I didn’t pick up on this the first time I read Legends, but a few years later I re-read the series and was like, “Holy cripes! Those cats are roasting the bejeezus out of Big Jim Shooter!” I actually said that, yes. I talk like that all the time.
The scene in question introduces Sunspot, a rampaging villain who brags about how he has attained “the ultimate power."
Take note Sunspot’s outfit and the glowing “sunspot” in the palm of his hand, a not-so-subtle visual reference to Star Brand, the flagship title of Marvel’s New Universe line of books. Shooter was one of the key architects of the New Universe, which set a number of superhero titles in a pre-conceived shared universe that was supposedly “the real world.” The new Universe shared the same fate of all just-add-water comic universes - it imploded, sucking a number of titles and careers into a black hole from which there was no escape.
Anyway, Guy shows up and immediately begins talking smack and insulting Shoo - er, Sunspot. He is the perfect hero for this scene – all the other DC characters would have been too nice about it.
“You have no idea what atrocities I committed to gain this power – and now that I have it nothing will ever take it from me!”
Snarky! From what I understand, Shooter’s tight editorial control and management style put him in constant conflict with a lot of Marvel’s top talent, and a number of them defected to DC. I don't know if Ostrander and Wein were part of that exodus or if personal conflict was the reason why superstar artist John Byrne left Marvel in the Eighties to do Man of Steel for DC, but there clearly seems to be no love lost here. I mean, if you go out of your way to mock someone by proxy in a comic book, you either love the guy and are just screwin' with him, or you hate him. I'm going with b) in this case.
Anyway, back to the book. Guy Gardner is Guy Gardner after all, so he gets a couple of digs in at his fellow Green Lanterns during the fight, who he considers poseurs and lightweights. He may have a point: could any other Green Lantern pull of a fabulous turtleneck like Guy does? Kilowog, maybe, but beyond that?
Guy punctures a hole in the side of the oil tanker that Sunspot is holding over his head, spraying the dude with black goo. Guy easily shrugs off Sunspot's attacks - he's clearly not taking the situation very seriously:
Despite Sunspot's statement to the contrary, Guy makes a fool out of him. Dangling helplessly from a lariat of green power with mud (or oil) on his face, Sunspot can only rave maniacally about his ultimate power and about creating a New Universe. Then Sunspot makes what we parents call a "bad choice": he attempts to free himself from Guy's power ring by blowing his foot off.
Jim Shooter blew his foot off! Har Har!
This whole scene is just as catty as hell, but I like it. I have nothing against Jim Shooter - he doesn't owe me money or anything - so I don't know if he's deserving of the four-color diss, but Ostrander, Wein, and Byrne manage to work their big F.U. into Legends #5 without disrupting the flow of the series. Like I said, when I first read it as a wee bairn I had no idea they were blasting Shooter.
I do think that if you are going to pick one comic book character for a dirty job like that, you gotta go with Guy Gardner. It could have been worse for Shooter - they could have gone with Lobo.
56 comments:
Wait--did Guy Gardner just quote Shakespeare?
AMAZING! First comment! Crap..um..something about Guy Gardner. He works as a character, which means I freaking hate him, but I love his week.
In my head this is a lot more exciting.
Holy crap, I had no clue that was a shot at Shooter. I can forgive myself for not picking up on the Shooter resemblance, but not for not picking up on the Starbrand/New Universe elements; that's just inexcusable.
Adrian said...
Wait--did Guy Gardner just quote Shakespeare?
Yeah, I noticed that too. Seems a bit out of character, but then, like the Thing, Guy's smarter and better educated than he acts. Or maybe Guy just read Claremont's run on X-Men--Chris quoted that bit more than once. Apparently Shakespeare is an integral part of the curriculum at Xavier's or something. You never see them doing Wood Shop, though.
I didn't read Legends at the time, but I picked up the trade PB a few years later and was amused to see Jim Shooter shooting himself in the foot while raving about a new universe. Imagine that. Shooter was the writer on Star Brand too, and made his main character 6'5" like he his, so that makes this attack even more personal. Jim doesn't owe me money either, but he sure seems to have pissed off a lot of people back in the day. Obviously one of them was Howard Chaykin, because in American Flagg there was a freakishly tall villain named Scheisskopf (heh) that bore an uncanny resemblance to Shooter. That shit was personal.
