Your fawning and blame-everyone-else motif balances it out

OK and I liked his 1960's Legion stories and his Parasite Superman story

I think fed up and ticked off is more apt and the accounts I have read said it was well attended; so, it was hateful people, not person.

Even Back Issue, from Twomorrows, has a transcript of a convention panel, where Sal Buscema unloads on Shooter, face to face.  If ever there was a company man, it was Sal and even he was unhappy.

When Mark Gruenwald died, there were many Marvel people (then-current and former) who blamed the stress he was under as Shooters assistant as being a major contributor to his cardiac health.  Now, that is probably grief looking for something to blame (especially since Gruenwald died well after Shooter was gone); but, the accounts were many of what gruenwald endured under Shooter.  Mark stayed, though.  I never saw anything attributed directly to him that spoke ill of Shooter, depending on how you interpret the story of him filling his office from floor to ceiling with crumpled returned New Universe title covers.

I'm going off of memory here; but, I believe the statement (or statements) was made in the Comic Buyer's Guide, after the death of Mark Gruenwald.  To be honest, I can't recall who made the claim and it could have been a fan spreading hearsay; but, I seem to recall it was a pro.  Gruenwald died on August 12, 1996 and the material in CBG (which was weekly) would have been somewhere in the next 4-6 weeks, possibly slightly later.


Like I say, this is memory, so my mind may be exaggerating the claim/blame, based on other statements made by former Marvel staffers.  Regardless, I still think the claim was made out of grief, from someone or several someones looking to make sense of Gruenwald's untimely death.  I seriously doubt that Shooter was even remotely a factor in it.  If that were the case, the heart attack that claimed Gruenwald would have more likely occurred during Shooter's tenure.


Gerard Jones revised edition of his and Will Jacob's book, The Comic Book Heroes (published in Oct 1996) does have accounts of Shooter's tenure.  The revised addition, aside from carrying their history beyond the original (which came out in 1985), to cover later comics, had a more behind-the-scenes focus, with an almost tabloid, gossipy tone.  One section even tries to insinuate that some believed Chris Claremont was gay, because he was close to his mother and married rather late in his life.  That seemed patently absurd, even when I first read it; so, it is hard to give credence to a lot of material in that book.  However, I have seen some stories confirmed elsewhere, in interviews; so, you are left wondering how much truth is there.  He describes Byrne's party, though I think he doesn't name Byrne (I saw him named elsewhere).  He does talk about how Byrne insisted on writing The Pitt, which destroyed Pittsburgh (Shooter's hometown) and launched the destruction of the New Universe.

This whole thing is getting contentious, as I suspected it might.  Shooter is a polarizing figure.  I like some of his writing and not other.  I think he was a good leader at the start and a poor one at the end.  I think he mistreated Kirby and made some pretty vile statements, during the fight over the return of the original art.  It's hard to really know the man, as things are filtered through other's perceptions.  His own blog and interviews have contained material that has easily been proven false.  There's a lot of ego involved; his and others.  A lot of people didn't like him.  Some had good reasons, others were probably being petty and childish.  There are plenty of stories of that kind of behavior at Marvel from people who weren't Shooter.  Gerry Conway, Marv Wolfman, and Len Wein all had problems with people at Marvel during their time as E-I-C.  The boss is usually the source of discontent.  Shooter does seem to be a target of more anger and resentment than any other E-I-C, though (with only Bill Jemas probably rivalling him, in the eyes of Marvel staffers from the bankruptcy era).  I think he was a talented writer and a good editor, throughout a large chunk of his career; but, he had issues that caught up with him.  One thing is certain, he was the most successful E-I-C, after Stan, though you can argue endlessly about the quality of material (which is a pretty subjective exercise, anyway).  He isn't Hitler and he isn't Mother Theresa.  He's human.

I will say, without any real knowledge as to why he was fired from Valiant (that is one that no one really seemed to blab about), that I thought he was wronged there.  He built up their line into something quite good (for the most part) and my interest quickly started waning (other than Archer & Armstrong) after he was gone.  Defiant I thought was horrible and Broadway was bland.  I liked his Legion stuff and his collaboration with Gil Kane, on Daredevil, as well as much of his Avengers stuff (though George Perez is a big factor in that).

That was a great scene. And I loved the part where, with the threat defused, the Molecule Man still manages to get in a last little parting shot by sticking Stark in an "Iron Man leisure suit" because recreating his armour is too hard!

Welcome to the forum, rs.