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Year: 2011 Page 5 of 23

More Tales to Astonish

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On October 28, 2011

In 03 Marvel Comics, 12 From Storage

Stan, Stan the Music Man
George Roussos, who was Marvel’s staff cover colorist during the time I was Editor in Chief of Marvel told me something about Stan.  I told a tale involving George a while back which can be found HERE.George was a notable artist, and especially notable as an inker in his younger days.  He worked for several companies, among them Marvel-precursor Timely Comics.

Stanley Lieber (who then used the pseudonym “Stan Lee,” which later became his legal name), a sixteen-year-old, comics-fanatic kid hired by his “Uncle” Martin Goodman (actually his cousin’s husband) was the entire editor of Timely comics.

Stan reportedly was always the first to arrive at the office.  George was also an early bird.  George told me that, occasionally, when he’d come some mornings to deliver work to Timely in the early forties, the only one there was Stan…

“…sitting cross-legged atop a tall filing cabinet playing the recorder.”

Now, there’s an image for you.

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SUPERMAN – First Marvel Issue – Comments on Byrne’s Plot

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On October 26, 2011

In 10 Questions / Answers

When it seemed that Marvel might get the rights to Superman, John Byrne wrote an eight-page proposed plot for the first issue. My beat-by-beat description of Byrne’s plot yesterday generated a wave of very interesting, very insightful comments, among them these:

Marc Miyake said…

Dear Jim,

Thanks for summarizing Byrne’s plot. I wish you had reviewed it, but maybe it’s best that you didn’t because we readers can then give our own evaluations without being influenced.

I wasn’t terribly fond of much of Byrne’s published revamp, but in some ways I prefer it to this unused plot:

1. The “searing radiation”: This element is confusing and unnecessary. Could Lara have been poisoned by it? Maybe not, since Kal-El wasn’t. Did it mutate them, just as cosmic rays changed the Fantastic Four? Whatever changes affected Lara — if any — obviously weren’t enough to enable her to survive the crash … despite Jor-El’s prediction that the “additional factor […] that will help them [plural!] survive.” Maybe Byrne meant to introduce the “additional factor” in some later issue.

2. Lara dying on Earth. Byrne has mentioned this in an earlier proposal. This serves no purpose I can see other than to differentiate this origin from the classic one in which Jor-El and Lara die as a couple. I recall Byrne saying that Lara’s death would serve a purpose: she’d die from kryptonite and thereby prove that it was fatal. Maybe he came up with that after he turned in this plot.

3. Martha’s “pregnancy”: IIRC, in the published revamp, Martha had a cover story: she was pregnant when the Kents were snowed in (sorry if I got this wrong). No cover story here.

4. Jonathan’s death: In the late 30s version of the origin, the passing of both Kents marks Clark’s manhood. This death just seems random. I guess Martha has to survive to sew Clark’s costume.

5. The raid reminds me of Spider-Man’s origin: in both case, a failure to act led to terrible consequences. Would Byrne’s Superman have been perpetually haunted by this incident? Was this a conscious attempt to Marvelize Superman, to give him a psychological weak point? I don’t like the idea of associating Superman with failure.

6. The subway rescue is large in scale, but not as spectacular as the space plane rescue in the published revamp.

It’s still a decent done-in-one, though. I’m sure I’d have loved Byrne’s art, and the conclusion cracked me up: “Sorry, the caped man says, he’s already given his story to someone else, Clark Kent.” And I’m relieved to see that teenage Clark didn’t become a football star which I’ve long thought was out of character. (Maybe he did off-panel.)

I wonder how readers who have read the New 52 relaunches of the Superman titles would react to this plot.

(…)

October 25, 2011 5:48 PM

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Marvel Layoffs – 1996

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On October 26, 2011

In 03 Marvel Comics, 13 Guest Posts

JayJay here. Jim is taking care of other business today so I found another old news article for you. I thought it was an interesting aspect of Marvel history in the wake of some of Marvels’ most recent layoffs.


 

SUPERMAN – First Marvel Issue – Byrne’s Plot

By

On October 25, 2011

In 03 Marvel Comics

JayJay here. Jim wrote, in a previous blog entry, about the time in 1984 when Marvel Comics was negotiating with DC to publish Superman comics among others. Read that original entry here. John Byrne had submitted a plot to Jim for the first Marvel issue of Superman. Many of our readers have been curious about that plot, so as he promised last week, here is more information.

It Isn’t Fair…

…to show the actual plot here. Sorry if you’re disappointed. Though he gave me a copy (in 1984), it’s Byrne’s story. Maybe he’ll publish it.

Doesn’t mean I can’t tell you the tale in my own words, as faithfully as possible.

The Story

The first chapter is entitled “KRYPTON.”

As in the classic origin, scientist Jor-El has discovered that his world, the planet Krypton is going to explode sometime soon.

Could be today, any day, but surely within a month.

Jor-El is a member of Krypton’s ruling “Council of Twelve.” Warning tremors shake the Council room, but the other members refuse to believe the danger is real. Jor-El is angry. Let them all die, then!

At home, Jor-El talks things over with his wife, Lara, who is six months pregnant. He has a plan to save her and their unborn child, at least, to which she tearfully agrees.

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Uncanny Divinations and Premonitions

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On October 25, 2011

In 09 Reminiscences and Tributes, Uncategorized

First This

This is the post that I meant to have up Saturday. Tomorrow’s will be today’s. You know what I mean. Sorry.