Is it just me, or are those flames kind of yellow for Guy's ring to be working so well against them?
The contrast between Maguire-Guy and Byrne-Guy is pretty striking. B-G looks like a swipe of Byrne's version of Reed Richards: the eleongated chinline is a hallmark of Byrne's Mister Fantastic style. And with different inking, the buzzed sides of Guy's Moe Howard haircut look would look awfully similar to RR's grey temples.
Whatever Shooter did, all is forgiven thanks to VALIANT. speaking of which, I request, nay, demand a HARD Corps week
Wait--did Guy Gardner just quote Shakespeare?
Well, Guy used to be a teacher, right?
I believe the metaphor they were going for was:
By weilding his power in a maniacal manner against his talent...
Shooter shot himself in the foot.
;-)
~P~
P-TOR
I'm pretty sure that the panel of a goo-spattered "sunspot" cluthcing his stump is meant to resemble another New Universe character, Nightmask.
IIRC, Ken Connell, the main character from Star Brand was also a resident of Pittsburgh, Shooter's home town. When I spoke to John Romita Jr. at WW Philly this year he said of the book, "It was all about his life in Pittsburgh! He told me it was going to be Marvel's Superman!"
Of course, Byrne got on Star Brand later and turned the Shooter avatar into an accidental mass murderer, a deadbeat dad, and other various and sundry things while killing and resurrecting the character again and again, all the while claiming he had the "true" power. Wow, it was mean.
There's not much of a physical resemblance to Shooter, but it's clearly a shot at him.
And Shooter has definitely pissed off a lot of people over the years and had relationships in the industry end very badly, but the man was a pretty damn good EinC.
I seem to recall one of the reasons a lot of creators got mad at him was he could be a bit draconian about turning in work on time and maintaining a schedule. Boy, he'd be hated now!
Then there was the nasty, nasty shot taken by the great Jack Kirby against Stan Lee and Roy Thomas just after Jack left Marvel. Anybody remember "Funky Flashman" and "Houseroy?" Mister Miracle #6, back in 1972, and reprinted in the Mister Miracle trade paperback...dude, that story was angry.
A comprehensive list of "comics taking shots at Jim Shooter" would be a fascinating read. Are there more beyond Legends, The Star Brand, and American Flagg?
During Englehart's run on Silver Surfer there was a plot where he savaged then Current EIC Tom Defalco with a former throwaway character named Clumsy Foulup. Basically Foulup was a short, fat, greedy, stupid, cigar chomping moron who accidently found himself in charge of the Kree empire after literally stabbing his very tall lizard boss (Shooter) in the back. I was oblivious to it back in the day, but I recently re-read the issues and I couldn't believe he got away with it.
Holy crap! cap'n neurotic, I feel your pain, because I had no clue about Funky Flashman and Clumsy Foulup. So there's a lot of feeling oblivious going around.
dan coyle, I think it's also worth mentioning that after Shooter left, Byrne (with the approval of the New U editorial staff) blew up Pittsburgh and turned it into the Pitt. That's just adding insult to injury. They must have really hated that guy.
What's doubly ironic is that Byrne himself has a reputation for being difficult and having a better-than-average sized ego.
That would ne more ironic if Byrne had more of a contributing role to the Legends work than what he had. He didn't really have a creative part in this series. I read that he pencilled basically what he was told to...
Besides 1) that would make the gag more of Ostrander's and Wein's with Byrne helping. 2) Byrne's modern-day reputation for "being difficult and having a better-than-average sized ego" is an anachronistic comment for a 1987 Byrne-work or a 1987 dig at 1987 Jim Shooter.
The only guy truly blacklisted in comics. Even Liefeld can still find work.
Byrne has some legitimate beefs with Shooter. Secret Wars screwing up the end of his FF run among them.
I can never hate Shooter though. I will always associate him with Marvel's last great period, and Valiant too.
