Jim Shooter's Daring Comics

[ManofTheAtom]

Holy *SQUEE*, I've pulled a Phil Seleski and split myself!!

Get out of my head, Cyberstrike!!!!

Who's says that I'm in your head? Maybe you're in mine.

It's Tommy Westphall's world, we just live in it...

[Heath]

I orginally stopped reading Spider-Man after the infamous The Final Chapter
because to me resetting everything back to status quo was stupid.
It was JMS that got me interested in the character again. After reading
Rising Stars and Midnight Nation (a series that I love) I figured
I would give Spider-Man an extreme rare second chance to impress me again and in the early part of his run he didn't disappoint. He made care
about the characters again, but towards the end I think it's safe to say he
had overstayed his welcome.

It's the same story for me. I had actually stopped reading Spider-Man with the clone saga, tried again with "Chapter One" because I'm still a John Byrne fan, but dropped it again real quick.

I'm a JMS fan because of Babylon 5 (tied with Farscape for the best sci-fi TV show ever). I enjoyed Rising Stars (except for the ending) and Midnight Nation. His early stories on Amazing Spider-Man were amazing. I anxiously looked forward to the next issue every month. But I don't think he personally is to blame for the downward spiral since "Sins Past." I think a lot of that is due to editorial interference - which seems to happen any time a writer takes a floundering book and turns it into a great book worth reading.

I too have always liked the Peter/MJ marriage. I didn't like when they were separated in the book. I cheered when they got back together. Because they should be together.

Although JMS always stood behind Sins Past, I'm pretty certain that the concept of the story was dictated to him and he did the best he could with it. And in a recent usenet posting regarding OMD, he said this:

For whatever it's worth, the situation is not as clear cut as one
might hope. The reality of any writer working for any company, DC or
Marvel or Image, is that when you're handed a franchise character,
you're basically entrusted with something that the company owns, and
the company has final say in what happens to that character, because
as a writer, you're only there for a certain amount of time and then
the next guy has to come in. Spider-Man belongs to Marvel, not to me,
and at the end of the day, however much I may disagree with things,
and however much I may make it very CLEAR to all parties that I
disagree, I have to honor their position.

In the Gwen storyline, yes, I wanted it to be Peter's kids, Joe over-
rode that, which is his right as EIC. I got the flack for that
decision, but them's the breaks.

In the current storyline, there's a lot that I don't agree with, and I
made this very clear to everybody within shouting distance at Marvel,
especially Joe. I'll be honest: there was a point where I made the
decision, and told Joe, that I was going to take my name off the last
two issues of the OMD arc. Eventually Joe talked me out of that
decision because at the end of the day, I don't want to sabotage Joe
or Marvel, and I have a lot of respect for both of those. As an
executive producer as well as a writer, I've sometimes had to insist
that my writers make changes that they did not want to make, often
loudly so. They were sure I was wrong. Mostly I was right.
Sometimes I was wrong. But whoever sits in the editor's chair, or the
executive producer's chair, wears the pointy hat of authority, and as
Dave Sim once noted, you can't argue with a pointy hat.

So at the end of the day, all one can do is try to do the best one can
with the notes one is given, and try to execute them in a professional
way...because who knows, the other guy may be right. The only thing I
*can* tell you, with absolute certainty, is that what Joe does with
Spidey and all the rest of the Marvel characters, he does out of a
genuine love of the character. He's not looking to sabotage anything,
he's not looking to *SQUEE* off the fans, he genuinely believes in the
rightness of his views not out of a sense of "I'm the boss" but
because he loves these characters and the Marvel universe.

And right or wrong, you have to respect that.

So even though I hated the outcome of "The Other," Peter revealing his identity in "Civil War," and now the tragedy of "One More Day," I just can't hold JMS personally to blame.

[ManofTheAtom]

According to Quesada, JMS was for splitting them up, and that their point of contention was how to do it.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/ ... i?id=12681

In his story, Mephisto was going to change continuity from as far back as issues #96-98 from 1971. In Joe’s story, Peter drops the dime on Harry, and that helps get him into rehab right away. Consequently, MJ stays with Harry, and Gwen never dies and never has her affair with Norman, etc., etc. And in the end, Peter and MJ are never married.

