Worst Editor in Chief?

[MiracleMan]

Who in your opinion was the worst Editor in Chief of Marvel, I say Tom Defalco

[Expletive Deleted]

The first half of Harras's tenure was pretty dire.

[KandouErik]

Can anyone give us, who don't have a memory stretching back into the 60s and beyond, what the pros and cons where of each Editor and Chief?

[MiracleMan]

Well through the late 40s to early 70s it was only Stan Lee and Editor in Chief. I cant see anyone hating him tho

[Will.S]

Bob Harras all the way.

[Reptisaurus!]

Obviously not Lee, Shooter, or Quesada. All had long tenures and ended up with a company in much better shape than when they started. (Or would, if they quit today.)

Hard to say. Gerry Conway lasted a month.

It depends on how much of the blame for Marvel near-bankruptcy we can dump on Harras or Defalco.

[bebopeva88]

I gotta go with Harras.

[Westgarth J]

What a negative thread. But what the hell.

Probably Jim Shooter's tenure saw the most creative failures, as pretty much nothing from his run seems to be published anymore. To me, that says none of it was very popular or that good that it can be so thoroughly ignored in favor of the mid-70s rehashes of late and it impacts not a jot on the Marvel universe - Cloak and Dagger, for instance, seem to be a running joke rather than characters with more than 25-plus years behind them.
Plus, y'know: "There are no gays in the Marvel Universe." Even John Byrne refuses to defend that.

But I suppose whoever was in charge during the 'let's outdo Image' phase (and subsequent bankruptcy) has to take the title of worst.

[Sighphi]

Wai, wai, wait.... Is Bob getting judged based on the market collapse, which wasnt his fault, or on his actual handling of things?

[Reptisaurus!]

What a negative thread. But what the hell.

Probably Jim Shooter's tenure saw the most creative failures, as pretty much nothing from his run seems to be published anymore.

Nah. The Byrne/Claremont X-men and Frank Miller Daredevil stuff is into multiple printings, and both probably will be in print for decades to come.

[rick]

Harras certainly oversaw the worst era at Marvel for both sales and story.

[esc0]

since idk anything before maybe 2006 I'll just say the ones responsible for leading marvel into Bankruptcy.

[Green Griffin]

Jim Shooter because he never let the writers and artist have fun or any freedom with the projects they were on.

[Dog]

Before this question can be answered, I think we all need to understand what an editor-in-chief actually does.

So, uh, what is that? Cuz I don't know.

[DrDoom616]

With recent events, I would say JQ as Marvel are looking more and more like they are taking a nosedive in quality

[RolandJP]

Who in your opinion was the worst Editor in Chief of Marvel, I say Tom Defalco

J Jonah Jameson

But his daughter Jenna is hot!

[Personamanx]

I only Know Joe Q. So He in my mind would be the worst.

[Syrant]

Stan Lee, obviously. What has he ever done?

Yeah, I have no idea.

[Reptisaurus!]

Jim Shooter because he never let the writers and artist have fun or any freedom with the projects they were on.

Some folks felt like that. Some folks didn't. Re: "Freedom" it's worth noting that Epic (Marvel's creator owned line) was at it's peak during Shooter's tenure.

[Rurik]

Stan Lee, obviously. What has he ever done?

Yeah, I have no idea.

Besides creating a good portion of Marvel's most well known and loved characters?

[MiracleMan]

Besides creating a good portion of Marvel's most well known and loved characters?

wow you are new to sarcasm arent you?

[arachne_azure]

Bob Harras, step on up, & take a bow. While the Bankruptcy may not be all Bob Harras' fault, flooding comic shops with useless specialty covers at a time when the comic market was tanking, and reading the public mood for said specialty covers about as accurately as the execs that approved the Ford Pinto, Pepsi Clear, New Coke, and The Arch Deluxe from McDonalds (the mentioned products were bombs, especially the Ford Pinto {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto for more info} ) was. While I don't approve of everything Joe Quesada has done, he pretty much had to clean up the mess Bob Harras made, which took a herculean effort (no pun intended.) So for all people that complain about OMD & BND for Spiderman, just look at Bob Harras' tenure at Marvel,Bob H makes Joe Q look like Steve Jobs. Honorable mentions should go to Tom Defalco as well.

[Rurik]

wow you are new to sarcasm arent you?

Something people need to learn, sarcasm does not wort in text format unless you state you're being sarcastic. Sarcasm only works when you can signify you're being sarcastic through tone of voice, something which you can not do with text. If I said "I love being kicked in the crotch!" out loud, you would know I was being sarcastic because of the tone of my voice, which would sound completely different than if I had actually meant it. However when I type it, it looks exactly the same whether I mean it or not. Unless I type something like "I love being kicked in the crotch! (Sarcasm)" you have no way of knowing if I'm being sarcastic or if I was into S&M. In these cases, one generally defaults to whatever they would expect, in this case, I default to thinking someone would really be ignorant enough to believe Stan Lee never did anything for Marvel or the comic book industry in general.

[DrDoom616]

Bob Harras, step on up, & take a bow. While the Bankruptcy may not be all Bob Harras' fault, flooding comic shops with useless specialty covers at a time when the comic market was tanking, and reading the public mood for said specialty covers about as accurately as the execs that approved the Ford Pinto, Pepsi Clear, New Coke, and The Arch Deluxe from McDonalds (the mentioned products were bombs, especially the Ford Pinto {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto for more info} ) was. While I don't approve of everything Joe Quesada has done, he pretty much had to clean up the mess Bob Harras made, which took a herculean effort (no pun intended.) So for all people that complain about OMD & BND for Spiderman, just look at Bob Harras' tenure at Marvel,Bob H makes Joe Q look like Steve Jobs.

Hmmmm. JQ has started this also, flooding the market with variants and soon speciality covers (see Ultimate relaunches #1).

[MiracleMan]

But use common sense, if he is posting on a Marvel forum he more than certainly knows Stan Lee. Common Sense: neglected by people since 1969

[Rurik]

Common sense dictates that common sense is anything but common. That's precisely the reason why I'd be less surprised by someone, even on a Marvel forum, not knowing who Stan Lee is, or what he's done, than I would by someone being sarcastic.

[worstblogever]

I'd have to go Harras. Onslaught weirdness, followed by a lot of the ways he held creators back in the late 90s on big storylines... the only thing he did that I support was the gatefold "recap" covers. Which, honestly have been done quite adequately with just the single page, the past few years.

[DrDoom616]

But use common sense, if he is posting on a Marvel forum he more than certainly knows Stan Lee. Common Sense: neglected by people since 1969

How do you know he was being sarcastic? he maybe a new reader that has never heard of Stan lee.

lol

[paulski]

Considering I'm buying as few Marvel titles now as I ever have, I didn't even bother looking at the other options. :frown:

[Robert318]

Wow...so this is where all the people from the hate Loeb threads hang out when they aren't there, huh? Quesada as the worst? HA!

I truly will never understand why people complain about him. Do I agree with every move he makes? No, but Marvel is sure in a much better place with him than without him. He has great innovative ideas and isn't afraid to take a risk. People want to cite books getting cancelled as one of the reasons he's "bad", but without him, most of these books wouldn't even be given a chance.

As a matter of fact, until I know exactly what goes into being the man behind Marvel, I think I'll vote "none" as worst editor-in-chief.

[Jake V]

Who the EiC is doesn't really matter to me all that much, but when I quit reading comics, Harras was the EiC, and when I started up again, Quesada was in charge.

[Reptisaurus!]

Considering I'm buying as few Marvel titles now as I ever have, I didn't even bother looking at the other options. :frown:

I was actually buying quite a few less during the Joe Simon era.

[MiracleMan]

I surprised with Quesada haters because he pulled Marvel out of bankruptcy, created so heralded runs, revitalized comic book movies, and making risky purchases and decisions for the simple sake of the fans.

DeFalco ****ed Marvel and Harras added minor fuel to the fire in comparison

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Who in your opinion was the worst Editor in Chief of Marvel, I say Tom Defalco

I'll have to agree. And Harras didn't become EIC until 1996 or 1997 in there. Marvel under DeFalco went to hell awhile. Harras sadly gets blame or "revisonist" blame since many try and lump all the bad 90's deals on him. Except under Bob Harras you had :


1.) Busiek/Perez Avengers.

2.) New titles/characters given a shot like Deadpool by Joe Kelly , Black Panther by Preist , and Seagle's Alpha Flight. Those series all got huge praise and helped Marvel crawl from the hole they had made under DeFalco creatively.

3.) Put Waid/Garney back on Captain America. Until sadly a disagreement led to their quitting.

4. Thor by Dan Jurgans.

5.) Marvel Knights was done when Harras was EIC.


In all a lot of the votes for him is kinda silly. I mean , hell Marvel under Bob Harras in 1997-1998 was a better company than the Marvel under Tom DeFalco in 1992-93.

[Jake V]

I surprised with Quesada haters because he pulled Marvel out of bankruptcy, created so heralded runs, revitalized comic book movies, and making risky purchases and decisions for the simple sake of the fans.

DeFalco fucked Marvel and Harras added minor fuel to the fire in comparison

People have short memories, and look at the past with rose colored glasses. Every EIC made decisions that people didn't like, but Quesada is making the decisions that people aren't liking right now.

[MiracleMan]

atcually EiC makes all the big decisions in comics such as crossovers, character development, purchases, adaptations etc

[Omega Alpha]

Harras, certainly. Both in quality and sales-wise (not a coincidence, of course).

[Sighphi]

I surprised with Quesada haters because he pulled Marvel out of bankruptcy, created so heralded runs, revitalized comic book movies, and making risky purchases and decisions for the simple sake of the fans.

