More power to him but changing a character that's origins are intertwined so closely with the fight against Nazi Germany strikes me as ludicrous in the extreme. For Captain America to renounce violence would be to say that his whole life was nothing but a lie. Anyone with more than a cursory knowledge of history knows that pacifism just doesn't work; examples such as Ghandhi and MLK Jr to the contrary.

I've felt for a very long time that Shooter gets a hell of a lot of crap from both industry professionals and fans that he honestly doesn't deserve. Nearly every story I've heard about how horrible he was has struck me as a case of the writer/artist he had a disagreement with being a childish prima donna while Shooter was the one taking the sane and rational stance. About the only thing I'd fault him for was the Kirby original artwork issue - and it's hard to blame him for that since it wasn't his decision to make.

It's easy for a for a writer/artist to complain that he's stifling creativity or imposing his own view of the characters on the staff, but when you've got writers/artists who either don't give a damn about the long-term viability of the character or are just incapable of realizing just how badly their "clever" plot is going to damage the title, I'd RATHER have someone like Shooter there to act as the voice of reason.

If anything, I think that's precisely the sort of thing Marvel NEEDS these days, because clearly, the inmates are basically running the asylum.

But, when you add up writers and artists who are honked off at him for impeding their precious vision, plus people mad at him for the original artwork problem, and then just people who had personal agendas, you've got fertile ground for people fudging details or telling outright lies to make him seem far, far worse than he actually was. When those sorts of stories get told second-hand to people who don't have the necessary knowledge to realize what's true and what isn't, it creates a distorted picture of what was really going on. The winners write history, and a lot of the history written about Shooter came out of Marvel after they booted him. Hardly reliable. Especially when some of the people who bashed him the hardest have shown themselves to have feet of clay as well...

Was he a saint? I'm sure he wasn't. But I've never seen anything to convince me he's the demon a lot of people try to paint him as, either.

>>> If we can accept the following three points, then we must accept the fact that Jim Shooter, despite his drawbacks, was a superior EIC to many of his successors including Joe Quesada.

When you factor in the fact that some of the greatest stories Marvel ever published came out of his time as EiC, and that a lot of people would agree that Marvel began a downward slide after his departure that it STILL has yet to fully recover from, I'd say he's clearly the last great EiC Marvel had.

I always saw it as very telling that Valiant experienced a massive surge of popularity and quality writing during his tenure there, but then started to take an immediate and massive dump right into the toilet as soon as they pressured him out. Most of the things he was in favor of or against (and that the other Valiant staff used as their excuse to force him out) all seem like very good ideas when you compare them with what eventually happened to the line.

>>> no killing jean grey first as an editorial stick in the mud because she killed a planet and then a few years later oh lets bring jean back but only if you find a way that blah blah blah constistency to what i think.

Realistically, I've always taken a stance similar to that of Chris Claremont after the fact - that the death of Jean fit the story far better than anything else would have, and helped make it far more impactful and filled with meaning. People wouldn't even REMOTELY be talking about that storyline as such a pivotal event the way we are if it ended by basically having Jean go "oh, I was crazy, but it's okay I'm better now". Even if Shooter's sole objection was based on his "strong moral stance" that Jean shouldn't be shown to have killed MILLIONS OF INNOCENT ALIENS which she was out of her mind and get away scot free (and really, that's NOT a crazy stance to take!), it's still the main reason why that story became so iconic.

It was of the most meaningful deaths in comics, and it was only cheapened by having the cop-out that it wasn't Jean at all. But it would have been cheapened from the very beginning if it HAD been Jean, but nothing really happened and the status quo continued.

>>> I also think it was ridicules that he had a policy of no openly gay characters at marvel.

To be fair, it was far more understandable in the 80's, when homosexuality was still seen by most people as a sort of mental illness, and gay men in general were being blamed for the spread of AIDS. Unless you lived at the time and were aware of public attitudes, it's hard to understand just how PERMISSIVE and UNDERSTANDING people are about it today compared to even a few decades ago - and that's even keeping in mind that Prop 8 just passed. Regardless of how bad people may think intolerance is today, it was FAR worse then.