This, in my mind, while it neatly puts the pieces back in some way, was not what we wanted to do. First, it discounted every issue of “Amazing” since that story arc. Second, the series of events that it discounts in the Marvel U are too far-reaching to contemplate. And third, it had severe ramifications for the creators already well underway on “Brand New Day,” the thrice-monthly “Amazing Spider-Man.” In other words, there was just no way to tell Joe’s story without blowing up the entire Marvel U and every Spider-Man’s fan’s collection. What we originally discussed with Joe and the group was much simpler and cleaner: The wedding? Something happened on the wedding day that prevented it from happening. The unsmasking? Mephisto makes people forget it; much like the Sentry, it happened -- it’s just no longer remembered. And Harry? Well, there’s always a price to pay when you make a deal with the devil. Is it a perfect solution? Absolutely not. Does it get us to where we want to be? Yes.

Quesada seems to think that he knows better than Shooter (who was the EIC that approved the marriage).

Last time a Marvelite thought he knew better than Shooter we got a goat on a first name basis with the Legion of Super-Heroes.

Quesada's being a hypocrite. His idea changs continuity as much as JMS's would have.

[Todd Luck]

According to Quesada, JMS was for splitting them up, and that their point of contention was how to do it.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/ ... i?id=12681

True but Joe Q gives a very simplified version of how the storyline orginated. It came out of a meeting with virtually every major writer and editor Marvel has (and you know JMS, who once said no great story is ever written by committee, must have been loving that LOL). Somehow I doubt everyone in the room sat down and all said at once "Hey Joe we can get rid of Spidey's marriage like you want to by rectonning the book." There's probably an interesting story as to how OMD came out of that meeting and who started the idea. Once a decision like that gets made you either go along with it or get out of it's way.

[ManofTheAtom]

According to Quesada, JMS was for splitting them up, and that their point of contention was how to do it.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/ ... i?id=12681

True but Joe Q gives a very simplified version of how the storyline orginated. It came out of a meeting with virtually every major writer and editor Marvel has (and you know JMS, who once said no great story is ever written by committee, must have been loving that LOL). Somehow I doubt everyone in the room sat down and all said at once "Hey Joe we can get rid of Spidey's marriage like you want to by rectonning the book." There's probably an interesting story as to how OMD came out of that meeting and who started the idea. Once a decision like that gets made you either go along with it or get out of it's way.

Over 10,000 people have voted at the Newsarama poll against the dissolution of the marriage.

How many of them do you figure work at Marvel or were in on that meeting?

This is all Quesada's fanboyism.

[ManofTheAtom]

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=141756

To explain, here's the conversation I had with Marvel, in sum:

"So what does Mephisto do?" I ask.

"He makes everybody forget Peter's Spider-Man."

"Uh, huh. So Aunt May's still in the hospital --"

"No, he saves Aunt May."

"But if all he does is save her life and make everybody forget he's Spidey, she still has a scar on her midsection."

"No, he makes that go away too."

"Okay...:

"Then he wakes up in her house."

"The house that was burned down?"

"Right."

"But how --"

"Mephisto undoes that as well."

"Okay. And the guys who shot at Peter and May and were killed, they're alive too? Mephisto can bring guys back from the dead?"

"It's all part of the spell."

"And Doc Strange can't tell?"

"No,"

"And the newspaper articles? News footage?"

"Joe, it's been forgotten."

"I'm just asking is that stuff there or not there?"

"Not there. And Peter's web shooters are back."

"Is this the same spell or a different spell?"

"Same spell."

"How does making people forget he's Spidey bring back his web shooters?"

"It's magic, okay?"

"I see. And Harry's back."

"Right."

"And Mephisto does this too."

"Yep."

"So is Harry back from the dead, or has he been alive? If they ask him, hey Harry, what did you do last summer, will he remember? And the year before? And the year before? If he says they all went on a picnic two years ago, will they remember it?"