DeFalco ****ed Marvel and Harras added minor fuel to the fire in comparison

I thought Avi Arad was the one that pulled Marvel out of bankruptcy.......

[Jake V]

I thought Avi Arad was the one that pulled Marvel out of bankruptcy.......

You should think less.

[Sighphi]

You should think less.

You should learn more.

[Gitaroo_Dude]

You should think less.

Now THERE is some wishful thinking. If only.

I voted Joe Quesada though. Have you seen the man's house? My God, the nerve of the man, spending his money in a way he sees fit. It makes my nerdy blood boil over to see such a slug with such ill gotten gains. The man rapes childhoods! He despises comic fans! He hates comics! He's ruining Marvel!

This was sarcastic by the way.

[Jake V]

You should learn more.

You know anyone who teaches?

[Sighphi]

You know anyone who teaches?

Me. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avi_Arad)

Learn.

[Jake V]

Me. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avi_Arad)

Learn.

I don't think I can lean anything from you other than how to be wrong.

Seriously, you're wrong about everything. Stop posting.

[Gitaroo_Dude]

Me. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avi_Arad)

Learn.

Admitting that Wikipedia is your teacher actually explains a lot.

[MiracleMan]

Admitting that Wikipedia is your teacher actually explains a lot.

lmao, true

[Sighphi]

Admitting that Wikipedia is your teacher actually explains a lot.

I didnt admit Wiki is my teacher......

[Jake V]

I didnt admit Wiki is my teacher......

Then you don't really dont know anything.

[Sighphi]

Then you don't really dont know anything.

I know that Avid Arad pulled Marvel from bankruptcy and not the dude that drew Ninjak.

[Jake V]

I know that Avid Arad pulled Marvel from bankruptcy and not the dude that drew Ninjak.

Just like you "knew" that Magneto was a gypsy? Seriously, stop posting.

[MiracleMan]

Quesada hired and tasked Arad. End of discussion

[Sighphi]

Just like you "knew" that Magneto was a gypsy? Seriously, stop posting.

Exactly, i dont make up stuff i use actual information.
I see you are finally learning something.

[Syrant]

Something people need to learn, sarcasm does not wort in text format unless you state you're being sarcastic. Sarcasm only works when you can signify you're being sarcastic through tone of voice, something which you can not do with text. If I said "I love being kicked in the crotch!" out loud, you would know I was being sarcastic because of the tone of my voice, which would sound completely different than if I had actually meant it. However when I type it, it looks exactly the same whether I mean it or not. Unless I type something like "I love being kicked in the crotch! (Sarcasm)" you have no way of knowing if I'm being sarcastic or if I was into S&M. In these cases, one generally defaults to whatever they would expect, in this case, I default to thinking someone would really be ignorant enough to believe Stan Lee never did anything for Marvel or the comic book industry in general.

Sorry, I thought it was clear enough. The "Yeah, I have no idea." was suppose to be my "(sarcasm)", showing that I was joking, and had no serious input because of lack of knowledge on the subject. I thought the idea of Stan Lee being useless to the comic industry was such a crazy thought, no one would believe I was serious. Plus I thought that since I had Spider-Man and Iron Man in my signature and avatar would make other posters give me the benefit of the doubt instead of assuming I'm ignorant. I really could have made it clearer, though.

But you have to admit, the idea of me coming onto a comic forum, ignorant about Stan Lee, but some how knowledgeable about those other less known editors enough to make a comparison, is a little weird.

[Verminous]

Hmmmm. JQ has started this also, flooding the market with variants and soon speciality covers (see Ultimate relaunches #1).

Of course you know that's marketings decision and not Joe Q's, right?

Isn't the EIC more involved with the taqlent at Marvel and the direction of storylines?

Both of which I feel are at a pretty high point right now.

[Kasper Cole]

Some of the things people saying are EIC decisions really aren't. Joey Q doesn't RUN Marvel, just one aspect of it. While he does get the final say on a lot of the creative aspects of Marvels comics, He also has people he has to answer to in regards to some things..

[carabas]

Something people need to learn, sarcasm does not wort in text format unless you state you're being sarcastic.Sarcasm worts absolutely fine in text form. All you need is a modicum of writing skill and an audience with reading comprehension (which arguably can be in short supply on the net).

[carabas]

Quesada hired and tasked Arad. End of discussionI'm pretty sure Bill Jemas did.
An editor in chief has no business dealing with movie people; it's not part of his job description.

[Kasper Cole]

I'm pretty sure Bill Jemas did.
An editor in chief has no business dealing with movie people; it's not part of his job description.

Also Joey Q has said before that he doesn't really have any say in regards to what gets done with the movies, and most he'll be a consultant from time to time. Also Avi Arad had been doing work with Marvel long before Quesada was EIC.

[Sighphi]

Also Joey Q has said before that he doesn't really have any say in regards to what gets done with the movies, and most he'll be a consultant from time to time. Also Avi Arad had been doing work with Marvel long before Quesada was EIC.

Avi brought Marvel back up when they were in the toilet in the mid 90s THEN around 4-5 years later in 2k Q got the seat.

So like i said, Bob is getting blamed for stuff that he wasnt part of and Q is getting credit for thing he didnt do. So people's view of things is tremendously skewed.

[Whirlwind Dinamo]

Most of these guys are before my time, so when I go back to the Marvel classics I pick the best reads and am probably looking at the old days through rose colored glasses. Onslaught/Heroes reborn was pretty meh for me, Rulk or Red Hulk has to be one of the worst things to happen Marvel in a long time but to be fair to Joe the Marvel Universe today is a very different Universe, JQs responsibility probably includes the video games, the tv shows, giving a bit of input for movies, his input on animeverse etc Its a much much bigger company than it was back then.

[Burning_Pumpkin]

I say Jim Shooter.

While his nine years saw some incredible successes (Millers 'Daredevil', Claremont and Byrnes' 'Uncanny X-Men' and Simonson on 'Thor'), he was also a bully and a homophobe and managed to push all the best of Marvels talent at the time right out the door.

[Kasper Cole]

Most of these guys are before my time, so when I go back to the Marvel classics I pick the best reads and am probably looking at the old days through rose colored glasses. Onslaught/Heroes reborn was pretty meh for me, Rulk or Red Hulk has to be one of the worst things to happen Marvel in a long time but to be fair to Joe the Marvel Universe today is a very different Universe, JQs responsibility probably includes the video games, the tv shows, giving a bit of input for movies, his input on animeverse etc Its a much much bigger company than it was back then.

Joey Q is the EIC, he's on responsible for Marvel comics, Marvel comics is a subsidiary of a much larger company called Marvel Entertainment. Things like Videogames, toys, television shows, and clothing are handled by the heads of other subsidiaries under the marvel entertainment umbrella.

While Joey Q did recently announced that he had been named CCO of Marvel animation, he isn't really involved (to my knowledge) in videogames or any of that other stuff.

[The Sword Is Drawn]

Bob Harras.

In particular for things like the state of stasis he insisted titles like X-Men stayed in. But also because his tenure coincided with the cancellation of many of my favourite titles.

Worryingly, Joe Q is going the same way with that last point. And at least the editorial and features side of Marvel books were better constructed under Harras.

[Drdmx]

Wai, wai, wait.... Is Bob getting judged based on the market collapse, which wasnt his fault, or on his actual handling of things?

I like that question... because honestly, alot of my favorite reads from the 90's have Harras listed as EIC.

[Drdmx]

Considering I'm buying as few Marvel titles now as I ever have, I didn't even bother looking at the other options. :frown:

Thats kinda how I feel. I couldnt wait to buy books back in the late 90's. Im not as avid of a fan now, and its not just because the prices have gone up.

[FlintEastwood]

Going purely based on the output of each EIC's tenure, I'm going with Harras. I hate that guy. I also hate pretty much everything that was put out by Marvel during the 90's.

Second goes to DeFalco for the second half of his tenure, for the same reason.

Anyone who prefers the 90's over what we have now, which is EXTREMELY talented artists, amazing writers, and trade paperbacks that are readily available, cataloging almost every series that is printed in a timely manner, obviously doesn't remember those craptastic comics we used to get 10 years ago. We can complain about company-wide events, debate Civil War, Secret Invasion, and Dark Reign, however, the only glaringly obvious thing we really have to complain about is Jeff Loeb's Hulk, and a lot of titles that are good but not the extreme excellence that the bar has been set to. Compared to a decade that gave us 2 years of Clone Saga, several extremely terrible X-titles, and more from that decade.


I'm not sure exactly what an EIC does, but I'm basing my opinions off of the artistic (bad back then) and writing (not neccesarily bad) talent, as well as the overall storylines that occured back then. I've read over the 60's, 70's, 80's, and 90's in trade over the past year or two and I just can't stand that decade at all.

[MiracleMan]

Harras happened to be EiC at the time of the bankruptcy but he also made terrible decisions. Clone Saga anyone?

[Sighphi]

Harras happened to be EiC at the time of the bankruptcy but he also made terrible decisions. Clone Saga anyone?

That's like blaming Obama for all the crap happening to the US now.
He was named captain of a sinking ship, if you are going to judge him state the case based on the comics and not what was happening in the comic book scene.

[Expletive Deleted]

To be fair to Harras, the last two years or so of his tenure were pretty decent. Heroes Return and so on. It's just that the first three or four were so god-awful.

[worstblogever]

All I know is Joe Q has the great advantage of not being Dan Didio. That sure helps.

[Burning_Pumpkin]

Harras happened to be EiC at the time of the bankruptcy but he also made terrible decisions. Clone Saga anyone?

Aww, poor Bob.

It was DeFalco who actually green-lit the idea after initially shooting it down while wearing his 'Editor-cap', but then getting excited about it from a writers standpoint.

Harras was the X-Men EIC at that time.

