John Byrne's first Hulk run

[Carl Creel]

Does anyone know what ideas of Byrne were initially agreed upon by Jim Shooter and then later rejected? This is apparantly one of the main reasons why he left the Hulk and Marvel for that matter after only 6 issues back in the 80s.

[DDM]

I think Byrne left Marvel around this time when Jim Shooter discovered Byrne had been given cart blanch to revamp Superman for DC Comics post-Crisis On Infinite Earths; as a result, John Byrne left both Incredible Hulk & Fantastic Four for DC Comics. Mike Carlin, John Byrne's editor, also got fired since he knew about Byrne's DC gig from Marvel then went to DC.

[C.O. Jones]

I remember in an interview right before starting the Hulk job that he was going to bring back the Metal Master from Hulk #6...

[Drdmx]

Wiki it.

They apparently cancelled a book he was writing on X-men: The Hidden Years and he didnt appreciate it. It seems it was the final straw for him with Marvel. It's also noted that he seemed to fight with just about everyone pretty much, so maybe it was just best both of them went their seperate ways.

[Congo Jack]

All I know about the abondonned plot-lines is that Byrne wanted to take the Hulk "back to the basics".


They apparently cancelled a book he was writing on X-men: The Hidden Years and he didnt appreciate it. It seems it was the final straw for him with Marvel. It's also noted that he seemed to fight with just about everyone pretty much, so maybe it was just best both of them went their seperate ways.
X-Men: The Hidden Years was way after Byrne's run on The Incredible Hulk and Jim Shooter was long gone by the time Byrne left Quesada's Marvel.

[Drdmx]

All I know about the abondonned plot-lines is that Byrne wanted to take the Hulk "back to the basics".


X-Men: The Hidden Years was way after Byrne's run on The Incredible Hulk and Jim Shooter was long gone by the time Byrne left Quesada's Marvel.

My reference was leaning more towards the actual point at which he parted ways with Marvel, not so much to when he stopped writing the Hulk.


"From 1999–2001, Byrne returned to the X-Men once again, as he wrote and drew the flashback series X-Men: The Hidden Years. The series lasted 22 issues. Despite relatively low sales, Byrne maintained the comic was still profitable and believed the cancellation to be unexplained. This disagreement factored in his decision to no longer work for Marvel Comics.[12]" - Actually referenced from CBR Forums :smile:

[david r]

Speaking of the 1980s Byrne run, I always suspected John Byrne was the catalyst for returning the "grey Hulk". Byrne always liked returning characters to their Silver Age roots, and I've always thought Byrne was the originator of the idea of returning the Hulk to his original, grey look.

As you notice, Marvel Comics did this very thing, just a few issues after John Byrne left, with #319. No mere coincidence, I suspect. Byrne had a lot more stuff plotted out for his brief Hulk run, #314-319. He's mentioned it often on his message board.

[rick]

Wiki it.

They apparently cancelled a book he was writing on X-men: The Hidden Years and he didnt appreciate it. It seems it was the final straw for him with Marvel. It's also noted that he seemed to fight with just about everyone pretty much, so maybe it was just best both of them went their seperate ways.


That was actually what caused Byrne to leave the second time in the 90's, not why he left in the 1980's.

Wiki it.

[Drdmx]

That was actually what caused Byrne to leave the second time in the 90's, not why he left in the 1980's.

Wiki it.

Give the man a prize!

Gold star for this spectacular attention to detail!

[david r]

John Byrne has quit Marvel three separate times.

First time he was essentially fired by Jim Shooter in 1986, over Byrne going to the Distinguished Competition to do Superman.

Second, in 1992-93 in his furor over She-Hulk and general dislike at the direction of Marvel.

