I've always heard very conflicting opinions about him, even in "Marvel: The Untold Story" he's kind of portrayed as a crazed, megalomaniacal zealot who was the absolute bane of every Marvel writer's existence. He forced Claremont to make New Mutants, and he threw out a proposal for a plot twist where "mysterious figure" that helped Johnny Blaze out from time to time was actually, infact, God/Jesus

There's a documentary that I'm quite fond of, Jodorowsky's Dune, and there's a quote from there that I'd like to paraphrase that always stuck out to me that I think applies to Jim perfectly: "you cannot create something truly great if you don't have a touch of madness"

Jim acted more or less for the benefit of the characters themselves, not the writers, as insane as that sounds. Without Jim, we wouldn't have a second coming of the "Marvel Age" and we certainly wouldn't have had the sheer, unparalleled brilliance that is Valiant

I'm indebted to him, yes, but he's still an incredibly flawed individual. But then again, we all are

My grade of Jim Shooter's Reign at Marvel is rather mixed. He was defender of creator royalties, saved Marvel Comics, and most importantly he's was an innovator of setting the bar for making sure that the writer - writes good stories and that's his signature at Marvel Comics so his grade in those areas is an solid A.

As far as establishing ridiculous deadlines on writers - especially writers/creators like Steve Gerber, John Byrne, Gene Colan, and others - he was basically was mean to them in setting the bar straight with them and making their lives miserable and that's why they left Marvel Comics because of Jim Shooter. Jim in some cases alienated them and having said that; I felt that he nearly brought Marvel to the ground and it's took them to the point of where his editorial policies were so unrealistic that many of them left Marvel and a huge block of talent went with it. I felt that during Marvel Comics in the early 80's were so bad that many of my friends starting to go to DC Comics and other comic book companies and when they did that it's lead to his firing in 1987. That's when he lost it and Marvel suffered from it to the ground and it's took them awhile to get back on track.

His grade for most part is a solid C+ in establishing deadlines for writers and as far as an editor his grade was a C- Minus because he made certain creators/writers mad and that alone causes him to fail as an editor of Marvel Comics. I felt that he should been a writer first and editor 2nd. His tenure as a Editor was a mixed blessing at Marvel because he defended creator royalties and that alone made him a good man to begin with.

For the overall grade - I have to give him a B Minus as Editor of Marvel Comics - and that grade is a weak one because he literally cause great strain on certain long term creators and writers and having known that from friends that reads Marvel Comics and many of them wanted Stan Lee to knock some sense to him and tell him to give Jim Shooter and others more slack and that didn't happen at all. I was surprised to learn that from my dear friends and that's why I did not care for Marvel Comics after 1987 and that's when I stopped reading books from Marvel because of Jim Shooter demands of establishing deadlines that was considered unrealistic at that point in the early part to mid part of the 80's.

My time with Marvel Comics was in the mid 60's to late 70's and the start of the 80's was considered the dark days of Marvel Comics and that's lead to my participation in reading and buying their books to the utter standstill and I did not spend a single cent of my monies on Marvel Comics due to Jim Shooter reign as Marvel Editor and that's why I'm having a hard time dealing with him.

Sorry about the long post here ... I just wanted to make myself clear and I felt that he could had given a Grade of D+ and I almost gave it to him. He was a megalomaniac and I don't like people that are and that's why I don't like him one bit.

In his Post-Marvel career, he at least seemed to have a sincere appreciation for the few creators who had stuck with him, Janet Jackson being a prime example.

I think he was both. At the beginning of his reign, he helped bring a stability that Marvel had been solely lacking. The inmates had been running the asylum for a few years, with the revolving door E-I-C. Even Archie Goodwin, a seasoned editor, kin of threw up his hands in dealing with it. Part of it was the explosion of titles. When Stan was E-I-C, it was just a handful of titles; and, even when the gloves came off, it wasn't that big. Same with Roy. The job grew beyond the ability for one guy to handle things. They did add editors; but, everybody seemed to do their own thing. Shooter cut his teeth under Mort Weisinger and worked for Archie; so, he learned both good and tough editorial practices. At the start, I think he was what was needed to bring order out of the chaos. Some of the gripes against him are from people who had basically been doing whatever they wanted, even when it didn't sell and couldn't meet deadlines. The writer-editor deals meant they answered to no one. On the one hand, that gave them a great amount of freedom to create. On the other, when they were going off the rails, no one could push them back on them. That was one of Shooter's first targets, putting an end to those contracts, once they came up, which led to an exodus of writer-editors.