[Will.S]

To be fair to Harras, the last two years or so of his tenure were pretty decent. Heroes Return and so on. It's just that the first three or four were so god-awful.I would agree with that as well.

[AllisterH]

Didn't Shooter save marvel from an earlier bankruptcy? As I understand it, it was his dealing pre EIC with Roy Thomas that got Marvel the Star Wars license and later on the GI Joe & Transformers license which financially kept Marvel afloat.

Archie Goodwin may have been the writer's editor (it seems like he's the most popular editor among writers) but he was too lax an EIC and thus almost bankrupted the company.

[raskal66]

I'm going to say DeFalco because a lot of talent left under him. Now maybe that talent had bigger heads than what was tolerable, or maybe they wanted rights to their productions. I neither know nor care because I was younger and less hip to following how it worked. Something had to be up that got Jim Lee, Mark Silvestri, Erik Larsen, and Todd McFarlane to start their own company rather than continue to work for hire for Marvel.

I was a big Joe Q. supporter, and still respect him very much. After Secret Invasion though, he has been trending down quickly in my estimation, but he's not anywhere near "the worst." Not yet anyway.

This is really a question of perception because while marketing departments can make some of the more unpopular decision than the EIC, the EIC is the perceived head of state even if their job description is not really that. Part of the job of EIC is taking the blame when things go wrong, though. That's part of the nice big salary.

[newscott]

What a negative thread. But what the hell.

Probably Jim Shooter's tenure saw the most creative failures, as pretty much nothing from his run seems to be published anymore. To me, that says none of it was very popular or that good that it can be so thoroughly ignored in favor of the mid-70s rehashes of late and it impacts not a jot on the Marvel universe

Uhm, I'm gonna disagree there.

Dark Phoenix Saga, Days of the Future Past and God Loves, Man Kills were all from this era.

So was Wolverine (Both the Mini and the Ongoing). The X-verse was expanded to include X-Factor and the New Mutants.

Frank Miller on Daredevil.

Walt Simonson's Thor is generally considered to be Thor's best run.

Secret Wars is often going back to print.

Shooter might not have been well liked, but he was efficient. The books that came out were good. They were on time. There is a good amount of legacy for Shooter to be proud of.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

To be fair to Harras, the last two years or so of his tenure were pretty decent. Heroes Return and so on. It's just that the first three or four were so god-awful.

I believe he came in at the time Marvel was in horrible shape. I remember that in an interview he was like... "Holy crap , the FF , Avengers , Thor and Captain America titles are selling PISS POOR."

So he dove in and found an idea that he thought would help sales. Now sure ...Onslaught is seen as crap. And the idea to jerk Waid and Loeb off Cap and Thor was a bad move. But then , sales were pretty bad and Harras had to give those books a sales jolt. And who better than guys that we all believed would never again touch a Marvel book ? Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld.

He also pretty much put the HAMMER on the Clone Saga and I sadly blame Harras for his problems here. Instead of getting a new writer to fix the Spidey books in 1999 , he just handed them to the same loser who had tanked them in the 1st place. It was a dumb move. A dumb move that hurt the books another 2 years.


I think a lot of people need to study and read COMIC BOOK WARS , as a book. In it , they discuss what Perelman tried to do with Marvel. He wanted to create a Disney type company with Marvel. So he soon started buying trading card companies , bought into theme parks and just soon expanded the company to a point it started losing money. The trading card industry took a dive after the comic book market did. The theme parks were a bad idea.

So they went into Bankruptcy and re-organized . The only real profits Marvel had and showed was .... the comic publishing division. Yes even then , after years of bad comics and shit , Marvel had its best profit maker...the comics. The company soon sold the theme parks and the trading card companies.

A few years later emerged from its debt. But the man they hired to really start making big profits was .... Bill Jemas. Jemas was the type of man who made money wherever he landed. It was his main point of bragging really. Wherever he went ...Bill Jemas made $$$.

Jemas couldn't work with Harras , so he fired him. He could work with Joe Quesada though. And the story of who helped Marvel really make jack begins with Bill Jemas getting the job . He played the "heavy" for awhile to Quesada's "The Nice Guy" . :tongue:

[AllisterH]

Are we talking worst editor "creatively" or "financially".

Creatively, I tend to go with Defalco. 1987 to 1994 was a pretty dark time creatively for marvel. I'm actually blanking on much loved runs from that era.

Serious question: What WERE the good storylines from that era.

I know marvel creatively was in its peak during the 70s and personally, I consider the 00s along with the 60s to be marvel's 2nd best creative period (yah, yeah, people hate the actual storylines but the individual non-event comics have been pretty damn good. )

But the Defalco era? Blanking on that...

Financially, if blame could be assigned, it would have to be equally between Defalco and Harras, however, there were extenuating circumstances there (DC got hit pretty bad during the speculator boom era as well)

What's the excuse for the 70s era EIC for running marvel into the ground?

[pariah-1972]

I'm going to say DeFalco because a lot of talent left under him. Now maybe that talent had bigger heads than what was tolerable, or maybe they wanted rights to their productions. I neither know nor care because I was younger and less hip to following how it worked. Something had to be up that got Jim Lee, Mark Silvestri, Erik Larsen, and Todd McFarlane to start their own company rather than continue to work for hire for Marvel.

I was a big Joe Q. supporter, and still respect him very much. After Secret Invasion though, he has been trending down quickly in my estimation, but he's not anywhere near "the worst." Not yet anyway.

This is really a question of perception because while marketing departments can make some of the more unpopular decision than the EIC, the EIC is the perceived head of state even if their job description is not really that. Part of the job of EIC is taking the blame when things go wrong, though. That's part of the nice big salary.As far as i know the reasons that Jim Lee, Mark Silvestri, Erik Larsen, and Todd McFarlane started Image was because there was the whole 90's speculator comics boom
and they wanted to get in on that kind of money with there own creator owned comics and possible movie deals.
I have never heard anyone say they had any issues with Defalco or anyone else.
especially since most of those guys had a lot of freedom to do whatever (like Jim Lee taking over X-men completely and getting Claremont to leave)
they wanted since they were so successful.

[raskal66]

As far as i know the reasons that Jim Lee, Mark Silvestri, Erik Larsen, and Todd McFarlane started Image was because there was the whole 90's speculator comics boom
and they wanted to get in on that kind of money with there own creator owned comics and possible movie deals.
I have never heard anyone say they had any issues with Defalco or anyone else.
especially since most of those guys had a lot of freedom to do whatever (like Jim Lee taking over X-men completely and getting Claremont to leave)
they wanted since they were so successful.


You very well could be right. I'd heard in those days that In the case of McFarlane, he was a total diva who wanted a better deal than all the others. Even getting his own Spider Man title wasn't enough. His best way of getting all the action was to start his own company. I don't remember Jim Lee being vocally upset, but when an exodus like that occurs, something has to be up. I don't know if it was an issue with DeFalco, but it happened when he had creative control so something had to have happened.

It could be that they were trying to capitalize on the speculator boom too. I wouldn't doubt it, but they survived the speculator boom and are doing something different these days. They have several very good items out there now and not much by way of movies going for them, though they do have some, and I don't want to demean their success. Their offerings are very unique now and don't appear to run like a company that was oriented for a short term run. They kind of recharged the creator owned market and made it do-able again for many guys.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Are we talking worst editor "creatively" or "financially".

Creatively, I tend to go with Defalco. 1987 to 1994 was a pretty dark time creatively for marvel. I'm actually blanking on much loved runs from that era.

Serious question: What WERE the good storylines from that era.

I know marvel creatively was in its peak during the 70s and personally, I consider the 00s along with the 60s to be marvel's 2nd best creative period (yah, yeah, people hate the actual storylines but the individual non-event comics have been pretty damn good. )

But the Defalco era? Blanking on that...

Financially, if blame could be assigned, it would have to be equally between Defalco and Harras, however, there were extenuating circumstances there (DC got hit pretty bad during the speculator boom era as well)

What's the excuse for the 70s era EIC for running marvel into the ground?

There was Marvels (In an old thread on here I posted....Marvel in the 90's) as a mini-series that came out in 1992-93 I believe. Its just that Marvel then wouldn't approve or dragged their feet on a sequel and Busiek took the concept and made it "Astro City".

Either way , there was a huge amount of "Miss" in the 90's for DeFalco. I won't even get into the decision to hand himself every title nearly (FF , Thor , etc etc) and the spinoff books too. And he soon wrote them into some bad stories.

The FF one comes under huge fire where he decided that Johnny Storm should be single and basically spit in the fanbases face by claiming for years that Alica Masters was a Skrull spy and was having Storm's egg baby.

I think Tom DeFalco is a decent writer on some things. But he as the boss and EIC did some horrible moves. And its not like the FF Editor could tell his boss , "Uhh sir , your story ideas stink."

[pariah-1972]

You very well could be right. I'd heard in those days that In the case of McFarlane, he was a total diva who wanted a better deal than all the others. Even getting his own Spider Man title wasn't enough. His best way of getting all the action was to start his own company. I don't remember Jim Lee being vocally upset, but when an exodus like that occurs, something has to be up. I don't know if it was an issue with DeFalco, but it happened when he had creative control so something had to have happened.

It could be that they were trying to capitalize on the speculator boom too. I wouldn't doubt it, but they survived the speculator boom and are doing something different these days. They have several very good items out there now and not much by way of movies going for them, though they do have some, and I don't want to demean their success. Their offerings are very unique now and don't appear to run like a company that was oriented for a short term run. They kind of recharged the creator owned market and made it do-able again for many guys.Oh i agree they have become a lot more original in what they are doing and what titles they are putting out now and seem to be in it for the long run.