Whatever his faults, he was ultimately a True Defender of the Trademarks!
I too share in the shame of notcatching the Star Brand reference.
So Shooter, DeFalco, and Lee were turned into comic bitches....any others?
You want to see King Kirby take a swing at Marvel just check out the entire Destroyer Duck series. Kirby levels those guys with the help of Steve Gerber.
I seem to remember the first issue or two being good, then the whole thing sucking.
'Byrne has some legitimate beefs with Shooter. Secret Wars screwing up the end of his FF run among them.'
true.
But it still doesn't change the fact that JB neither plotted nor scripted Legends so I doubt he masterminded this dig. His role in this is incidental, I conclude.
Masterful as this pencilling and inking is....
Oh, Arndt. Poor, dear, sweet, innocent Arndt.
I fear you understimate the evil of Baron Von Byrne: Master of Menace!
Actually, if I were a betting man, I'd bet this was 100 percent Byrne's idea, because a) it is rsther similar to his work on Starbrand later and b) Ostrander had no reason to hate on Shooter, having never worked for Marvel at that time... (and Len Wein never struck me as a guy to hold a grudge that badly)
Byrne never forgave Shooter after he got screwed in that title match vs Shaun Michaels.
Okay we'll try this again...
Hi JB... Did you or any of the other creators working on LEGENDS voice concerns on how WW was treated in regard to continuity in this mini-series, or better yet, did anyone mention that WW should just be left out completely due to poteltial continuity problems?
Now let's assume you accept this autobiographical anecdote as truth as I do.
I was strictly the art robot on LEGENDS, as it turned out. I was supposed to be more -- in fact, I had completely replotted the series as a condition of doing it -- but once the contracts were signed and work was begun, things were "tweaked" back to how they had been before I came aboard.
Anybody wants to see what it looks like when I am working on something I am not enjoying at all, I tell 'em to look at LEGENDS.
click this if you have to
As for "evil John Byrne", common wisdom surrounding this myth is that the creature arose after the internet was born and web-borne communities united and started inter-communicating. What's my source on this? Eh. The X-Axis guy and an article written by Erik Larsen. That would make the whole thing about "Byrne v. Shooter" an anachronistic summary of this Legends stuff.
That said, I have an idea...
And I won't comment on Shooter evils or 'Byrne's a jerk' because I have no experience with either phenomenon and at best all evidence is anecdotal and told by people whose viewpoints are not neccessarily... eh. I don't care about that stuff.
http://www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=15206&PN=1&totPosts=3
Byrne thinks it was hilarious and hasn't ponied up an anecdote yet!
dangit
I didn't get the Jim Shooter-Star Brand mocking, either, until I read an article not too long ago that pointed it out. Has Sunspot ever resurfaced in the DCU?
This sequence has a lot going for it:
1) Guy quoting Shakespeare.
2) Guy chilling inside his force field, even taking the time to whip up a chair and a pitcher of lemonade while he's at it. Hal, John, and Kyle NEVER would do that. Guy rocks.
3) A superhero dispatching a villain with minimal effort, mocking the bad guy all the way. I love it when superheroes remember how powerful they are and make bad guys look stupid.
I remember when I was a teen reading E-MAN (Joe Staton) from FIRST comics and issues 2 & 3 had a parody of MARVEL where they poked some fun at Clairemont, Cockrum, Stan Lee, Shooter and BYRNE.
Byrne was "Companyman" and he was cranking out pages like a Xerox machine.
Shooter was "Sniper" and you never saw his head on panel because he was so tall.
Lee was a shill.
Cockrum was Clairmont's lackey, while Clairemont was the "creator" of the F-MEN, who were spoofs of the X-MEN (duh).
The F-MEN were just superpowered nerds and geeks.
Cyclops was "Zitpops" who wore a ruby-visor to hold back the splooge from his popping whiteheads.
I can't recall the names of the others or their "teenage" problem-powers.
E-MAN's hot redheaded girlfriend; NOVA KANE gets turned into a Phoenix -type.
"Dark Albatross", I think.
All in all, heavy-handed good (read: nasty) fun.