"It's --"

"Because if he now has a life he remembers, if he's not back from the dead, then you've changed the continuity you said you didn't want to change. Those are your only options: he was brought back from the dead, and there's a grave, and people remember him dying --"

"Mephisto changes THEIR memories too."

"-- or he's effectively been alive as far as our characters know, so he's been alive all along, so either way as far as our characters are concerned, continuity's been violated going back to 1971.

How do you explain that?"

"It's magic, we don't have to explain it."

[Todd Luck]

According to Quesada, JMS was for splitting them up, and that their point of contention was how to do it.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/news/ ... i?id=12681

True but Joe Q gives a very simplified version of how the storyline orginated. It came out of a meeting with virtually every major writer and editor Marvel has (and you know JMS, who once said no great story is ever written by committee, must have been loving that LOL). Somehow I doubt everyone in the room sat down and all said at once "Hey Joe we can get rid of Spidey's marriage like you want to by rectonning the book." There's probably an interesting story as to how OMD came out of that meeting and who started the idea. Once a decision like that gets made you either go along with it or get out of it's way.

Over 10,000 people have voted at the Newsarama poll against the dissolution of the marriage.

How many of them do you figure work at Marvel or were in on that meeting?

This is all Quesada's fanboyism.

Since I'm not a mind reader or God it's hard to say, but Joe Q has been the most vocal advocate of the getting rid of the marriage and is trying to take the brunt of the responisibilty for the retcon/reboot/new direction.

Maybe it's just an evil conspiracy to f-up or retcon away everything Shooter ever wrote at Marvel (doing a good job so far).

[ManofTheAtom]

Maybe it's just an evil conspiracy to f-up or retcon away everything Shooter ever wrote at Marvel (doing a good job so far).

Last time a Marvelite tried to do that to Shooter's work we ended up with a goat on a first name with the Legion of Super-Heroes, so it's safe to say that things don't bode well for Marvel.

[Todd Luck]

Maybe it's just an evil conspiracy to f-up or retcon away everything Shooter ever wrote at Marvel (doing a good job so far).

Last time a Marvelite tried to do that to Shooter's work we ended up with a goat on a first name with the Legion of Super-Heroes, so it's safe to say that things don't bode well for Marvel.

If you think that was the last time obviously you didn't read Illumanti 3

Thanks for posting the link to JMS' email. His reboot (as described by Joe Q in the interview) made sense. The reboot that was published...didn't. At least if JMS' version had been printed I would've been saying WTF but I wouldn't have been terribly confused as to what's going on.

[ManofTheAtom]

Maybe it's just an evil conspiracy to f-up or retcon away everything Shooter ever wrote at Marvel (doing a good job so far).

Last time a Marvelite tried to do that to Shooter's work we ended up with a goat on a first name with the Legion of Super-Heroes, so it's safe to say that things don't bode well for Marvel.

If you think that was the last time obviously you didn't read Illumanti 3

Thanks for posting the link to JMS' email. His reboot (as described by Joe Q in the interview) made sense. The reboot that was published...didn't. At least if JMS' version had been printed I would've been saying WTF but I wouldn't have been terribly confused as to what's going on.

Heh, no, I didn't.

Unlike with DC, I haven't had a problem distancing myself from Marvel. With DC I've had a harder time because I actually like the characters more, I just don't like what's being done to them.

[tarheelmarine]

( I am assuming this was an influence from Smallvile, which I don't watch)

Nope, that was Mark Waid, who wanted to recreate the Silver Age.

Which they retconed away after IC with yet another version of Luther being from Smallville in the new continuity. Smallville is a big factor. Unfortunately any live action movie or show that's successful at DC is. And judging from the current comics A LOT of people at DC want to bring back the Silver Age (while incorporating stuff from the movies and shows). If you can follow a character for more than two or three years without getting really confused by retcons, you're not reading a real DC comic.

So Luthor being from Smallville was the Silver Age of Superman? I had no idea. I really don't like that at all.

[Heath]

So Luthor being from Smallville was the Silver Age of Superman? I had no idea. I really don't like that at all.

