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Harri Jokinen
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Posted: 01 April 2021 at 5:00pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply


 QUOTE:
I haven’t gotten to listen to any more yet, but an almost constant theme
with him (and one I’ve read/heard him use in other interviews) is how
he’s always ended up writing books either because a) no one else
wanted the book, or b) he was afraid if he gave the book to someone,
then other people would be pissed. In the case of a, I find it hard to
believe no one else would want to write THE AVENGERS or
DAREDEVIL. DAZZLER, sure, and maybe even GHOST RIDER, but
not the others. And for b, I guess that seems a bit more plausible, but
would Chris Claremont really be mad if Bill Mantlo or Denny O’Neil
wrote SECRET WARS? Would John Byrne be pissed if Walt Simonson
or Frank Miller or even Chris Claremont wrote it?

His excuses for things like this are tiresome. Just come out and say,
“hey, I wanted to write it.” and be done with it.

The theme of the interview seemed to be Shooter was always right and everyone else was always wrong. I don't doubt the reasons he gave for picking assignments like Secret Wars sounded 100% correct to him.

I would have given Secret Wars to the duo of Stern and Byrne. Besides being obvious top talent and having a history of working together, combined they had already worked on every hero that appeared in that book. Coincidentally, that's the reason Shooter gives for assigning himself on Superman/Spider-Man 2. I guess that reasoning only applies sometimes.

Interestingly, the Comics Journal at the time revealed Stern and Byrne had offered story ideas for SW. I'm guessing that was just the idea of swapping Ben with Jen?
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Brian Miller
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Posted: 01 April 2021 at 8:18pm | IP Logged | 2 post reply

Another theme seems to be that he’s great friends with all these guys
that had a problem with him back then. Nothing is ever his fault and the
other guys just misunderstood him and/or his intentions.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 02 April 2021 at 8:23am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

Shooter’s history remains skewed. I read all of Kirby’s FF in preparation for taking on the title, and my visual storytelling improved enormously as a result? No, not quite. In fact I had bought and read those issues before I even got into the Biz.

Shooter as a teacher wasn’t as he recalls, either. Frank Miller and I used to grumble to each other about Shooter’s “technique”, which was basically complaining about some “flaw” in our art, until one day he started complaining about something else, and we were left to assume we’d finally gotten the other thing right.

The phrase “well done!” did not feature much in his vocabulary.

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Brian Miller
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Posted: 02 April 2021 at 9:09am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

Mort rubbed off on him more than he’d care to realize.
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David Miller
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Posted: 02 April 2021 at 10:27am | IP Logged | 5 post reply

The list of Shooter's accomplishments is numbingly repetitive. Sure, straightening out Marvel's scheduling in the Seventies was laudable, but it's something that merits a sentence in a contemporary Cadence Industries annual report to shareholders, not a starring role in fifty years and counting of bizarre fanboy hagiography.

People cite the same handful of creator runs--Miller's Daredevil, Simonson's Thor, JB's Fantastic Four, and sometimes Claremont's X-Men--as evidence of Shooter's genius, when they're actually evidence of the genius of Miller, Simonson, Byrne and Claremont. You never hear them giving so much credit to Dick Giordano or Jeanette Khan for Dark Knight, Man of Steel and Watchmen, or to Stan Lee for Steranko's SHIELD.
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Rodrigo castellanos
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Posted: 02 April 2021 at 3:08pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

I've always found his insights interesting and he's good at anecdotes, fabricated or not. He was at the right place at the right time.

But the fact remains that every single thing the man wrote himself was hot garbage. Everything.

That he had the nerve to constantly harass undisputed masters of the craft on what they were doing wrong must've been mind boggling.

Him being lionized I think answers to a very specific fanboy fantasy of the "editor with an iron grip" that keeps the characters safe and those uppity creators under control. He was arguably successful at that.


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Rick Whiting
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Posted: 02 April 2021 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

I'll take Shooter and his flaws over the Jemas/Quesada and Alonso regimes any day.
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Dave Phelps
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Posted: 02 April 2021 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

 Rodrigo castellanos wrote:
But the fact remains that every single thing the man wrote himself was hot garbage. Everything.


Okay, that's a little harsh. I'll agree most of his 80s Marvel stuff could get rough, but he's had his moments before and since. There was a reason Legion fans were trying to convince him to return to comics in the 70s, the early Valiant stuff is fondly remembered, etc.

(Edited to fix formatting error.)

Edited by Dave Phelps on 02 April 2021 at 7:47pm
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Joe Zhang
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Posted: 02 April 2021 at 8:20pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

It will be interesting to see what comes of the nascent Valiant movie franchise. I think Vin Diesel is committed to doing one more Bloodshot movie, writing off the failure of the previous one as a casualty of COVID (it was terrible ... don't watch it.) If Valiant movies become a big hit, will Shooter become mythologized like Stan Lee was? 

Edited by Joe Zhang on 02 April 2021 at 8:23pm
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Rodrigo castellanos
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Posted: 03 April 2021 at 12:24am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

I admit I haven't read any of his Legion stuff, as I'm not a Legion fan in general. And he obviously must've had something going for him if he was writing DC comics at 14.

He probably was the person Marvel needed as EIC at that time, and he was very successful at it for a while, nobody can take that away from him.

But being a good editor is not the same as being a good "everything". It's a different thing to streamline the comics and make the trains run on time than telling (more like screaming from what I've read) artists like JB, Frank Miller, Walt Simonson, Chris Claremont, etc. how they should write and draw or try to impose on them ridiculous rules as if he were the only person alive that knew how a compelling comic book is made.

All the while while writing and conceiving himself both Secret Wars and  the New Universe which were laughably bad. It's just too much.

Also the cult of personality thing, I agree with David that nobody credits Giordano or Kahn or Karen Berger for the DC renaissance (and they do deserve a lot of credit IMHO) as they do with Shooter. 

They were great in executive roles and unleashed the talent to do what they do best, Shooter (IMHO of course, not being in the office and not even having read most of the stuff until many years after) over reached and saw himself as the ultimate authority on the creative side when he didn't even remotely have the chops for that.










Edited by Rodrigo castellanos on 03 April 2021 at 12:25am
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Steven Myers
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Posted: 03 April 2021 at 6:34am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

I will agree that I've never liked anything written by Shooter. I did find him a nice guy when he talked at a convention. I've only seen him the once.
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Harri Jokinen
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Posted: 03 April 2021 at 7:27am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

 Rodrigo castellanos wrote:
But the fact remains that every single thing the man wrote himself was hot garbage. Everything.

This is a pretty hot take. What exactly was wrong with his 70s Avengers output to make it hot garbage?
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