On the other side, Shooter had very definite ideas about storytelling and he began to exert greater and greater pressure to conform to those ideas. Shooter was a damn good writer; but, his style didn't necessarily work for everyone and for every type of story. Like any formula, it was limiting. The more it became the norm, the more boring the Marvel line became for me. It became like generic plots, into which any character could be inserted. That stifled many people who finally had enough and left. On the positive side, it had the effect of raising the average sales of the entire line; but, it had the negative effect of reducing innovation and limited the creation of breakout stars. Even Daredevil took time to build it's audience.

As the 80s wore on, it seemed that Shooter became more and more dictatorial, according to a lot of accounts, and became harder and harder to deal with. Stories of shouting matches and thrown office equipment abound, though there is probably some exaggeration in that. What isn't exaggerated is how Shooter hurt Marvel's image within the fan community, as the fight over Jack Kirby's original art earned Marvel a lot of venom. He was reluctant to embrace even partial creator ownership and royalties, until DC and the independent market forced his hand. By the end of the 80s, Marvel seemed stuck in a rut and was even losing ground, while DC had been reborn and was churning out hit after hit, many of which were gaining mainstream media attention, leading to merchandising bonanzas and movies and tv. Marvel had been desperately trying to sell their properties with little success and those that did sell were often so badly done that Marvel's name on a movie or tv pilot was poison (apart from the Hulk).

Shooter was a mentor to a lot of young talent and many owe a part of their success to him. However, his post-Secret Wars rigidity to that formula probably hurt some of their development. In the end, Marvel was bleeding talent, it was ceding market share, had few hot media properties and it seemed like Shooter was the problem. I don't know if that was true; but, I do think he was burnt out, which probably factored quite a bit into the personnel issues. I also think he became more and more afraid of taking chances and spent more time just reinventing the same wheel, like with New Mutants and X-Factor. Part of the reason DC was booming was because they took chances, since they had nowhere else to go but up.

In the end, though, I wonder if Marvel would have ended up the mess it was in the 90s, if Shooter had still been in control. I doubt he would have had that much influence over the McAndrews Group's financial shenanigans; but, he might have been a voice of reason in the Heroes World fiasco.

I think he did a good job with Valiant, at first; but, there was a sameness to a lot of their titles, even with interesting concepts at the heart of them. Each successive venture seemed more generic and saw less success. I think he had gone as far as he could with his formula.

There are other things mixed in with Shooter that I think made things inevitable. Based on his own descriptions of childhood and his early days in comics, I think he harbored a lot of issues that caught up with him at the end.

It may be that the disparate impressions of Shooter are partly due to the fact that he came in at a time when treating talent well to create good books seemed the way to success and ended at a time when gaining market share at all costs was supreme.

Jim Shooter was good for Marvel at first, putting an end to the Dreaded Deadline Doom nonsense, requiring that letters page answers be signed, and generally expecting a degree of professionalism that had been lost amidst the chaos of the Wein/Wolfman/Conway/Goodwin revolving door. I even agree with his decision to eliminate the writer/editor position, even though it alienated Roy Thomas and others. But Shooter isn't (or wasn't, then) a people person. Worse, his editorial role model was the crass, cruel, dictatorial Mort Weisinger. So conflicts that would've been amicably resolved under a more socially skilled editor (like his clashes with Gene Colan) escalated out of control. What was lost under Shooter was the spontaneity and creativity of the early '70s. We would never have got wild characters and concepts like Howard the Duck, Omega the Unknown, Adam Warlock, or The Eternals during his regime, since his publishing philosophy seemed to fixate on licensed titles, spin-offs and franchises (again, a la Weisinger). Sure, he set good creators loose on tired properties (Miller's Daredevil, Simonson's Thor, Byrne's FF), but he also accepted, even encouraged, a tedious mediocrity in storytelling for the sake of "clarity." He also played a big part in the fetishization of continuity and the push for annual "events" that eventually drove me away from Marvel. Shooter held power for too long. He became determined to leave his own permanent mark on the line, first by the abortive attempt to pull a Julius Schwartz and create new updated versions of the company's super-stars, then by launching the New Universe, which spotlighted his vision of a "realistic" approach to super-heroes. I can't speak to anything he did or didn't do for creators' rights beyond championing the Epic line, but strictly based on the comics themselves, I would have to give him a C+ as EIC.

Cei-U!
I summon my two cents' worth!

That's one good way of putting it MDG and I applaud your argument here and he was very concerned about costs so that the customers don't have to pay more. Good call here.