Third in 2000 when new E-I-C Joe Quesada cancelled X-Men: The Hidden Years, and Byrne was so irate he quit on the spot. And has vowed not to work for M***** ever since. :smile:

[Babylon23]

Bryne's website http://byrnerobotics.com has an FAQ section where he answers this question:

My adventures with THE INCREDIBLE HULK came about by a rather sad and curious route. I'd always liked the Hulk, but felt -- and this will shock and astound everyone, I'm sure -- that the character had drifted too far from his beginnings, and a "back to the basics" approach was necessary. To this end, I mentioned what I thought should be done with the Hulk to the Editor-in-Chief, and his response was "That's great! You should take over the Hulk book at once!" Well, I was up to my ears in other stuff at the time, so taking over the Hulk seemed unlikely -- until I realized I really had said all I had to say with ALPHA FLIGHT. So I called Bill Mantlo, who was writing HULK at the time, and asked if he would care to trade. Ultimately we did, and I set about doing all those things I had told to the E-i-C. Whereupon the very same E-i-C began saying "You can't do this! You can't do that!" Realizing I had been bushwacked, I took the only course available, and left the book after six issues.

[Congo Jack]

That doesn't answer the original poster's question though. I don't think any of his story-line elements, aside from wanting to take the character "back to the basics" have been revealed.

[Frank]

Give the man a prize!

Gold star for this spectacular attention to detail!

Sorry but your posts have been quite embarassing. :biggrin:

[Frank]

I have to say I loved what Byrne did with Hulk. The idea if separating Banner and Hulk were not the best ones but from a pure super-hero fan it was a hoot. You had Hulk fighting apparitions of his greatest opponants and what a treat it it was to see Byrne drawn them all! Then you had Hulk fighting the biggest super-hero heavyweights at Marvel like Hercules, Wonderman, Namor, Iron Man. Not to mention the best fist fight in Hulk's history against Doc Samson. And the revamp of the Hulk busters was pretty damn neat with those huge machines.

When I was a kid I was always pissed off when Byrne would leave a book to soon. Especially Cap, Hulk and West Coast Avengers.

[Carl Creel]

Ok, I checked with an old bud of mine about this. He doesnt remember where he read this years ago but apparantly Byrne wanted to reboot the Hulk completely and start it over, similar to what he would do with Superman. This part of his plan was not revealed to Shooter at first which is why Shooter said yes to his plans. Once Byrne revealed his true plans, Shooter shot them down as he should have. Such a reboot would have screwed up alot of continuity. I applaud Shooter for doing that. Can anyone imagine Quesada doing that to Bendis, Ellis or Hundlin? He doesnt have the spine for that.

[Frank]

Ok, I checked with an old bud of mine about this. He doesnt remember where he read this years ago but apparantly Byrne wanted to reboot the Hulk completely and start it over, similar to what he would do with Superman. This part of his plan was not revealed to Shooter at first which is why Shooter said yes to his plans. Once Byrne revealed his true plans, Shooter shot them down as he should have. Such a reboot would have screwed up alot of continuity. I applaud Shooter for doing that. Can anyone imagine Quesada doing that to Bendis, Ellis or Hundlin? He doesnt have the spine for that.

I sort of agree but there's the Ultimate line for that.

[matthewaos]

Ok, I checked with an old bud of mine about this. He doesnt remember where he read this years ago but apparantly Byrne wanted to reboot the Hulk completely and start it over, similar to what he would do with Superman. This part of his plan was not revealed to Shooter at first which is why Shooter said yes to his plans. Once Byrne revealed his true plans, Shooter shot them down as he should have. Such a reboot would have screwed up alot of continuity. I applaud Shooter for doing that. Can anyone imagine Quesada doing that to Bendis, Ellis or Hundlin? He doesnt have the spine for that.

What's Byrne's problem actually? He thinks that his versions of a character are better than the original? Hulk, Spider-Man, Superman... I really start to hate this guy, through this thread. Fortunately he was never my taste, so... I think he also had an agreement with David, when they both were to DC...

[Will.S]

I saw the trade of his run on the Hulk in this week's releases. I'll pick it up eventually since Byrne's art in that book was really good and I saw some cool fights between Hulk and the Avengers big bruisers (Hercules, Iron Man, Namor, Wonder Man).