I highly recommend (from the memory of over 20 years ago - 1983).
I'll dig them out of the longboxes and try to get more info if anyone is interested.
I loved E-MAN.
That was a FUN comic.
LMK
~P~
P-TOR
One of the things that I just love about Guy, is his...zest for doing his job. He's got panache! Anonymous is right, the bit with the lawn chair and the lemonade is priceless and distinctly un-Hal-like. The Shakespeare is fun too. You must remember that actually Guy graduated with a double major in Education and Psycology. Kalinara thinks that is why he is so good at annoying people.
Jim Shooter, despite his personality conflicts, does get credit for one thing in his EofC tenure - he introduced royalties at Marvel.
Guy is supposed to be smarter than he seems. Wasn't it established in Steel that he and John Henry Irons were best friends in college?
Jim Shooter: the case against.
Arrogant, high-handed self-centered jerk. Responsible for a number of creative catastrophes, including the deeply stupid New Universe. So obnoxious that many creators (and fans) are still nursing grudges twenty years later.
Shooter did not treat creators with respect. At best, he was abrupt. At worse, he trash-talked them. He had no respect for icons like Kirby; he treated decent hard-working writers like Bill Mantlo with undeserved contempt.
Jim Shooter: the case for.
During his ten year reign as editor in chief, Marvel went from a near-bankrupt money loser to a profitable company worth well over $100 million. Over the same period, Marvel made massive gains in market share while sharply increasing the number of titles, the payroll, cash turnover, and spinoff income.
Marvel was a mess when Shooter took over, a company on the edge of bankruptcy, with both its management and its creative teams in disarray. It had gone through five editors-in-chief in five years, was bleeding money from all orifices, and couldn't even consistently ship its comics on time. (Remember the Dreaded Deadline Doom?) Ten years later, when Shooter left, Marvel was in glowing good health and going from strength to strength. For all his flaws, Shooter deserves at least part of the credit for that.
Shooter was also responsible for creating the modern system of comics distribution, with most comics sold through specialty stores. It's a long story, but here's the short version: when Shooter took over, less than 10% of Marvel comics were sold in comic stores; when he left, more than 50% were.
While many creators hate his guts, a surprising number still respect him as the man who brought professionalism to a terminally slovenly industry.
Note that Shooter was (is) a self-made man -- he came from a working-class family, and never made it to college -- and also a comics prodigy; he was a backup writer on "Legion of Super-Heroes" at the age of fifteen, and was scripting three major titles at once before he was twenty.
Finally, the general quality of Marvel comics rose sharply between 1978 and 1988. Insofar as the '80s were a Golden Age, it was to a great extent Shooter's doing.
If you're interested in Shooter's side of things, there's a good long interview here:
http://www.comicbookresources.com/features/shooter1
http://www.comicbookresources.com/features/shooter2
cheers,
Doug M.
"At worse, he trash-talked them."
Heh, from what I've heard he did worse than that :)
But his regime did give us Walt Simonson's Thor, so there's that. OTOH, he supposedly made Walt Simonson angry once, which I've been lead to believe is like the comics industry equivalent of making Jesus hate you...
Holy crap, I never realized that Clumsy Foulup thing Vis a vis DeFalco (and considering the creative depths Marvel plummeted to during DeFalco's reign, wholly deserved). That Englehart run on Surfer was some of this best work, even though by the end he was totally disgusted with Marvel. People should piss him off more.
I don't know how to even start writing about this. I have talked (briefly) to Jim Shooter in person at several shows and on several occasions on the phone. His home phone at that. And I have to defend the man as a consumate gentleman. If he is willing to stay on the line with what amounts to a stranger and comport himself with civilty and generosity why would he go out of his way to piss off people he has to work with. Jim Shooter is a hero of mine not only for his contributuion to comics (both the industry and medium) but because he took time out of his own personal time to incourage me in my career as an artist.
Plus you have to give props for his love of comics. How many other people in the industry have been thrown to the wolves and came back for more? And more than once?
Um, why were you calling Jim Shooter at home if you don't know him?