Even in the Silver Age era comics, Luther being from Smallville was an "imaginary" story. DC used to do that a lot. They'd have "imaginary" stories where Superman & Lois were married, or Superman & Batman were brothers, or Lex Luther becomes a superhero, etc. Kind of like the Elseworlds imprint, but they were printed within regular issues. It was in one of these "imaginary" tales that Luther was a young scientist from Smallville and pals with Superboy. In an attempt to put out a fire at Luther's lab, Superboy knocked over some chemicals which caused Lex's permanent baldness. Lex got *SQUEE*, blamed Superboy, turned to a life of crime, and that's why he and Superman are enemies.

[Heath]

http://forum.newsarama.com/showthread.php?t=141756

Thanks for posting that link, MOTA. I was really hoping JMS would respond to Joe Q.

And, although I still hate the idea of retconning anything, JMS is right. "It's magic" doesn't explain it for me. I'll give Brand New Day a chance, but I'm really close to dropping Spider-Man now.

If they wanted to get rid of the marriage, why retcon it? Mephisto stated he wanted to take away their love, take away their marriage. Why not move forward with the story instead of backward? Taking away their love and devotion to each other, leading to fights and heartbreaks and divorce would be much more tragic of a story without screwing around with continuity. Like all deals with the devil, it backfires on Peter who, without MJ, the love of his life, and hunted by the authorities for refusing to register, and recognized as Spider-Man wherever he goes, begins a dark spiral that eventually causes him to lose Aunt May as well. Then finally (and maybe with a little help from Dr. Strange) Peter begins to figure out what happened which leads to an epic battle with Mephisto for recovery of his life - including the love and support of MJ, and the moral compass of Aunt May. By this time, that whole hero registration mess should be done away with in the larger Marvel continuity so Peter doesn't have to be on the run anymore. Granted, the first half may not be a very fun read, and in the end they still have to deal with his identity being public knowledge, but this still puts them in a better situation than they are in now and without screwing up continuity. They can't get out of the whole they've dug themselves into with "magic." That's more lame than the clone saga.

MJ and Aunt May (JMS's stronger, wiser, wittier version) are necessary characters in Spider-Man's life. And I'm more disgusted now with the Spider-Man books (and Marvel in general) than I ever have been.

[ManofTheAtom]

Like all deals with the devil, it backfires on Peter

This is the one thing you can be sure Quesada will be too much of a wuss to explore.

He's presenting making a deal with the devil like a good thing with no consequence.

Peter Parker, meet Johnny Blaze.

[Draco]

To me the Green Lantern was Kyle Rayner, not John Stewart, Guy
Gardner, Alan Scott, and certainly not Hal Jordan to be honest I have never cared for Hal as a GL period. IMHO he's boring as dirt the only times that I actually gave a damn about him was when he was Phalanx and then as the Spectre. Kyle should still be the Green Lantern not Hal Jordan.
Just as DnA's run on The Legion is my Legion of Super-Heroes not Waid's *SQUEE* poor knock-offs.

I'll be the first to admit that there a lot of bad comics in the 80s and 90s but there were also a lot great stuff. I think it's damn time that someone
at both Marvel and DC admit to that and stop treating everything from the
80s and 90s as the plague.

Damn i knew there was a scarce Marvel DC Annihilation Xover i didnt have.



just kidding.

Some really good points although Hal is Green Lantern & the rest are his deputies and wil never be anything else ( until he wakes up in the shower in 1968 and its all been a horrible forty year dream and hes secretly in love with pieface)

[Cyberstrike]

until he wakes up in the shower in 1968 and its all been a horrible forty year dream and hes secretly in love with pieface

The only Hal Jordan Green Lantern story that I really liked was
Green Lantern Legacy: The Last Will & Testament of Hal Jordan and that was because it was showed how Hal going mad screwed up Tom's (aka Pie-face) life and how Jordan as the Spectre helps him put his life, the planet Oa back together and it also had Kilowog as a cool looking vengeance seeking spirit thing that Tom has to stop.

It also showed how Tom's hero worship of Jordan helped to screw up his life.

[ManofTheAtom]

Last Will and Testament rocked.