Jim Shooter with people skills would be the perfect editor for the Big Two. I agree with him about what's wrong with Marvel and DC nowadays almost to a point: hate the storytelling methodology but love most of the art. They are floundering when it comes to selling comics without resorting to reboots and gimmicks. I also agree that the movies are a much better representation of how the characters should be represented...at least the Marvel movies.

That said, Shooter certainly has his limitations. He doesn't seem to understand anything beyond the mainstream superhero stuff or have much interest in it. From what I've gleaned, Epic Illustrated and Epic comics were the brainchild of Archie Goodwin and probably wouldn't have happened without him. I think Archie was also responsible for attracting a lot of the talent in the late 70's that would go on to make Marvel such a behemoth in the early-to-mid-80's. There was a lot of great stuff done under Epic, but Shooter, apparently, was always critical of it. It was Vertigo before Vertigo, but was never supported and nurtured properly. It's a shame.

He says whatever props up his reputation. But the facts are that the early independant companies like Pacific, Eclipse and First gave creators their proper share of ownership and royalties, as well as the return of their original artwork. DC followed suit. Marvel was the last to join in, and only to stem the tide of talent leaving the company. They had to be competitive to keep their freelancers. And still they continued to screw around with Jack Kirby. And still talent left such as Roy Thomas, Gene Colan, Marv Wolfman, J.M.DeMatteis, Steve Gerber and more over Shooter's "management " skills

The fact that you enjoyed the comic books back then, that you were a young teen, the perfect age to forever hold them in high esteem is not what I'm criticising. It's how people were treated, how families were effected, how basic rights were denied. Jim Shooter tries to come off as a champion for creators. I think of him as learning all his skills from his first boss, Mort Weisinger, and continuing to abide by that plantation-owner mentality. 

That's pretty much how I feel.
For two reasons: I was was reading Marvels at that time and loving them. And the line went downhill after that, and - by the 90s - I had left comics behind completely.
And second: I've recently read everything Marvel put out in the five years before this (1973-78) and the line is all over the place, quality-wise and style-wise. There are missed deadlines, and fill-ins/reprints are a regular occurance. And the line lacks the cohesion that would come in the 80s. With rotating EiC's and some really bad decisions and titles and stories coming out, it feels like Marvel before Shooter was on it's last legs. I honestly think he saved them.

Most of us think we're the good guy in our own story, so I don't see why that wouldn't apply to Jim Shooter. In the case of creators's rights, he argued with the suits in favour of better conditions regarding royalties, incentives and art returns. That probably makes him, in his eyes, something of a champion of creators's rights.

Also like most people, he wasn't ready to stamp his foot on the ground and throws ultimatums along the line of "give Kirby his due now or I quit". How many people actually do that? He was no martyr for the cause, that's clear.

I see him as a management guy with sympathy for the creators. From what he's done, he seems to have wanted to do the right thing without letting that interfere too much with his primary job: making the company money. 

As EiC, I am glad he oversaw things like Claremont's best years on the X-Men, Byrne's FF and Miller's Daredevil as well as the Epic comic line. He did good when it came to get creators to do their books on time. He also made sure we never had to say "hey, is character XYZ dead this month or not?" the way we do today.

He unfortunately also had faults, his apparent lack of interpersonal skills being the most egregious. (Although the way he acted with Cei-U makes Shooter a good guy in my book, even if you reveal that he secretly microwaves kittens every Friday night). 

Some of Shooter's "interferences" with creators are also a matter of perspective. When Doug Moench said that Shooter had wanted him to kill off the supporting cast of Master of King Fu to boost sales, I was appalled. Who the heck did he think he was? But then I read what Shooter had to say about the matter : he had indeed suggested such a thing but not in a "do this or else" manner; he had essentially said "look, the mag isn't selling, you must do something to get people to buy it; try to shake things up, kill characters, but do something". Personally, I thought that not only was Master of Kung Fu just fine as it was back then, I thought it was the best it had ever been. But I was a reader, not the guy in charge of making the book profitable. I fully understand Moench being upset at someone telling him to destroy his book in order to save it, but I also see why Shooter would have been ready to do just that. (Note: fast forward a few decades, and when a Shooter-less Marvel tries to bring back Master of Kung Fu, the first thing they do is to kill off Leiko Wu).

As mrp says, Shooter is polarizing... But like most people, he's neither fully hero nor villain. He deserves a Barsoomian trial, if any.

And yes, that's a nerdy reference. 

Starlin has said that the changes to Dreastar, adopting the super-hero-like costumes getting rid of the sword & hood to make Vanth more like a traditional super-hero were all done because of pressure from Shooter to make the book more salable or it might have to be cancelled. Goodwin tried to back Shooter off and keep Jim happy, but Jim ultimately had to give in to Shooter's desires, but ultimately it made Starlin a bit dissatisfied with the direction of his book, hence the change in tone and style once he took the book to First, leaving behind the super-hero trappings imposed by Shooter's will.

Sales did improve a bit on Dreadstar at the time, so Shooter may have been right, but it was also the same point that the newsstand reprint Dreadstar and Company was on newsstands exposing a new audience to Dreadstar (something pushed for by Goodwin & Starlin and resisted by Shooter initially) so was it the costumes or the new readership that caused the sales bump. Ask Shooter and he'll tell you it was definitely his ideas that were behind Starlin's improved success. That's Shooter in a nutshell.

-M

When he took it to First, he didn't change him back to the hooded version. He certainly could have but he didn't. But Oz is right,  If you don't want to make the changes, you can take your creation elsewhere. Makes me wonder , what type of look will  Vanth have in the TV  series.