Stellar Horoscope 

Early on during my time at Marvel, at a convention in New York City, I met a comics fan who was a part-time astrologer. He had a regular day job, some bookkeeping or accounting-type thing, but on the side, he did horoscopes. He liked what I had to say at some panel I was on, thought I seemed like an interesting subject and volunteered to do my chart. Free. Okay. I gave him my date and time of birth and the city where I was born.

A couple of weeks later, he stopped by the Marvel offices to deliver his work, a hand-drawn astrological chart and his analysis of same.

The chart was beautiful. Framable. I still have it, packed away somewhere in the storage space.

The analysis?

What he came up with was startling. His analysis detailed things about me that nobody knew but people very close to me, and a few things that only I knew. Things that, I assure you, would have been nigh impossible to find out.

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Stan Meets a Mobster and Other Tales to Astonish

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On October 21, 2011

In 03 Marvel Comics, 09 Reminiscences and Tributes

Stan meets Frank Costello

Vince Colletta told me this story. Vince told me a lot of wild stories. At first, I thought he was, as my grandma Elsie might say, “full of potato soup and monkeys.” Like the time he told me he was cast for a major role in The Godfather. Long story, but ultimately the role was taken away from him and given to a big-name actor who had big-time clout with the director. Vince said that the casting director quit because of that.
Yeah, right.

1981-ish. Mike Hobson, relatively new publisher at Marvel asked me to go to lunch with him one day. No agenda, just lunch. Mike was making an effort to get to know the creative troops and told me he wouldn’t mind if I brought someone along. Vince happened to be in the office, so….

I don’t know how it came up, but at lunch, Vince told his I-was-almost-in The Godfather story. It so happened that Mike had been working at the William Morris Agency at the time, was fully aware of the casting dust-up and verified everything Vince said.

Later, Vince showed me a videotape of his screen test, in which he played a mobster being questioned by a Senate subcommittee. He was good.

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ULTIMATE COMICS – All-New Spider-Man #2

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On October 20, 2011

In 18 Reviews, Uncategorized

An Apology

A number of people commented that my assessment of Brian Michael Bendis’s writing effort on All-New Spider-Man #1 was too harsh and too personal. I said that he phoned it in, relieving Marvel of “easy money.” I also referred to the Marvel editorial people involved as “bozos” who are “clueless.”

I’m sorry. I don’t know Bendis, and as Tom Brevoort pointed out, I wasn’t there. I don’t know how hard he tried and I don’t know if he was snickering when he cashed the checks.

I also shouldn’t have said the editorial people were bozos. Clueless, yes, I’ll stick with that. I’ll stick with my unfavorable assessments made elsewhere of the creative management at both Marvel and DC (Didio/Lee, Fine/Buckley, et al), and my negative opinions of the tippy-top brass at both companies who inexplicably allow the madness below.

But my remarks about Bendis? No excuse. It was over the top. But I offer this explanation.

I wanted to like that book. I really wanted to like that book. Bendis is Marvel’s top gun. I expected to like that book. But the writing really let me down. There wasn’t much of it, some of it was weak and there was not so much as a nod to the fact that the work was done for a serialized presentation.

And it was a Marvel book.

They—I almost typed “we”—should be better.

Somewhere in my dark little heart of hearts, I still have some Marvel in me. I remember the days I was Editor in Chief when DC out-promoted us, out-advertised us, had better production values, had movies while we had none, had more household name characters and we still outsold them three to one. Why?  Because, in the words of our circulation V.P. Ed Shukin, we “beat ‘em between the covers.” We were better. We won with good stories, well told. Generally better than theirs, anyway.

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ULTIMATE COMICS – All-New Spider-Man #1

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On October 19, 2011

In 18 Reviews, Uncategorized

First This

 
Video of the NYCC panel I participated in, “Screen Future: Gaming, Comics and TV Around the World and Five Years from Now” may be found here. The panel was moderated by Intel Corporation Futurist Brian David Johnson and included savvy SyFy Channel exec Craig Engler and renowned SF author/visionary Cory Doctorow.All-New Spider-Man #1

The Cover:
The “standard” cover features Spider-Man swinging through the city, a standard riff. Spider-Man’s pose isn’t distinctive. Make the web into a rope and it could be Robin just as easily. It is also nonsensical, in the sense that the figure doesn’t really seem to be swinging on the web-line. It’s as if he was floating past and reached out to grab it.

 

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NYCC Panel – Screen Future: Gaming, Comics and TV Around the World and Five Years From Now

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On October 18, 2011

In 14 Events, 15 Video

JayJay here. On Sunday, we went to the New York Comic Con see the panel Jim was a part of, Screen Future, with Brian David Johnson (Intel Futurist and author of “Screen Future”), Craig Engler (senior executive, Syfy channel) and Cory Doctorow (sci-fi author and blogger on Boing, Boing). Freddy filmed the panel and I’ve uploaded the video (all 6 parts) to YouTube, so settle back, grab some popcorn and kill the better part of an hour in the future. ; )

Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6

Jim Shooter NYCC

The New York Comic Con

By

On October 17, 2011

In 14 Events

Science, Fiction, Friends and Formidable MindsThere was a guy with a bullhorn directing the crowd headed toward the Jacob Javits Center, endlessly repeating: “Ticket holders, green entrance! Picking up tickets, yellow entrance!” He noticed me among the throng—I’m easy to notice in a crowd, as would be Lurch or Chewbacca.


Actually, come to think of it, those two probably wouldn’t stand out much in that crowd. Anyway, he noticed me, and through the bullhorn blasted, “Good morning, Mr. Shooter!”

My welcome to NY Comic Con 2011.  : )

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