

Who?

Was it Roy Thomas who made a living rewriting Robert E Howard and Stan Lee stories?

Was it Gary Groth and his anti-mainstream comics agenda ?

I want names.

A lot of the suspects who didn`t like Shooter turned out to all have their own agendas as well. When we dig deeper we will find that none of these suspects smelled like roses.

 

Just because a creator wants to be treated fairly (and let's face it, there's a whole bunch of creators who weren't necessarily treated fairly for a long, long time - Jack Kirby, anyone?) doesn't mean they smell.

Frank Miller took 'Ronin' to DC because he got a better deal and obviously felt he couldn't trust Shooter, even though Shooter gave him, Starlin and Simonson the greenlight to do creator-owned projects.

Creators didn't trust Shooter completely.

Not just Roy Thomas.

Byrne left. Miller left. Starlin couldn't get paid and left.

 

In my opinion, It wasn't because Shooter was tough on people. It was because he couldn't be completely trusted by people.

Archie Goodwin was tough on creators, but everyone loved him and respected him.

As Shooter even said in an interview:

"First and foremost, everyone loved Archie. Archie had a manner about him that you just couldn't not like him. While he was tough as nails, and he was probably the best that passed through this business, he managed to do it without offending anyone. He managed to be respected and remain friends with everyone and do his job.

 

Me on the other hand... People walk on the other side of the street from me, they're so offended. I don't have that grace and talent, number one, there's some people who wouldn't work for me because if you worked on the Marvel characters, you still did work for hire. I installed all these incentives and some of these guys were literally making $1 million a year. OK, Todd McFarlane became a millionaire working off of my incentive plan. So, I'm not saying it was a bad deal, but it was work-for-hire. You didn't own the fundamental underlying rights to the characters.

 

There were some people, as a matter of principle, who simply would not do that. They would only work for Archie at Epic Comics, not knowing probably that they were still working for me. The other thing is, there were some people that would work for Archie just because he's such a great guy.

 

...There were people who were afraid to work for me. But they'd work for Archie, not knowing that he was probably tougher on them than I would have been. But he always managed to keep it from getting too intense. I also think there was a certain amount of respect level."

 

You have to ask 'Why?"

To me, over the years, reading between the lines, it's very evident that the creators couldn't believe what Shooter told them.

If you read interviews, and his blog and see the 'circumstances' behind some of the famous stories during his time as EIC of Marvel, there's always an excuse. Always someone else who actually didn't tell him what was going on. It was always something.

 

To me, if John Byrne gets mad and quits, I'm going to call him and find out why.

If Frank Miller takes an idea somewhere else, I'm going to find out what I can do to bring him back, not wait 20 years to recount those stories with, "I wasn't aware, but..." stories.

 

A lot of what he says doesn't add up.

 

[boomtown]

I have read several creators of that era say that Marvel was doing a lot of good stuff then not because of Shooter, but in spite of Shooter.

Who?

Was it Roy Thomas who made a living rewriting Robert E Howard and Stan Lee stories?

Was it Gary Groth and his anti-mainstream comics agenda ?

I want names.

A lot of the suspects who didn`t like Shooter turned out to all have their own agendas as well. When we dig deeper we will find that none of these suspects smelled like roses.

 

Just because a creator wants to be treated fairly (and let's face it, there's a whole bunch of creators who weren't necessarily treated fairly for a long, long time - Jack Kirby, anyone?) doesn't mean they smell.

Frank Miller took 'Ronin' to DC because he got a better deal and obviously felt he couldn't trust Shooter, even though Shooter gave him, Starlin and Simonson the greenlight to do creator-owned projects.

Creators didn't trust Shooter completely.

Not just Roy Thomas.

Byrne left. Miller left. Starlin couldn't get paid and left.

 

In my opinion, It wasn't because Shooter was tough on people. It was because he couldn't be completely trusted by people.

Archie Goodwin was tough on creators, but everyone loved him and respected him.

As Shooter even said in an interview:

"First and foremost, everyone loved Archie. Archie had a manner about him that you just couldn't not like him. While he was tough as nails, and he was probably the best that passed through this business, he managed to do it without offending anyone. He managed to be respected and remain friends with everyone and do his job.