[Leocomix]

Can anyone give us, who don't have a memory stretching back into the 60s and beyond, what the pros and cons where of each Editor and Chief?

Lee, I don't need to tell you much.

Thomas expanded the line with horror series (like Tomb of Dracula, the best comic series of the 70s) MTU and MTIO started under him. He started Giant-Size series (discontinued in 75)

Wein and Wolfman developed the editor/writer system. They created the black and white magazines which didn't have to follow the Comics Code Authority.

Wolfman insitituted the inventory stockpiling to solve missed deadlines.

Conway started Peter Parker Spectacular Spider-Man.

Goodwin took over, having to write the Conway title. But didn't manage to solve the regular lateness of issues.

Shooter made sure comics came on time and discontinued the use of reprints to make up for missed deadlines. He also alienated many writers early on (Steve Gerber, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein) who went to work for the competition. Due to the lack of good writers we saw the rise of the writer/artist system (Miller, Byrne, Simonson) and the proliferation of X-Men titles. However the groundbreaking comics of the time happened in the independent field or at DC. He created Epic for creator-owned material (Groo and Dreadstar were two of the highlights). He made comics based on toys (Rom, Micronauts, Secret Wars) and wrote them himself to make a lot of money. He tried to launch comics for kids (Star Comics) He started mini-series. He alienated more people (lost Miller, Starlin and Byrne), he created his own New Universe as the new "big thing", he made events comics and was finally let go. His period was concurrent with the editorship of Mark Gruenwald. MTU became Web of Spider-Man thus creating a third continuity title. They enforced a strong continuity but reduced invention by doing so. The only editor who left creative people free was Ralph Macchio and many of the best titles of the 80s and 90s were his work. Curiously he was continually passed for the EIC position. In 1987 started the original Masterworks line.

Under DeFalco the proliferation of X-Men titles reached new heights. The classic titles created by Lee declined as every hot penciler wanted to work on X-Men. Events became the norm, there were X-Men events, summer events and events in the Annuals. The Annuals (which had been special issue where creators gave their best work) became poor products done by second-rate talent. Under his editorship editors were the key creative people of a title or at least that's how hot pencilers felt and they left to start Image. Marvel bought a card company, a distributor and tried to go exclusive, this backfired badly and resulted in Diamond in a position of quasi-monopoly. A fourth spidey title. Punisher rose to three titles. Characters like Ghost Rider and Wolverine started appearing everywhere and developed franchise titles.

Bob Harras figured that the company should do more of what sold well: X-Men. Hence a glut of X-Men. The classic titles got even worse. Titles got outsourced, to Image (classic titles) and then to Palmiotti and Quesada (second-rate properties which they made great). The Essential line started in 1996.

Joe Q modernised the coloring department by computerising it. He started the Ultimate line by drawing talent from independent publishers and Wildstorm, the Marvel Adventures line, revived Marvel's fortunes by big movies, instituted the policy that Marvel should recruit writers from literature and TV, made Marvel the place to work, attracted talent from across the globe, used aggressively the exclusive contracts, increased their market share. The new Masterworks line started, as well as the Omnibus line, Marvel Premiere, Marvel Classics, Masterworks trade paperback, digital comics, the Icon line for creator-owned work of writers under exclusive contract.

This rundown should answer as well the question of what does an EIC do.

The worse for me are DeFalco, Harras and Shooter. Many of the problems that plagued DeFalco and Harras editorship can be traced back to Shooter. If the 70s were plagued by lateness, it was very creative.

[TOAA]

Harras because i don`t know a shit what editor does and doesn`t.

[Kurt Busiek]

There was Marvels (In an old thread on here I posted....Marvel in the 90's) as a mini-series that came out in 1992-93 I believe. Its just that Marvel then wouldn't approve or dragged their feet on a sequel and Busiek took the concept and made it "Astro City".

No, no.

They approved it faster than anything I've ever had approved. It fell apart over that old story, creative differences. Nothing to do with whoever was EIC at the time.

And I didn't turn the concept into ASTRO CITY. I'd already cooked up ASTRO CITY, and took the story that would have been MARVELS II and folded it into the already-extant Astro City plans as the basis of what would eventually become "The Dark Age."

kdb

[Goshin]

the first few years of joe q sucked but everything started getting good again when he put the x-men back in superhero costumes and started doin big stories like civil war and house of m.


but i still hate the fact he put a no smoking ban on all marvel characters but its ok for shatterstar to kiss rictor on the lips

[TOAA]

Haven`t heard anyone dying due to being gay.

[Nevets F]

Haven`t heard anyone dying due to being gay.

I hope not! I may not have chosen to be gay had I known I might die from it.

[Burning_Pumpkin]

but i still hate the fact he put a no smoking ban on all marvel characters but its ok for shatterstar to kiss rictor on the lips

Wow. Classy.

[mightyness]

I think it is wholly unfair to say Bob Harras is the worst Marvel Editor ever. People want to blame him for a period of time where Marvel went bankrupt. But this was also Marvels most successful time in terms of sales. This was when the industry as a whole was at it's highest point. Sure there were some stinkers in terms of storylines (i.e. Clone Saga).

[Sighphi]

Haven`t heard anyone dying due to being gay.

Arent people STILL being killed because they are gay?

[Leocomix]

Are we talking worst editor "creatively" or "financially".

Creatively, I tend to go with Defalco. 1987 to 1994 was a pretty dark time creatively for marvel. I'm actually blanking on much loved runs from that era.

Serious question: What WERE the good storylines from that era.

I know marvel creatively was in its peak during the 70s and personally, I consider the 00s along with the 60s to be marvel's 2nd best creative period (yah, yeah, people hate the actual storylines but the individual non-event comics have been pretty damn good. )

But the Defalco era? Blanking on that...

Financially, if blame could be assigned, it would have to be equally between Defalco and Harras, however, there were extenuating circumstances there (DC got hit pretty bad during the speculator boom era as well)

What's the excuse for the 70s era EIC for running marvel into the ground?

Highlights from DeFalco era:
Nocenti/Romita Jr/Williamson on Daredevil and Man Without Fear
I also liked his and Frenz run on Thor
Peter David on Hulk with McFarlane, McKeown, Gary Frank
Though I didn't follow them people mention
De Matteis on PPTSSM, Michelinie/McFarlane/Larsen/Bagley on ASM, Jim Lee on Punisher War Journal, X-Men

[strathcona]

Bob Harras figured that the company should do more of what sold well: X-Men. Hence a glut of X-Men. The classic titles got even worse. Titles got outsourced, to Image (classic titles) and then to Palmiotti and Quesada (second-rate properties which they made great). The Essential line started in 1996.

You've really minimized what Harras did. He came in when the company was on the brink of bankruptcy, and yes, it did fall into bankruptcy on his watch... but he was also there to see it come out. He did not ignore the classic titles, he reinvigorated most of them. He brought back a bunch of star writers and artists that left Marvel to form Image and put them on the Heroes Reborn titles (which I admit was disastrous, and I didn't read them), but after they came back FF, Captain America, Avengers, Iron Man and Thor were all rebooted and given high profile creative teams... they sold well and were well received by fans. He also started the Marvel Knights line (which had Joe Q as their editor), a line which elevated Daredevil and lower tier titles like Inhumans and Black Panther.

Basically Bob Harras is always blamed for all the bad things that happened when Tom DeFalco was EiC, and all the good Harras did is always attributed to Joe Q. He is not the monster that most people make him out to be. And Joe Q was not the saviour people make him out to be.

[Kurt Busiek]

You've really minimized what Harras did. He came in when the company was on the brink of bankruptcy, and yes, it did fall into bankruptcy on his watch... but he was also there to see it come out. He did not ignore the classic titles, he reinvigorated most of them. He brought back a bunch of star writers and artists that left Marvel to form Image and put them on the Heroes Reborn titles

No, he didn't.

Blaming or crediting Bob for Heroes Reborn depends on the assumption that the EIC runs Marvel; he doesn't. The EIC runs the editorial department.

Heroes Reborn was a deal made by people on a higher-up level than Editorial, and it was made against the wishes of Editorial. As far as I know, Marvel Knights was another such publisher-level deal, though Editorial was nowhere near as strongly opposed to it.

Editors in Chief are responsible for what comes out of the editorial department. Hiring George Perez on AVENGERS, that was Bob. Giving it to Rob Liefeld for a year, that wasn't.

My vote for worst Marvel EIC would go to Gerry Conway, not because he's a bad person, but just because his tenure at Marvel does a bunch of damage without much to balance it. He took DEFENDERS away from Steve Gerber, ending a brilliant run, and took AVENGERS away from Steve Englehart, resulting in Steve leaving the company, ending brilliant runs on AVENGERS and DR. STRANGE, a very enjoyable run on CAPTAIN MARVEL, and killing off Englehart's black-and-white, Savage-Sword-format THOR series before it got started. And he launched SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, the first time a Marvel character had multiple solo series.

And then, only a few weeks later, he quit.

That doesn't mean he's a bad guy or even a bad editor -- as an editor at DC he did a bunch of cool stuff. Had he stayed around, he might have had a chance to build stuff to balance out the stuff that got broken, but that didn't happen. So all we're left with is the breakage, and other people had to do the rebuilding.

But I realize that most people don't think that far back.

kdb

[RolandJP]

Also Bob Harras (put the Harass in Harassment) destroyed the X-franchise. Or at least he tried to..Claremont left at the height of his powers. And Jim Lee was put in charge.

[Leocomix]

Also Bob Harras (put the Harass in Harassment) destroyed the X-franchise. Or at least he tried to..Claremont left at the height of his powers. And Jim Lee was put in charge.

Come on. The X-franchise decline started in 1986. Claremont was past his prime already. Though that was no excuse for taking him off his own creation.

[whiteshark]

I voted none.

