Unfortunately, Shooter did seem to have an overwhelming desire to exert control, even in, perhaps especially in, situations where control was not needed. Oh, sure, maybe JB would have brought the Scarlet Witch back to her original appearance, Shooter may have thought, someday, perhaps when the Vision was restored to his, but what sort of message does that send the rest of the creators?

What happens when the rank and file think they can just alter the appearance of a bankable Marvel superstar for whatever reason they come up with? No no no, there have to be RULES to contain this sort of chaos... Rein in the top creators and the message will go out loud and clear to everyone else: Check First!

Okay, and if the top creator did Check First..? And still is in the crosshairs? Well, clearly other, more stringent RULES regarding communication and accountability and so forth must be enacted! One day, one day, in the end, there will finally, finally, be enough RULES to cover everything! We just have to keep enacting them!

I used to work for a middle management type who, amongst his many sins, would rewrite the policy and procedure manual to include whatever infraction he considered you guilty of and exact punishment on that basis. Should you claim that wasn't in there fifteen minutes prior, you were still wrong, because it was part of your job to keep up with ALL changes in the policy and procedure manual! NOT knowing this new rule was just one more thing to hit you with, even though he had literally, LITERALLY, just made it up fifteen minutes ago.

You could walk in and catch him rewriting the manual (as I did) and it would do you no good. It was, after all, his job to rewrite the manual. Who were you to question how he went about it? You couldn't do your own job, never mind have the slightest inkling of how to do his! Fun job...

I also feel Shooter genuinely resented his presentation as a villain in the office and the fan press when so many creators around him, excuse me, BENEATH him were showered with praise and goodwill. How was it no one could see all the GOOD that he was trying to do? I do believe that resentment worked its way into any number of confrontations that didn't have to be so confrontational... any number of dictates that didn't have to be so dictatorial...

Ah, thanks for the correction, Chris. DeFalco would have been another story... Although not an altogether different one. :-)

Quoting in full as opposed to cutting just what I want to reply to (so as not to give anyone any ammo), but I totally agree about Quasar.  Never understood the appeal.  Didn't get the character and, quite frankly, never understood the push to make him something more than he was. The Gruenwald connection makes sense in that regard, but it's still confusing to me. There was simply no character "there" for me to grab hold of and never has been.

I loved Machlan's inks throughout the run but those first few issues were much more pleasing to my eye. After those it was like he was trying to become Terry Austin, Jr. It was a much more "mechanical"* look. The "lushness" was gone.

* Probably not the right word, but I don't know what the right word would be.

••

What does it tell us, I wonder, that three titles for which I am notorious for "quitting" -- WCA, HULK and SHE-HULK -- were all departures that were forced upon me by untenable editorial positions -- and in all three cases, the guy in the top editorial seat?

So many times I have seen and heard myself berated for "never stay(ing) on a book", and these three titles are front and center as "evidence" of same. Yet, when I QUIT the X-MEN, and when I voluntarily LEFT the FF, across fandom it was assumed I had been forced off, and there was a great groundswell of demand that I be returned.