 

Me on the other hand... People walk on the other side of the street from me, they're so offended. I don't have that grace and talent, number one, there's some people who wouldn't work for me because if you worked on the Marvel characters, you still did work for hire. I installed all these incentives and some of these guys were literally making $1 million a year. OK, Todd McFarlane became a millionaire working off of my incentive plan. So, I'm not saying it was a bad deal, but it was work-for-hire. You didn't own the fundamental underlying rights to the characters.

 

There were some people, as a matter of principle, who simply would not do that. They would only work for Archie at Epic Comics, not knowing probably that they were still working for me. The other thing is, there were some people that would work for Archie just because he's such a great guy.

 

...There were people who were afraid to work for me. But they'd work for Archie, not knowing that he was probably tougher on them than I would have been. But he always managed to keep it from getting too intense. I also think there was a certain amount of respect level."

 

You have to ask 'Why?"

To me, over the years, reading between the lines, it's very evident that the creators couldn't believe what Shooter told them.

If you read interviews, and his blog and see the 'circumstances' behind some of the famous stories during his time as EIC of Marvel, there's always an excuse. Always someone else who actually didn't tell him what was going on. It was always something.

 

To me, if John Byrne gets mad and quits, I'm going to call him and find out why.

If Frank Miller takes an idea somewhere else, I'm going to find out what I can do to bring him back, not wait 20 years to recount those stories with, "I wasn't aware, but..." stories.

 

A lot of what he says doesn't add up.

 

I read that article that you quoted from a few weeks ago. Like you said, Shooter was always able to explain everything away, but there were certainly cracks in his story.

 

The whole Colan thing really shed light on Shooter in my opinion. Colan was driven off that book by Shooter, & Wolfman decided to let the book be cancelled rather than continuing with another artist. Then you here Shooter's version that no one wanted to work with Colan because he was so sloppy & wouldn't follow the storylines as written. Who do you believe?

[shadroch]

Bryne left Marvel for a chance to reboot Superman. There was nothing Marvel could offer him that was in the same ballpark. Nothing. Shooter would have left Marvel if he'd been given that chance. I suspect Stan Lee, in 1968, would have done the same.

[Prince Namor]

Bryne left Marvel for a chance to reboot Superman. There was nothing Marvel could offer him that was in the same ballpark. Nothing. Shooter would have left Marvel if he'd been given that chance. I suspect Stan Lee, in 1968, would have done the same.

 

Not sure about that.

Byrne's dislike of Shooter, especially later on is well documented.

 

And after coming back to Marvel, he did quit over the issue of the Hulk that was rejected. And strange enough, Shooter never called to ask why.

 

 

[Prince Namor]

Here are some interesting quotes from JB on Shooter from his forum website.

I'm not trying to say JB is the person to look to when it comes to reasons to like or dislike Jim Shooter during his time at Marvel.

JB is just one of the more openly vocal about it and it makes for some interesting reading. By all means, do some research on it and make your own conclusions.

 

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Question: JB, while you've spoken at times on Shooter's Editing abilities, I can't recall anything you've said about his writing. Were you ever a fan of Shooter's work?

JB: 50/50

 

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"This would be the same Jim Shooter who ordered me to redraw a panel of THE AVENGERS in which I had an out-of-costume Hawkeye punch the Absorbing Man in the back of the head after AM had shoved Clint off a bar stool. "My heroes don't do that!" said Shooter, despite the fact that practically the whole office agreed it was totally in character for Hawkeye to do so."

 

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Comment: Scanning through I've seen seemingly contradictory opinions of Jim Shooter from you.

JB: There's nothing "contradictory". Sometimes he was right, sometimes he was wrong. The longer he stayed on as EiC, the more it became the latter.

IMHO. (<--- I thought that was a great touch)

 

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"Shooter used to say that Marvel (for which, read "Jim Shooter") would rather publish a really good book that got low sales -- he'd site Roger Stern's run on DOCTOR STRANGE -- than a POS that sold thru the roof.

Unfortunately, he went on to produce one of the biggest PsOS in the history of Marvel, and garner some of the biggest sales the company had seen in a decade or so --- and so he had to convince himself that SW was a huge success not merely because it was jammed full of just about every character Marvel had, but because it was >>BRILLIANT<<".