Considerating that i enjoyed many Marvel comics from any decade since the 60`s untill now.
And the few classic Marvel comics i read from the 40`s through reprints in comics were good as well.
So i can not say honestly that there was ever a Worst Editor in Chief in Marvel.
They all helped make good comics.

Now for the best ones i vote in first place Stan Lee.(Easy choice)

And for second place,Joe Quesada considerating the many comics i am buying and the good quality they have now.
Especially my favorite character.(Spider-Man)

[SUPERECWFAN1]

No, no.

They approved it faster than anything I've ever had approved. It fell apart over that old story, creative differences. Nothing to do with whoever was EIC at the time.

And I didn't turn the concept into ASTRO CITY. I'd already cooked up ASTRO CITY, and took the story that would have been MARVELS II and folded it into the already-extant Astro City plans as the basis of what would eventually become "The Dark Age."

kdb

Ohh sorry...thanks for correcting me. I had thought you had taken the concept for Marvels II and changed it to make Astro City. Thanks for the correction there.

Also Bob Harras (put the Harass in Harassment) destroyed the X-franchise. Or at least he tried to..Claremont left at the height of his powers. And Jim Lee was put in charge.

Claremont wasn't at the height of his powers. I think his height was the "Outback" era . That was it...then as he was pushed to bring all the characters back and do crossovers like X-Tiction Agenda ...his powers had wained a lot.

Some have said perhaps Claremont should have been given a year of rest to recharge his batteries and let some new guy come in awhile.

But under Harras the franchise became even bigger ...and was perhaps the only part of Marvel not suffering from sucking too bad in the 1990's.

[SevereTireDamage]

Gotta go with Mr. Harris. BUT, Joe with the non stop events is coming to a close second.

[RolandJP]

Come on. The X-franchise decline started in 1986. Claremont was past his prime already. Though that was no excuse for taking him off his own creation.


The 90's yielded some fine moments for CC

http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/uncanny-x-men/266-1.jpg


http://www.coverbrowser.com/image/uncanny-x-men/275-19.jpg

[Avenger08]

Id say Joe Q. I mean, i thought that the guy was great at first but the quality of marvel really seems to have gone WAY down with him in charge.

[bebop]

Wow...so this is where all the people from the hate Loeb threads hang out when they aren't there, huh? Quesada as the worst? HA!

I truly will never understand why people complain about him. Do I agree with every move he makes? No, but Marvel is sure in a much better place with him than without him. He has great innovative ideas and isn't afraid to take a risk. People want to cite books getting cancelled as one of the reasons he's "bad", but without him, most of these books wouldn't even be given a chance.

As a matter of fact, until I know exactly what goes into being the man behind Marvel, I think I'll vote "none" as worst editor-in-chief.

Each EIC has has his crosses to bear. Some of them had to clean the messes left by the previous EIC. Funny thing, neither Shooter nor Harras had a job in the company after leaving the job. They all had some memorable runs and every one of them had negative response from creators or editors (maybe well deserved). Some of them, like Shooter or Harras took the power too seriously and abused it, hence, the result. History tells us that after being EIC, the only way is out. Maybe seeing how creatives remember past bosses besides the lasting work is the way to judge them. There are things for wich they cannot be blamed. Marvel´s bankrupcy had almost nothing to do with Harras. He didn´t put the company there, it was some white collars delincuents who took the company´s money. And he had nothing to do with special covers, it was a desition took by Marketing department, with people who had worked at advertising or trading cards, not comics. Buuut Harras sure was responsible for not taking care of what was inside the shiny covers. Quesada has done a much better work, for he´s aware of what´s important. As long as he doesn´t abuse his power, he shouldn´t worry. He won´t have that many enemies.

[carabas]

Wow...so this is where all the people from the hate Loeb threads hang out when they aren't there, huh? Quesada as the worst? HA!
Bob Harras is still 'winning' by a fair margin.

[bebop]

No, he didn't.

Blaming or crediting Bob for Heroes Reborn depends on the assumption that the EIC runs Marvel; he doesn't. The EIC runs the editorial department.

But I realize that most people don't think that far back.

kdb

And some of us started reading comics time after that. Or weren´t even born. I mean, I remember reading all those x-men and spider-man, fantastic four and avengers but waay back I didn´t know how a comic was made. Conway isn´t even on the list but some people will just brag about how spider-man is all messed up nowadays and not being objetive. And don´t get me wrong, it does this stuff entertaining as long as we don´t fall on the fan-atical side.

[bebop]

I hope not! I may not have chosen to be gay had I known I might die from it.

Wow, just like the muties from comic books! No! Stay away! They´re gonna kill us! Haha! I just travelled back like a hundred years.

[AllisterH]

Again I'll point out that marvel has been close to bankruptcy not just during the 90s but back in the 70s as well.

As kdb and others have pointed out, it seems most of the blame for the poor state of marvel in the 90s isn't due to Harras Editorship but I haven't seen anything contradicting the problem marvel wa sin during the 70s.

There _WAS_ a reason why Shooter had to play the heavy when he came in in '78.

(no way Queseda should even be in the running. People may say they "hate" the events but by and large, they're picking it up AND individual comics are really well done. There have been few dogs this decade...

[Kurt Busiek]

Again I'll point out that marvel has been close to bankruptcy not just during the 90s but back in the 70s as well.

I never actually heard that.

Jack Kirby has talked about how Marvel was in danger of closing up in the early 1960s, but there doesn't seem to be much confirmation of that, either.

As kdb and others have pointed out, it seems most of the blame for the poor state of marvel in the 90s isn't due to Harras Editorship

Marvel's bankruptcy had nothing to do with publishing. The comics were profitable during the whole period. The owners of the company leveraged the company into huge debt buying other companies, and then couldn't hold up under all that debt. They were constantly squeezing publishing to make even more money to help out, and publishing usually managed it, thanks to those shiny covers and stuff. That wasn't happening because Editorial wanted to do them, but because management was pressing for more profits all the time, more more more.

kdb

[AllisterH]

Shooter has gone on record stating that the licensed properties saved marvel from itself so things had to be bad (specifically he sings the praise of the licensed Star Wars property).

As well, why hire someone like Shooter who could be classified as a "heavy" (even though I personally wouldn't. Since when did insisting on meeting deadlines be considered a bad thing) if the company was in great shape.

[Horizon09]

Joey Q is by far my favorite EIC. I've loved everything this decade, with the exception of BND. (Not just because of the change, but moreso because of the change in tone of the book.) I don't get the hate.

[pariah-1972]

Again I'll point out that marvel has been close to bankruptcy not just during the 90s but back in the 70s as well.

As kdb and others have pointed out, it seems most of the blame for the poor state of marvel in the 90s isn't due to Harras Editorship but I haven't seen anything contradicting the problem marvel wa sin during the 70s.

There _WAS_ a reason why Shooter had to play the heavy when he came in in '78.

(no way Queseda should even be in the running. People may say they "hate" the events but by and large, they're picking it up AND individual comics are really well done. There have been few dogs this decade...I choose Quesada for hiring Bendis to write everything avengers and cross-over related when the mans "talents" obviously lie elsewhere and not even giving him strong editors that will stand up to there little golden boy.

And then of course there is ruining Spider-man with BND which is probably the stupidest comic book to ever come out.

And then there's hiring Loeb to ruin the Ultimate's and the Ultimate Universe.


I'm sure i could least others but those are the major points.

[StoneGold]

My vote for worst Marvel EIC would go to Gerry Conway, not because he's a bad person, but just because his tenure at Marvel does a bunch of damage without much to balance it. He took DEFENDERS away from Steve Gerber, ending a brilliant run, and took AVENGERS away from Steve Englehart, resulting in Steve leaving the company, ending brilliant runs on AVENGERS and DR. STRANGE, a very enjoyable run on CAPTAIN MARVEL, and killing off Englehart's black-and-white, Savage-Sword-format THOR series before it got started. And he launched SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN, the first time a Marvel character had multiple solo series.

And then, only a few weeks later, he quit.

That doesn't mean he's a bad guy or even a bad editor -- as an editor at DC he did a bunch of cool stuff. Had he stayed around, he might have had a chance to build stuff to balance out the stuff that got broken, but that didn't happen. So all we're left with is the breakage, and other people had to do the rebuilding.

But I realize that most people don't think that far back.

kdb

And is William Henry Harrison your least favorite president?

[Kurt Busiek]

Shooter has gone on record stating that the licensed properties saved marvel from itself so things had to be bad (specifically he sings the praise of the licensed Star Wars property).

"Things had to be bad" is a long way from "the company was facing bankruptcy." Marvel was the bestselling comics publisher of the time, and the others didn't go bankrupt.

As well, why hire someone like Shooter who could be classified as a "heavy"

Jim's reputation as a "heavy" developed after he was EIC, and was about things other than scheduling. He was hired (by Marv Wolfman, as I recall) as an associate editor, and was the best available choice for the editor's slot when Archie stepped down -- they didn't go out and search for a "heavy."

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

And is William Henry Harrison your least favorite president?

Heck, no. Harrison wasn't around long, but he didn't accomplish much during that time, for good or ill. Lots of Presidents to choose from who accomplished lots of bad stuff, outweighing what good they managed.

Most Marvel editors have a mixed record, with both bad things and good things in some sort of balance. Gerry's very brief run accomplished a few things that I think were damaging to Marvel, and then didn't have a chance to build good things to outweigh them.