There may well be a good answer to that question, but it just comes across as a bit curious.
Doug M., that is a balanced, well-reasoned take on the Shooter-as-EIC era.
I certainly can understand why many creators dislike him so passionately, but like you said, he absolutely does deserve some credit for turning Marvel into a well-run business. His critics too often don't give him credit for that and Marvel certainly could use his discipline on deadlines today.
In hindsight, I don't know if creating the modern system of comics distribution is a feather in his cap. Back in the '70s when I started reading comics, they were far more accessible to the general public. You could pick 'em up at the supermarket, the local drug store and even the gas station down the street.
Now, if you want comics, you have to seek them out at specialty shops. That, along with other industry changes (more adult content, higher prices, other entertainment options, etc.) has led to a steep decline in the number of kids reading comics.
I don't know if it's even fair to call Shooter's reign a mixed bag. It's more like he was outstanding at some parts of the job and a spectacular failure at others. There's definitely never been a figure in the comics industry quite as polarizing.
"could any other Green Lantern pull of a fabulous turtleneck like Guy does?"
I understand this was a rhetorical question, but the answer is "Yes. John Stewart looks quite handsome in a turtle neck."
Just so I don't sound like a complete weirdo or liar:
While meeting with Shooter at the San Diego Con he gave me a business card and told me to call him after the show. If you have never been, if is beyond hectic. I called a months later expecting to get the "Mr. Shooter is busy maybe he'll call you back" jazz. Shooter answers the phone with "hello". I believ it was at that point right after Defiant. He was freelancing as a consultant and working out of his home in NY.
He talked me out of quitting trying to work in comics.
He was more than generous with his time and consideration with me.
You have to remember I was the voice of a nobody stranger on the other coast coming out of hs phone. He had every right to pull a "I'm Shooter Dammnit! I don't have time for unknowns!" But he didn't.
Remember, the victor usually gets to write the history books.
"In hindsight, I don't know if creating the modern system of comics distribution is a feather in his cap. Back in the '70s when I started reading comics, they were far more accessible to the general public. You could pick 'em up at the supermarket, the local drug store and even the gas station down the street. Now, if you want comics, you have to seek them out at specialty shops. That, along with other industry changes (more adult content, higher prices, other entertainment options, etc.) has led to a steep decline in the number of kids reading comics."
As the price of comics rose they wouldn't be on the racks or the magazine stands of drug stores, convenience stores, or general distribution merchandise stores. That there are specialty shops for this kind of thing saved them in a long run.
i would have never caught that in a million years but now that you've pointed it out, it's obvious!
Especially the "Power to create a new universe" line.
That could be, Chris. But I wonder if there isn't a chicken-and-egg effect. Perhaps if comics had been more readily available, they would be able to 1. sell more copies and 2. attract higher ad rates. That would've enabled publishers to keep the price down.
You could be right - perhaps the rise of specialty shops did save comics. But it's always felt to me like they reduced comics to a niche market, where they once were a relatively mainstream form of entertainment.
I'm with The Doctor on this one; while I had completely forgotten about H.A.R.D. Corps, they were pretty awesome, and they killed lots of those vaunted vault-guard-armor types. But only if there are any old issues of it hiding in The Long Box.
It seems to me that moving comics to specialty shops and the direct market absolutely needed to happen at the time.
It's just that times have changed, and now comics would be better off moving back into the mainstream market.
(Note that the above does not mean I want the FLCS to die off- just that it shouldn't be the only outlet. Ideally I'd want comics shops to continue selling as much as they do, with more copies being printed to go to the non-direct market.)
I think having comics specialty shops as it currently stands is graually leading to the death of the industry and it makes the product less available and less saleable as it is less visible in the public eye. It's a circle of death right now.
At one I thought that moving to speciality shops at all was a death knell.
Now I realize that it saved the industry on a temporary basis while the whole thing took a dive. I also think that if the industry were to be healthy and ever-continuous it would have to be part of the process on an indefinite basis for the indefinite future.
No one says that sports collectibles shops will lead to the end baseball cards and autographed equipment.
So?