 

"After SW started to come out, Shooter's "notes" to the editors, scribbled in the margins of the printer's make-ready copies, became more and more "See SECRET WARS #(whatever) for how to do this right!"

Not only would he usually not specify what "this" was, but, seriously, there was nobody up at Marvel then who would have looked at SECRET WARS to find out how to do anything "right"."

 

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"SECRET WARS was successful for one very simple reason: it was all superheroes, all the time. There was hardly a page that did not have people running around in costume. And since our audience then was still mostly kids -- you guys, apparently! -- it was maximum bang for the buck.

In fact, as I am sure I have mentioned before, when Shooter was crowing about how SW was "bringing in a whole new generation of readers", Mike Higgins pulled the sales figures on all the other titles, and found that each and every one, from FF, to X-MEN, to DAREDEVIL, to AVENGERS and so on, had dropped by a figure which, when added together, gave the same number as the sales of SECRET WARS. In other words, rather than bringing in new readers, Shooter was merely siphoning off readers from the existing titles. Kids were thinking "Why should I buy 12 titles a month, when I can get all the same characters in one?"

 

It was, needless to say, a blow to all us writer types who were carefully constructing character and story arcs --- which apparently mattered not one whit to the readers, as long as somebody was hitting somebody else!"

 

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"Oh, SW2 was even more "fun" than the first one. Shooter ordered everyone to include scenes with the Beyonder in certain issues -- picked by him, apparently at random. Since most of us -- even the really late guys -- were far ahead of Shooter on the schedule, we had no idea what the Beyonder could do, and when asked Shooter said "He can do anything."

 

So we pushed ahead, using the character as best we could in stories that we had planned out long before -- and in almost every instance, Shooter ordered stuff redrawn and rewritten because we got the Beyonder "wrong".

 

That was always the single biggest problem, dealing with Shooter. He lacked the communication skills to tell us what he wanted. He could only tell us what was "wrong", over and over and over again. The only way we knew when we finally got it "right" was that he'd start finding fault with something else.

 

'Scuse me -- head aching -- must lie down. . ."

 

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"When Shooter complained to me that I had left out backgrounds in many panels (this was the second part of the Absorbing Man story) I pointed out that I had done so only where the backgrounds would be covered by copy, and that the inkers, pressed for time, would probably have dropped what little would have been visible anyway. This was the issue that was lost in the mail, en route back to me, and so had to be inked on overlay, over xeroxes. True to my prediction, the inkers left blank the same areas I had left blank, which were subsequently filled up with balloons and captions."

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Comment: I have reached the conclusion that Jim Shooter was an *spoon*.

 

JB: "Amusingly enough, just recently I came across some kind of blog on which a poster insisted that "people like" Steve Englehart and myself "taking shots" at Shooter did not make Shooter look bad, but made US look like "petty jerks".

 

It's ever and always a source of fascination, to me, to watch people pontificate upon that which they know nothing about -- such as what it was like working at Marvel under Shooter.

 

I wonder if this poster thinks that all the "shots" that have been taken at ME over the years make those doing the "shooting" also look like petty jerks?"

 

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"It should be noted that Shooter's method of "teaching" basically consisted of constant badgering with little or no positive input, and the only way you would ever know you'd finally figured out what he wanted was when he would suddenly start badgering you about something else!

Another of his charming habits was attacking everybody for doing something he didn't like in a single artist -- whether they were doing it or not! One of the small triumphs of my days under Shooter was when he had a bee in his bonnet about Ross Andru. Ross was then drawing AMAZING SPIDER-MAN, and was considered untouchable, but Shooter did not like the way he drew punches. Truth to tell, Ross' figures were a bit stiff, and when someone threw a punch as he drew it there was not much follow-thru from the rest of the body. The punch seemed to come from the shoulder, and the rest of the torso stayed stiff.

 

To address this, one day Shooter cornered me in the middle of the editorial bullpen, and started haranguing me on this point in front of everyone there. "When somebody throws a punch their whole body has to follow thru!" Luckily, as chance would have it, on the wall of covers of books that came out that month, this was prominently displayed:

 

I pointed to it. "You mean like this?"

Shooter turned red in the face, and stumped back into his office. I heard no more about how poorly I drew figures throwing punches.

 

The rest of the bullpen applauded.

 

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