When Northstar came out, there was a huge amount of press, even for a title which was ultimately so far off the radar most people probably thought it had been cancelled years before. And that was in 1992.

Try to have that same storyline nine years earlier, in 1983 (when Byrne was first developing the characters), and not only would you have had a LOT more press, most of it would have been VERY negative. ESPECIALLY when you realize most people tend to assume that comics are for KIDS (or did, at least - that perspective has shifted somewhat as well). In fact, I could easily see people sending threats to Marvel, or potentially escalating things to an even worse level.

Personally, I could care less what anyone's sexuality is, but if I was EiC of Marvel in the mid-80's, I'm not sure I would have been keen on having gay characters either. It could easily have been bad for business, and it's not the role of comics to be social pioneers or cultural innovators.

>>> Not really understanding the Secret Wars hate- for all the commercial aspects, it was a really fun, self contained story (unlike HOM or Civil War- both children of Secret Wars II- which yes, you can count as a horror upon man), that had action, pathos, some great art (when Zeck actually did the honors- look at that cover for #10 and tell me that’s not one of the top 5 pictures of Doctor Doom ever drawn) and some really interesting, lasting consequences for certain characters that wonder of wonders, actually carried over into their individual books pretty seamlessly rather than the 40 some odd parallel divergences between a miniseries of today and the regular books.

I still say that the original Secret Wars series was, as a self-contained series, far more interesting and coherent than a lot of what Marvel's putting out today. If nothing else, most of the characters actually acted the way they should based on decades worth of previous continuity, and didn't have their entire personality retconned solely so they could play a role in a story that the writer felt like telling (Civil War Iron Man, Brand New Day Spider-Man, etc).

You're close, but the real story is even more colorful than that.

Jesus, this is what I get for googling. Ow, ow, ow.

Oh,and Dr. Doom owned everybody including Galactus for 1 1/2 issues. Always worth reading.

The Cap vs. Red Skull story arc, along with Secret Wars, were the two comics at that time that actually got me into the hobby- then it steamrolled for me as I got more and more titles- but those are the two that brought me in, and that Cap story is still one of the finest Cap arcs ever.

As for EIC's, I think Quesada goes for some far more interesting character development- really delving into a world like ours that happens to have superheroes which in turn impacts on the action rather than going for the action at the expense of character work, but Shooter ran a tighter ship where there was more of a cohesive universe and some truly fun stuff came out of it.

One last point, when I see folks arguing on the boards as to what Captain America is supposed to stand for in this day and age or just dribbling lunacies on how he's some sort of pro-US propaganda- the story I point them to is Gruenwald's "Streets of Poison" arc where we really see what Cap's all about- its probably my favorite Cap run after the 280-300 Red Skull Faceoff, and a really good primer on why Steve Rogers makes the hero work.

1) He worked very hard to maintain continuity in the Marvel Universe.

2) As mentioned above, he did his best to protect the profiles of the major characters in the Marvel Universe.

3) He made sure that no matter what, his product came out on time.

If we can accept the following three points, then we must accept the fact that Jim Shooter, despite his drawbacks, was a superior EIC to many of his successors including Joe Quesada.

I don't accept anything of the sort. I've tried various samples of Marvel comics from before Jemas+Quesada came on board and just about the only one's I've enjoyed were those written by Frank Miller. Personally I have to judge an EIC by how much I want to read the stories that come out during their reign so Joe Quesada takes the prize with ease for me.

“How can Chewie be grabbing Lando’s arse if his hands are both clearly visible in front of Lando?”

Lando isn’t standing up. Chewie’s carrying him and yes, he is totally grabbing him.

Ah I can see it now. I wondered what that large black phallus was protruding from Lando's waist - but now I can see it's just his leg. A bit of a disappointment really

no killing jean grey first as an editorial stick in the mud because she killed a planet and then a few years later oh lets bring jean back but only if you find a way that blah blah blah constistency to what i think. I also think it was ridicules that he had a policy of no openly gay characters at marvel. Actually i didn't think secret wars was that bad though...please don't hurt me.