Certainly comics need to be sold in more places and at lower prices and the market needs to expand. How? I have some ideas but they're not very concise or clear. Comics cannot stay in the shops.
Interesting. I notice that video games seem to be thriving but are not sold in mom-n-pop stores. They have their own specialty stores. However they are also carried by most big box chain stores as well. e.g. Walmart, Target, etc.
I believe if comics could become a bigger part of the American discretionary spending habit they would have to be carried by more than just comic shops. Whether that be a return to the grocery store/ gas station/ drug store venue or developing a "comic book section" at Walmart I am not sure. That comics are only sold through comic stores is not the problem, it is the symptom. That fewer and fewer people are reading is the problem.
Well, if comics were started to be frozen out of magazine stands because they were a pain to handle and didn't bring in enough revenue in that format, I wonder if perhaps a better solution instead of going to specialty shops would have been to simply abandon the pamphlet format and convert to full-size magazines. Has anyone ever done a study on whether that would have been feasible?
I believe Paul Levitz floated the idea of magazine-sized comics to major retailers at one point, but they weren't interested. It makes sense on paper, and I'd be interested in the DC or Marvel equivalent of SHONEN JUMP, but maybe I'm missing something.
"comics were started to be frozen out of magazine stands because they were a pain to handle and didn't bring in enough revenue in that format"
This topic is drifting a long way from Guy Gardner...
But anyway: yes, comics were a PITA for the small retailer back in the '70s and 80s. They were low margin. They brought in a lot of kids and teenagers who weren't big spenders. They were high maintenance -- browsers would constantly mess them up, so the retailer had to go and clean up the rack at least once per day. And in small stores, comics readers would silt up around the comics, blocking traffic.
So, over time, there was a long-term shift away from comics in mixed-retail stores. As those stores became more efficient -- think 7-11 replacing old Mr. Jones candy/stationery store -- they tended to drop the comics in favor of products that were more profitable, or at least less trouble.
The funny thing is, comics today are a higher-margin product than they were in the 1970s. And modern comics attract, not kids, but a mixed demographic that peaks with the (highly profitable) young adult males. So they could be attractive to retailers again.
But... retailers have trouble competing with comic stores, which have a more inviting environment, much more variety, subscription baskets, clerks who can answer questions, and discounts. So moving comics back to the 7-11 won't be so simple.
It's an interesting problem.
Doug M.
Getting back to Byrne bashing Shooter, in one of the "What the--?!"s after Byrne returned from DC, he did an Avengers vs JLA parody, and in the background of one panel was a very tall man in a suit, his head out of the panel, holding a coffee mug full of pencils to sell for money and a sign saying something like "It couldn't have happened to a better guy." Just in case somebody needed proof that Byrne was probably more than an art monkey in this case.
yeah. that's proof.
Anonymous said...
Getting back to Byrne bashing Shooter, in one of the "What the--?!"s after Byrne returned from DC, he did an Avengers vs JLA parody, and in the background of one panel was a very tall man in a suit, his head out of the panel, holding a coffee mug full of pencils to sell for money and a sign saying something like "It couldn't have happened to a better guy." Just in case somebody needed proof that Byrne was probably more than an art monkey in this case.
Was that "The Revengers vs. The Just-A-League"? I have that one in a box somewhere. I don't remember the Shooter reference, but it probably went right past me at the time anyway. That was a pretty funny parody, though, at least to my young self. I don't remember much in the way of details, but I do know that with his mask off Blue Beatle looked like Ringo. Gratuitous Beatles references can be good.
Awesome. I always loved the New Unvierse shot, but I never knew the guy was supposed to look like Shooter.
I always thought Shooter did a lot of neat, innovative stuff (they had a pulp comic series, the Epic lines, and even the not necessarily well excecuted New Universe). I don't know what his management style was like, but as a tyke I had no issues with the end results.
Two things:
1) SanctumSanctorumComix is dead on about E-Man. Great book. Dave needs to do a post on these books.
2) Can anyone believe they're actually bringing back the New Universe? What's the point? Will they lose their copyrights on "Kickers, Inc." if they don't publish a new issue every 20 years? What?
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