Had he stuck around, I expect he would have had some triumphs under his belt, but he didn't.

kdb

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Marvel's bankruptcy had nothing to do with publishing. The comics were profitable during the whole period. The owners of the company leveraged the company into huge debt buying other companies, and then couldn't hold up under all that debt. They were constantly squeezing publishing to make even more money to help out, and publishing usually managed it, thanks to those shiny covers and stuff. That wasn't happening because Editorial wanted to do them, but because management was pressing for more profits all the time, more more more.

kdb

Gotta agree with Kurt here 100%. As someone who read up on it all ....Marvel in the early 90's was publishing over 125 near monthly books. Thats 125 nearly each month hitting the stands beyond monthlies/one shots/mini-series etc etc . The company had expanded to make all they could to make $$$.

I mean you had 4 monthly Spider-Man books :

Amazing
Web
Spider-Man
Spectacular

A 5th would come out quarterly called Spider-Man Unlimited as well.

The Punisher got hot in the late 1980's and went from having his own title Punisher ...to having 3 monthly Punisher books , assorted mini-series and specials.

Ghost Rider as well. He got hot in 1990 as a relaunch and soon after was given 2 monthlies and a teamup book to be in.

It was just insane really. I remember when Marvel basically made a list of the 50-75 books they cut in 1995. It was just a huge epic list....and off the type of my head here it goes....


Guardians of the Galaxy
Nicky Fury...of Shield
Secret Defenders
Sleepwalker
Punisher
Punisher War Zone
Punisher War Journal
Punisher Armory
Night Thrasher
Fantastic Force
Blaze
Spirits of Vengence
Darkhold
Force Works
Nova
Spider-Man 2099
Fantastic Four 2099
X-Men 2099
(another X-Men 2099 title only lasted a few issues)
Doom 2099
Punisher 2099
Ravage 2099
Hulk 2099
Warlock and the Infinity Watch
Ghost Rider 2099
War Machine
Thor Corps.
Captain Marvel


Theres some more I'm forgetting. But yeah....a heck of a damn list.

[hondobrode]

This is just knee jerk reaction, but it easily would be either Harras or DeFalco.

I really, really had to think on this.

I voted Harras in the poll, but upon reading the posts and further reflection, though it's close, I wish I could change my vote to DeFalco.

Under his reign, Marvel really backslid for me and fell from grace. Harass was mixed with more misses than hits, but I credit him for Heroes Reborn and the Marvel Knights successes.

DeFalco emphasized more than ever the zombie maximization of character over everything else to the exclusion of seasoned talent worthy of the titles they worked on. Honestly, the writing was mostly bad to horrible but as bad as it was the art was even worse with few exceptions.

I lost my taste for characters, and I company, that seemed completely ravaged, raped, pillaged, and a mockery of what it had been before. Everyone makes mistakes and does some things right, but it seems to me that looking back DeFalco had little regard for the market or the quality of stories he was overseeing. It lacked soul and was riding on the past reputation of what had gone before.

While I don't agree with everything Quesada has done, and I'm a bigger DC fan than Marvel, he has done an extremely effective job as E-i-C and brought an incredible level of talent to Marvel. In fact, I would dare say that the overall average of story-telling capability is at the highest it's ever been IMO.

[Leocomix]

The 90's yielded some fine moments for CC


Let me disagree. The images you posted seem to point at Jim Lee as the author of these fine moments rather than Claremont.
The series has had its ups and downs. There is never a straight decline. However the series begin to suffer with the start of mutant proliferation (New Mutants and Morlocks) but especially with X-Factor since Claremont didn't control that one (and it was pretty bad). It remains a must-read until at least X-Men 200. But then the mandatory annual events start to hurt (Mutant Massacre, Inferno) By the time of Fall of the mutants, it's in clear decline (not bad but not essential). Even so Claremont had to be lauded for straying the series away from its super-hero roots to make it an adventure/SF fantasy. It looked more and more like something out of Heavy Metal. But when Lee arrived it returned to its Byrne period storytelling. While this is nice, it wasn't the natural direction the series had been following. The series was now a popular franchise and it was necessary to have the same old popular costumed characters in them.
That's the problem with modern comics. They don't make money in themselves, they're used to get licensing deals who make money. This is a trend which developed under Shooter, DeFalco and Harras. While it remained under Quesada, it didn't get worse. Maybe Star Wars saved Marvel financially in the 70s like Shooter said but I laud the move away from licensed characters. Roy Thomas wrote that he thinks Conan made more money than Spider-Man in the 70s but it had Marvel's best artist on it. Ultimately it means either that Marvel's own properties will be neglected either that the licensed properties will get neglected. Licensed properties were often good when the writer developed them from scratch (GI Joe, ROM, Micronauts)

[Whirlwind Dinamo]

Joey Q is the EIC, he's on responsible for Marvel comics, Marvel comics is a subsidiary of a much larger company called Marvel Entertainment. Things like Videogames, toys, television shows, and clothing are handled by the heads of other subsidiaries under the marvel entertainment umbrella.

While Joey Q did recently announced that he had been named CCO of Marvel animation, he isn't really involved (to my knowledge) in videogames or any of that other stuff.

Thanks for clearing the video game stuff up

If I'm forced to choose an option I would pick the run from DeFalco to Bob Harras, they employed Rob Liefeld one of the worst and problematic character creators and artists of all time, they were financially screwed, Harras was there when the train wreck happened you can't really blame it all on him because rumors about the company being in trouble were around for many years
This is 1996 Washington Post
The headline goes a little something like this
"Marvel is so screwed looking at Chapter 11 bankruptcy"
Marvel Entertainment Group Inc. said today it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection to get $525 million in new capital...
..
Marvel, creator of Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, X-men and Captain America, has suffered losses from a three-year slide in the comic book business and last month announced the elimination of 115 jobs, or one-third of its work force.
...
Perelman, who owns the majority of Marvel, threatened the company's bondholders...

This back in the days made absolutely no sense at all, the company was well known, they had great comic book stories, had huge brand names like Spider-Man and they were in one of the most financially prosperous years, the 1990s, a stock market rising on tech and a bubble of credit ground around them

and what does Marvel do? It sinks!

I see a lot of Marvel's misery coming out of that scumbag Perelman, all he was is a real estate vulture and all he wanted was another brand name like a "Toyota" or a "Disney' to add to his riches. He wasn't super rich, he would never be a Buffett or a Bill Gates or Mr Wal-Mart but he wanted power and brand names like they owned.
He watched Marvel after the recession during the 80s, Tim Burton's Batman movie comes out and bingo a light bulb goes off in his head. Can't afford Batman/Superman, lets buy the next best thing Marvel. So rather than help raise the Company up, he decided to kick Marvel in the gut while it was down. Rather than help the company do its best, become profitable and get back on its feet, get out the movies to rival Donner Superman, Instead he leeched and leeched like a scumbag vulture sucking the company dry and picking everything off its bones. All this daylight theft and Marvel's profits taking a nose dive is happening while the United States is going through the 90s, one of the richest, credit bubbles and profitable periods in US history.
Added on top of all this money bleeding from the company were workforce problems, artists and writers threatening to bail out or arguments over creators copyrights, or general unhappiness within the company and people wanting to start their own independent comic company. Suddenly Marvel is unable to manage any of its work force anymore, unable to satisfy pay disputes and defectors start popping up all over the place, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Jim Lee, Portacio and Rob Liefeld(who is probably 49% responsible for the mutiny) and all kinds of big names were jumping ship and all off a sudden Marvel sales are back in the toilet and all kinds of independent names like Image and TopCow start popping up all over the place and some of them with characetrs that look almost exactly like Cap America or the twin brother of Spider-Man or whoever. .

Q So if I were to pick a period, what would I pick?
A That's easy the 90s..include 1989 if you wish

Q Do I blame the Editors in Chief, do I blame the pencilers, the writers, the colorists?
A Not at all

but I do blame the overall management and overall culture at Marvel that allowed the company to fall into the hands of Wall St hyena family scumbags like Ronald Perelman and Carl Icahn to almost drive the company into the ditch...the good news for us comic fans are villains always mess up, their schemes always fail and it wasn't long before the Company predators started to turn on each other like a bunch of wolves with rabies....thankfully guys like that are a lot less powerful and Marvel is in much better shape today.

[NickGuy]

man, WORST eic? damn...

you know Will Eisner almost took over after stan lee? he says so in the book Eisner/Miller.

anyways, on topic...

anyone who votes Jim Shooter is retarded, IMO.

I vote Quesada for worst EIC simply on the fact that he is allowing these books to be so late without firing people. its awful.

[Aziz Abbasi]

Joe Simon (1940-1941): I didn't read "Golden Age" Timely/Atlas
Stan Lee (1941- 1942) and (1945- 1972): He made Marvel comics the greatness it is
Roy Thomas (1972-1974): Don't know how he fared
Marv Wolfman (1975-1976): He lasted short, so he wasn't really good
Archie Goodwin (1976-1978): Can't tell
Jim Shooter (1978-1987): He got fired, he must've tripped one time too many
Tom DeFalco (1987-1994): He caused Marvel sales to increase a lot, the disasters he allowed are only "Maximum Carnage" & "The Clone Saga"
Bob Harras (1995-2000) : He was about to make Marvel as a whole bankrupt
Joe Quesada (2000- present): Give the guy a slack, he saved Spider-Man from being sold to "DC comics" and helped save the company from bankrupt. Now most of the top selling comics are Marvel

[Syrant]

Give the guy a slack, he saved Spider-Man from being sold to "DC comics"Woah, when did that hapen?

[Aziz Abbasi]

Woah, when did that hapen?That was about to happen, don't know how and why

I read it hear somewhere

[Leocomix]

man, WORST eic? damn...

you know Will Eisner almost took over after stan lee? he says so in the book Eisner/Miller.

anyways, on topic...

anyone who votes Jim Shooter is retarded, IMO.

I vote Quesada for worst EIC simply on the fact that he is allowing these books to be so late without firing people. its awful.
Really? how do you feel about that statement?
Anybody who doesn't vote Shooter is retarded.

