|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Jim Shooter, Former Marvel EIC, Dead At Age 73
He had his share of controversy, and was by no means perfect, but he certainly left a mark on the industry. F#@k cancer. Rest in Peace.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
He wasn't perfect, but he's someone I will remember fondly.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
This came as a shock to me.
I won't waste time writing about the facts of Shooter's remarkable life. You could get that information from many, many sources, far more reliable than anything I could write here. I expect that even people who hated Jim Shooter couldn't deny what a huge impact he had on the American comic book industry, so hard facts are easy to research.
No, I just want to throw in a personal note. In the 2000s, when I was at the height of my Legion of Super-Heroes fandom, I got and read all that material from its beginning in 1958 until mid-1968. I had heard that Jim Shooter - whom DC Comics had hired to write for that series when he was 14 - did a particularly good job, revolutionizing the series. But I read his Legion material published from mid-1966 to mid-1968 and said "Meh. I don't see that it's any greater than the earliest Legion stories." I felt much more impressed with Paul Levitz' contribution to the series.
Only two days ago, I happened to write about the subject on these forums. (Here's a link to that post.) At the time, I had no idea that Shooter's death was only one day away. Anyway, I was speaking highly of Paul Levitz' Legion issues from the 1970s and 80s, saying that they "beat the heck" out of the earlier stories. And to indicate that I knew what I was talking about, I explained how I had read Shooter's stuff from the 1960s.
And as I wrote that, I looked at my own writing and frowned. (I've been doing that a lot lately with my own writing.) Was it fair for me to compare material from the 1960s to the late 1970s? In the 60s, DC was still gearing comics toward children. It wasn't until the 70s that DC began to consider the more mature demographic (although I must comment that I feel DC didn't quite figure out how to make that work for them until around 1980). I found myself finishing that paragraph with the confession that perhaps I was being unfair to Shooter. Instead of making my point - that I knew what I was talking about - I found that I was defeating the... POINT of making a point. Maybe I DON'T know what I'm talking about.
Later in that post, I went on to say that I wanted to get more of Levitz' Legion material from the 1970s. After I submitted my post, I found myself thinking "And when I do that, I ought to try some of SHOOTER's Legion stuff from the 1970s as well. Until I do, what right do I have to trash-talk his writing?"
Of course, Shooter's work since then was tremendous. His work for Marvel in the 1970s and 80s changed the whole course of comic book history. But again, sources are plentiful, so you don't need me to tell you that.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
LONG LIVE THE LEGION
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
On the one hand, I didn't think much of his writing on Secret Wars when it first came out, and thinking about why forty years later I doubt my opinion would change much if I read it again.
OTOH, he was editor-in-chief at Marvel at a time when they produced some IMO amazing material, and though I can't say how much he personally contributed to that he at least didn't get in the way. So yeah. Fsck cancer, and my condolences to those who knew him.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I can't say how much he personally contributed to that he at least didn't get in the way.
He didn't get in the way is about the funniest thing I've read. He was a strong Editor-In-Chief. Read what people have said. If he didn't get in the way Phoenix/Jean Grey wouldn't have died at the end of the Dark Phoenix Saga. He told Claremont and Byrne she had to die because she blew up a planet of people. There had to be repercussions for that. You don't just get your powers taken away and leave the team.
He made strong decisions all the time and got in the way all the time.