I think deMatteis's run was stronger, but Gruenwald was pretty good too. The Serpent Society, Diamondback, Madcap, Crossbones, Flag-Smasher, USAgent (though I think he was cooler as the Guy Gardneresque Superpatriot). Good times, good times.

Still, the last couple of years Gruenwald had on the title were pretty damned awful, that is one of the reasons I think deMatteis was better.

I came into comics during the De Falco Marvel era, so all I really know about Jim Shooter firsthand is the early Valiant, which was fantastic at the time. I think one can easily trace the editors-imposing-stories-on-writers syndrome that has afflicted superhero books for ages now back to him, however, such as with the death of Dark Phoenix.

We all are aware, I'm sure, of the infamous DC Implosion of 1978. The thing is, two years later (as of September 1980 cover dates), DC did it again, with three differences: 1: No promotional name for the expansion (big deal; they were probably smarting from "Implosion") 2. Only the three big team titles---Justice League, Legion, New T. Titans---added the extra pages to the already existing feature as opposed to getting back--up series (whereas the first time DC COMICS PRESENTS, JONAH HEX, and quite surprisingly Mike Grell's one--man show WARLORD---and there might have been others that I never picked up on---all expanded the lead to 25 pages) (an obvious and well--advised move), and most significantly, 3. The overall page count did NOT go up, so advertising revenue was lost this time (never could figure THAT out) (you could call the fact that it worked this time a fourth difference). The thing is, Marvel apparently got wind and quickly followed suit, upping their cover price the same month (September, remember?), but not increasing the story-page count until the November-dated issues, and then only to 22, rather than DC's 25 pages. We were charged an extra 25% without getting anything for it for two months! But they weren't through. Marvel soon announced the return of the Bullpen Bulletins page, if only for a temporary try--out, and promised no story pages would be dropped for it. For that trial run, they were true to their word: it was the letters pages that vanished then! After a few months, they brought the feature back permanently, and a page of story/art disappeared to make room for it! (GCD indexes for the three Marvel titles of this period that I checked don't list letter columns or the Bulletins page, but the story page counts DO drop from 22 to 21 as of November 1981 issues) Was Jim Shooter culpable in one, the other, or both of these pieces of BS, and why were there no truly public complaints about it that *I* ever encountered (I did hear talk in the comic shop which was my regular supplier at that time) Anybody know?

gruenwald issues were classic cap, hardly lackluster and half assed.

And while I sympathize with JM deMatteis position in general, it just occured to me exactly why his idea was so horribly wrong for Captain America in particular. Pacifism may be a noble philosophy, but Cap is the one comic book character that knows that sometimes violence is the only solution, since he was created to fight the Nazis. Hitler was the one bad guy to prove that diplomacy just doesn't cut it in some situations.

Now, seeing Batman renouncing his role as vigilante to concentrate on changing Gotham through peaceful means as Bruce Wayne would make more sense (but would still be extremely boring).

It's true, as seen in many interviews, that DeMatteis has deep pacifist convictions. He said several times that he is very suspicious of and troubled by the way superheroes use violence to solve problems. He has been very honest about it, even to the point that he said he doesn't consider himself a good person to be writing straightforward stories in the superhero genre.

"But yeah, Marvel’s had a lot worse, management-wise. Whatever you think of Misters Quesada and Shooter, they’re still a marked improvement over Bob Harras. :- )"

I'm not sure who is worse, Bob Harras or Tom deFalco. DeFalco was the one that started to quickly destroy the very solid house Shooter had built, and Harras completed the destruction.

While I accept two of your points, I do have some trouble with this one:

"2) As mentioned above, he did his best to protect the profiles of the major characters in the Marvel Universe."

Wasn't Shooter the one who, according to Doug Moench, wanted to replace Cap with a Wall Street Stock Broker during the height of the Reagan era? Or is that another urban legend for Brian to debunk? :- )

If it's true, I'd hardly call it protecting the profile of the MU's major characters.

But yeah, Marvel's had a lot worse, management-wise. Whatever you think of Misters Quesada and Shooter, they're still a marked improvement over Bob Harras. :- )

==Tom