Changing Writers In Mid-Stream

[spoon_jenkins]

I've noticed an odd pattern in 1970s Marvel. A number of series had at least 4 different writers within the first 10 issues. This includes Tomb of Dracula, Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man, the Dr. Strange revival in Marvel Premiere, and the launch of Iron Fist in Marvel Premiere.

It's a bit odd because I would've thought TPTB would want a consisent vision and creative team for a new series. None of the series had purely self-contained stories during the changes. They all had continuing stories or at least continuing sub-plots.

Does anyone know why Marvel change the writers so much in the early issues of series? How about the plotting? Where the larger arcs/continuing stories planned by the editor or was it really a case of switching writers who had long-term plans? Any insights on the role of editors in ongoing storylines when the writers change (not just regarding 70s Marvel) would be appreciated. Thanks!

[shaxper]

My shot in the dark guess would be that it might relate to Len Wein's short tenure as EIC in 1974. In addition to the regular confusion caused by a transition in power, Wein was writing four (?) high profile titles for Marvel when he suddenly became EIC. That had to cause some shuffling.

[Sean Walsh]

Furthermore, there were a lot of EICs at Marvel during the 70's.

Wein, Conway, Wolfman, Goodwin, Thomas....

All writers.

Coincidence?

[earl]

I think what would happen is that a writer/editor would come up with a new character book, write a plot for an opening issue and then they would hand it over to another writer to take over for an issue or two to test the waters and then try to get a regular team on the book.

The interesting think with Tomb of Dracula is that the art team was pretty stable while the writers kept changing up. Considering the writers changed, the tone of the series didn't really change around much, even with the different writers.

I noticed with Iron Fist, I think Roy Thomas only worked on the first issue and then he was gone, yet he co-created the character.


With Peter Parker, I bet it might be different in that even then Marvel probably had Spider-man plots in the can and could be pulling them from a file.

[spoon_jenkins]

With Peter Parker, I bet it might be different in that even then Marvel probably had Spider-man plots in the can and could be pulling them from a file.
Interesting. The plots might have been from an inventory, but since the scripts reference contemporary issues of Amazing Spider-Man, there would have to be adjustments. Interestingly, by #6, there was already a reprint of a Marvel Team-Up story with a new framing sequence.

It's weird that Peter Parker had 5 writers through 11 issues but Amazing had one writer during that same period (Len Wein).

[Slam_Bradley]

From just reading John Romita: And All That Jazz, I think I may have a partial answer for this. A lot of this was probably driven by the Production Department and Traffic Managers John Verpoorten and Virginia Romita. Verpoorten in particular was very hard on people who missed deadlines. It was extremely expensive to have late books, since Marvel had to pay for the presses down-time. If a book was late enough, it could eat away all profit. So it wasn't unusual for the traffic managers to juggle the assignments to make sure the books got done and preferably on time.

[dan bailey]

Verpoorten in particular was very hard on people who missed deadlines.

Allow me to sing, to the tune of the old "All in the Family" theme song, "Mister, we could use a man like John Verpoorten again" ...

[Eumenides]

Perhaps back then it was assumed a writer is a writer and the stars were the characters anyway.