[bebop]

Gotta agree with Kurt here 100%. As someone who read up on it all ....Marvel in the early 90's was publishing over 125 near monthly books. Thats 125 nearly each month hitting the stands beyond monthlies/one shots/mini-series etc etc . The company had expanded to make all they could to make $$$.

I mean you had 4 monthly Spider-Man books :

Amazing
Web
Spider-Man
Spectacular

A 5th would come out quarterly called Spider-Man Unlimited as well.

The Punisher got hot in the late 1980's and went from having his own title Punisher ...to having 3 monthly Punisher books , assorted mini-series and specials.

Ghost Rider as well. He got hot in 1990 as a relaunch and soon after was given 2 monthlies and a teamup book to be in.

It was just insane really. I remember when Marvel basically made a list of the 50-75 books they cut in 1995. It was just a huge epic list....and off the type of my head here it goes....


Guardians of the Galaxy
Nicky Fury...of Shield
Secret Defenders
Sleepwalker
Punisher
Punisher War Zone
Punisher War Journal
Punisher Armory
Night Thrasher
Fantastic Force
Blaze
Spirits of Vengence
Darkhold
Force Works
Nova
Spider-Man 2099
Fantastic Four 2099
X-Men 2099
(another X-Men 2099 title only lasted a few issues)
Doom 2099
Punisher 2099
Ravage 2099
Hulk 2099
Warlock and the Infinity Watch
Ghost Rider 2099
War Machine
Thor Corps.
Captain Marvel


Theres some more I'm forgetting. But yeah....a heck of a damn list.


And the question is, how many of those books were really good? These days, I´m having trouble over choosing the books i´m gonna buy (most of the companies have good stuff to offer), while back in the day, there was just a handful worth reading even though there were so many titles in the market.

[bebop]

Really? how do you feel about that statement?
Anybody who doesn't vote Shooter is retarded.

An anyone who votes Stan is a little girl on a pink dress walking her poodle on a sunny afternoon.

[Kurt Busiek]

Woah, when did that hapen?

It didn't. There have been constant rumors that DC Comics was going to buy Marvel or vice versa, and none of them are true. This is a variant of that old chestnut.

kdb

[Reptisaurus!]

Ok, question: What did Joe Simon actually accomplish as EIC.

His CREATIVE bona-fides are unimpeachable, and he may well be the most important writer on the list... But, sheesh, there isn't a lot of talk about his editorial tenure. I didn't know he was EIC, and I JUST read the Best of Simon and Kirby book and I've had a subscription to the Jack Kirby collector for several years. He REALLY didn't make much of an impression when he was on the job.

[Leocomix]

Ok, question: What did Joe Simon actually accomplish as EIC.

His CREATIVE bona-fides are unimpeachable, and he may well be the most important writer on the list... But, sheesh, there isn't a lot of talk about his editorial tenure. I didn't know he was EIC, and I JUST read the Best of Simon and Kirby book and I've had a subscription to the Jack Kirby collector for several years. He REALLY didn't make much of an impression when he was on the job.

Marvel was just a publisher and he got work done from studios. Marvel worked with Simon's studio so Simon was de facto EIC. When Simon's studio went to work for national, it's 17 year old Stan Lee who became EIC. In Cap 600 there are editorial notes from Simon from then about the shape of the shield. Pencilers used to draw the shield in several different shapes. Simon made a note to pencilers about such things as the shield and Cap's stripes so that it would remain consistent. Read for example the introduction to Marvel Masterworks Golden Age Captain America Vol 2 by Gerard Jones to know about the studios. Editors found the talent and made them work.

I don't see how you get that he's an important writer. I think he was at most a co-writer in most Simon/Kirby collaborations (though he claoins to have invented Captain America by himself). I'd put him last on the list as a writer, but certainly after Lee, Thomas, Wein, Wolfman, Goodwin, Conway, Shooter, DeFalco and Quesada.

[Kurt Busiek]

Ok, question: What did Joe Simon actually accomplish as EIC.

His CREATIVE bona-fides are unimpeachable, and he may well be the most important writer on the list... But, sheesh, there isn't a lot of talk about his editorial tenure. I didn't know he was EIC, and I JUST read the Best of Simon and Kirby book and I've had a subscription to the Jack Kirby collector for several years. He REALLY didn't make much of an impression when he was on the job.

Because people aren't talking about it today, he didn't make much of an impression back then?

No offense meant, but that's sorta like the guy who decided Marv must have been a bad editor because he didn't last very long.

Simon started as editor around the time of MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #3, which means he was instrumental in both the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner getting their own solo books, in the cross-continuity between those books (including the Torch/Namor crossover events that tied the "universe" together), and in the oversight and production of everything Timely put out between 1940 and 1942, including comics, pulp magazines and crime magazines.

Even if all he'd done was bring in Jack Kirby, that would have been a major editorial achievement. But it's not all he did -- and just because discussions about him have focused on his creative output doesn't mean he didn't do anything as an editor. After all, there's not a whole lot out there on the day-to-day editorial work of most people who were editors back then -- what we know about Stan Lee and Mort Weisinger and Julie Schwartz's editorial styles is largely material from the Fifties and Sixties and later, but they were around and working earlier. We hear about Sheldon Mayer showing DC artists how to improve their storytelling, largely because it comes up in interviews about the artists -- but that's not all Shelly Mayer did. He was a very important editor to DC, but most history on him notes the creative stuff and high-point things like recommending that DC buy Superman. Day-to-day editing isn't all that interesting.

Still, if you're interested in what Simon did, perhaps his autobiography, THE COMIC BOOK MAKERS, will have more on his editorial memories than the Jack Kirby Collector or a collection of his creative collaborations.

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

Marvel was just a publisher and he got work done from studios. Marvel worked with Simon's studio so Simon was de facto EIC.

No, Simon was hired as editor when Martin Goodman wanted to back off from being overdependent on outside studios. Simon had worked for Lloyd Jacquet's Funnies Inc. and others, but at Timely he wasn't an outside contractor, he was a direct employee.

kdb

[Leocomix]

No, Simon was hired as editor when Martin Goodman wanted to back off from being overdependent on outside studios. Simon had worked for Lloyd Jacquet's Funnies Inc. and others, but at Timely he wasn't an outside contractor, he was a direct employee.

kdb

I checked and you're right as always. One of Simon's first duties was to harass Jacquet with art and script corrections to get him to withdraw, it worked, Jacquet gave up the studio and sold Human Torch and Sub-Mariner to Goodman.

[Britannic]

This has become quite a Fascinating thread for the history lesson alone. I only remember Perlman era of asset stripping as I had to choose a company back then to focus on for a business essay.

[striderhirryu2]

man, WORST eic? damn...

you know Will Eisner almost took over after stan lee? he says so in the book Eisner/Miller.

anyways, on topic...

anyone who votes Jim Shooter is retarded, IMO.

I vote Quesada for worst EIC simply on the fact that he is allowing these books to be so late without firing people. its awful.

And yet your Joe Mad and Loeb's biggest fan.

[Hypestyle]

worst?...Whoever was responsible for Christopher Priest being pushed out as an editor...

[Reptisaurus!]

Because people aren't talking about it today, he didn't make much of an impression back then?

No offense meant, but that's sorta like the guy who decided Marv must have been a bad editor because he didn't last very long.
That was me, and it was Gerry Conway. :)

And, really, none of the post-Thomas and pre-Shooter group struck me as particularly effective, given the huge line they were stuck dealing with. There was just too much stuff going on for them to assert any sort of editorial control. It was more that it was a bad job for ANYONE than that they were bad editors, though, I suppose.

Oddly, Steve Gerber is my favorite scripter of all time, Engelhart is in my top five, and I probably enjoy the '70s Marvel books more than any other period of Marvel history. But obviously the company had some problems, and despite-or-because of how talented most of these folks were as writers, none of 'em came even close to being as effective as Shooter in giving the company some stability.

Simon started as editor around the time of MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #3, which means he was instrumental in both the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner getting their own solo books, in the cross-continuity between those books (including the Torch/Namor crossover events that tied the "universe" together), and in the oversight and production of everything Timely put out between 1940 and 1942, including comics, pulp magazines and crime magazines.

Even if all he'd done was bring in Jack Kirby, that would have been a major editorial achievement.


OK, fair enough. I wasn't thinking about him bringing in Kirby, which was a HUGE boost to the... (are we going with "Timely" here as a company name for the various imprints under Goodman? Ok then....) Timely group.

Still, what I get from books at the time is that "Timely" was fractured, not very focused, and that all the various imprints were working at cross purposes. And speaking as a guy who spent several days at the Comic Art Collection at MSU, I KNOW that the quality of early Marvel material varied wildly.

This is probably true of many comic publishers, but the big dogs - Fox and Fawcett, espeically, and AA/DC to some degree - always seemed to be a lot more on the ball, editorially speaking.

But it's not all he did -- and just because discussions about him have focused on his creative output doesn't mean he didn't do anything as an editor. After all, there's not a whole lot out there on the day-to-day editorial work of most people who were editors back then -- what we know about Stan Lee and Mort Weisinger and Julie Schwartz's editorial styles is largely material from the Fifties and Sixties and later, but they were around and working earlier. We hear about Sheldon Mayer showing DC artists how to improve their storytelling, largely because it comes up in interviews about the artists -- but that's not all Shelly Mayer did. He was a very important editor to DC, but most history on him notes the creative stuff and high-point things like recommending that DC buy Superman. Day-to-day editing isn't all that interesting.


Would be interesting to ME.

And, strangely, I've read a decent amount about Sheldon Mayer. Some people REALLY liked him, some people REALLY didn't, and he walked around the offices in riding boots with a crop.

Still, if you're interested in what Simon did, perhaps his autobiography, THE COMIC BOOK MAKERS, will have more on his editorial memories than the Jack Kirby Collector or a collection of his creative collaborations.


Yeah, OK. I probably should read that.

Although, in my defense, I'm sure I've read between 10 and 20 interviews with Simon over the years - He just doesn't talk about his EIC period much.

[artiepants]

I never actually heard that.
Shooter has gone on record stating that the licensed properties saved marvel from itself so things had to be bad (specifically he sings the praise of the licensed Star Wars property).

As well, why hire someone like Shooter who could be classified as a "heavy" (even though I personally wouldn't. Since when did insisting on meeting deadlines be considered a bad thing) if the company was in great shape.
"Things had to be bad" is a long way from "the company was facing bankruptcy." Marvel was the bestselling comics publisher of the time, and the others didn't go bankrupt
Pretty sure i read a Larry Hama interview in the last couple years where he talked about the company being on the verge of bankruptcy, which lead to the licensed deals (which lead to his epic GIJoe run). Sorry i don't remember the wheres and whatnots, but Allister's comments regarding Star Wars is the way i remember it being told too...

[Kurt Busiek]

That was me, and it was Gerry Conway. :)

Ah, no, it was AbdulAziz, who said, "Marv Wolfman (1975-1976): He lasted short, so he wasn't really good." Gerry's not even one of the poll choices.

And, really, none of the post-Thomas and pre-Shooter group struck me as particularly effective, given the huge line they were stuck dealing with. There was just too much stuff going on for them to assert any sort of editorial control. It was more that it was a bad job for ANYONE than that they were bad editors, though, I suppose.

Opinions vary, I guess. The fact that there wasn't much editorial control doesn't strike me as a failing, since so much interesting stuff came out in those years. I'm not sure Englehart and Gerber would have been better off with editors who exerted a lot of control, for instance.

But obviously the company had some problems, and despite-or-because of how talented most of these folks were as writers, none of 'em came even close to being as effective as Shooter in giving the company some stability.

Sure, but that assumes that the yardstick to measure by is "stability." As a reader, I don't care all that much about stability, beyond the ability to keep going -- I care about whether the company's producing stuff I want to read. So "best" and "worst" might vary wildly, depending on your yardstick.

I think too often these days, readers put themselves in the position of industry analysts, more interested in who's winning the numbers battle or the market share battle than who's doing books they like. Not saying you're doing that, just using it as an illustration -- if losing Englehart didn't hurt Marvel financially, I don't care; I still think it was severe damage. Losing Ditko saw Spider-Man sales go up, but I still think it was a bad thing.

Still, what I get from books at the time is that "Timely" was fractured, not very focused, and that all the various imprints were working at cross purposes.

How many imprints were there, between 1940 and 1942?

I had been under the impression that the cornucopia of Non-pareil Publishing and Magazine Management and all that came along a bit later.

Although, in my defense, I'm sure I've read between 10 and 20 interviews with Simon over the years - He just doesn't talk about his EIC period much.

No, he usually follows the creative stuff more. But in a book-length autobiography, he probably has more space and more reason to talk about these things.

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

Pretty sure i read a Larry Hama interview in the last couple years where he talked about the company being on the verge of bankruptcy, which lead to the licensed deals (which lead to his epic GIJoe run).

G.I. JOE started five years after STAR WARS. It and TRANSFORMERS were a huge boon for Marvel, but STAR WARS had had its effect well before any of that. And the licensed deals Marvel made around the time of STAR WARS didn't really pan out -- 2001, SHOGUN WARRIORS and GODZILLA didn't last, for instance. LOGAN'S RUN tanked, PLANET OF THE APES was a mild success, etc.

I think anyone who talks about bankruptcy in the Seventies is overstating the case. All the publishers were facing downslides in sales, but Marvel was selling the best. If it took STAR WARS to save Marvel from certain oblivion, then why didn't the others all go bankrupt? Most of them lasted through the Seventies and into the Eighties, and while the direct sales boom lifted Marvel and DC, some of the ones that didn't get that boost faded away.

It was also a common thing to say that the DC offices were going to be converted into a parking lot -- that wasn't anything that was remotely in danger of happening either, it was just the natural bent of people who tell over-the-top stories to talk in drastic terms. [Plus, it was a jab at DC's owner, which had at one time been Kinney Services, a company that ran parking garages.]

Still, it does point up just how good Roy Thomas's instincts were. He had to bend over backward to get Marvel to pick up both CONAN and STAR WARS, which were Marvel's two most successful new series of the 1970s.

kdb

[Kasper Cole]

I think too often these days, readers put themselves in the position of industry analysts, more interested in who's winning the numbers battle or the market share battle than who's doing books they like.

*gives a standing ovation*

Sadly that seems to be the case for all mediums of entertainment. In this age of the internet and free flowing information and such, people now more than every have a better (not saying correct) understanding of the business side of such things and sometimes they get lost in the facts and figures and forget that the most important thing to them as fans is whether or not stories are being published that they enjoy and that can hopefullly stick with them for years to come.

[MiracleMan]

Quesada gave us MK. nuff said. he aint the worst

[Leocomix]

The books I like are the early 70s ones. I got tired with Marvel in the 80s and dropped it.
So I liked what the 70s editor were doing. Shooter had a strong approach which became counter-productive. I really don't care if the books come on time or not. I'm not a clocking machine for Wednesdays. If a book is late, that's just money left over to try something else.
If I was to list the titles of the Shooter era I liked: Miller's and Nocenti's DD, Byrne FF, Simonson Thor, X-Men, Stern's Dr Strange, Michelinie/Layton's Iron Man, plus Epic's Dreadstar and Groo
there would be less than the 70s ones I liked:
Conan, Savage Sword, Killraven, Man-Thing, Zombie, Living Mummy (in Supernatural thrillers), Omega, Englehart's Captain America, Avengers and Dr Strange, Gerber and Slifer/Kraft's Defenders, Mantlo's and Claremont's Marvel Team Up, X-Men, Iron Fist, Captain Marvel, Warlock, McGregor's Black Panther, all Kirby's titles, Tomb of Dracula

In other words while Shooter had recognizable hits (and some will add Stern's Spider-Man and Avengers to the list, maybe DeMatteis' or Gruenwald's Cap, Secret Wars, GI Joe), he didn't perform as well as his predecessors. Not only that but I started to look at DC and the independents to read for better comics since that's where Wolfman, Englehart, Gerber, McGregor, Chaykin, Grell, Moore, Miller, Byrne, Baron and Rude were.
In the 70s many books were bi-monthly, nothing wrong with that.

In the DeFalco era, I bought Thor, Nocenti/Romita Jr/Williamson's DD, McFarlane's and McKeown's Hulk, I discontinued X-Men, Spider-Man early on

From the Harras era I can name only one book I bought, Untold Tales of Spider-Man. I bought several -1 issues as well, that was a one month trick. From 1998 I bought the Marvel Knights but Quesada is more to thank for that, the relaunch of Avengers, Captain America and Iron Man (Waid and Busiek). I bought Peter David's Hulk in back copies. Stern's Marvel Universe. Steve Rude issues.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Joe Simon (1940-1941): I didn't read "Golden Age" Timely/Atlas
Stan Lee (1941- 1942) and (1945- 1972): He made Marvel comics the greatness it is
Roy Thomas (1972-1974): Don't know how he fared
Marv Wolfman (1975-1976): He lasted short, so he wasn't really good
Archie Goodwin (1976-1978): Can't tell
Jim Shooter (1978-1987): He got fired, he must've tripped one time too many
Tom DeFalco (1987-1994): He caused Marvel sales to increase a lot, the disasters he allowed are only "Maximum Carnage" & "The Clone Saga"
Bob Harras (1995-2000) : He was about to make Marvel as a whole bankrupt
Joe Quesada (2000- present): Give the guy a slack, he saved Spider-Man from being sold to "DC comics" and helped save the company from bankrupt. Now most of the top selling comics are Marvel

Uhh your list there is kinda wild. Even though Shooter was fired/resigned , its said that thru his run as EIC , Marvel had some of the best years as a company. You don't last 9 years without doing some part of the job good.

And no... Spider-Man was never gonna be sold. Thats gotta be one of the sillest things I have seen posted.

Woah, when did that hapen?

That was about to happen, don't know how and why

I read it hear somewhere

As I posted above ..you read wrong. That was never gonna happen.

And the question is, how many of those books were really good? These days, I´m having trouble over choosing the books i´m gonna buy (most of the companies have good stuff to offer), while back in the day, there was just a handful worth reading even though there were so many titles in the market.

I believe in a speech by Frank Miller when Marvel annouced its Heroes World deal , he lambasted Marvel for flooding the market with crap. That if ya walked into a LCS , you'd see all those Marvel books , pushing DC , Dark Horse and the rest for space on racks.

Yes it was sad to see so many good talents be axed in the whole trimming of crap , but it was something that had to be done.

[Kurt Busiek]

From the Harras era I can name only one book I bought, Untold Tales of Spider-Man.

Thanks! But...

I bought several -1 issues as well, that was a one month trick. From 1998 I bought the Marvel Knights but Quesada is more to thank for that, the relaunch of Avengers, Captain America and Iron Man (Waid and Busiek).

The relaunch of Avengers, Cap and Iron Man was the Bob Harras tenure, not Joe's. And Bob wasn't just overseeing it, either -- those creative teams were assembled by him.

kdb

[Series5Ranger]

Bob Harras, step on up, & take a bow. While the Bankruptcy may not be all Bob Harras' fault, flooding comic shops with useless specialty covers at a time when the comic market was tanking, and reading the public mood for said specialty covers about as accurately as the execs that approved the Ford Pinto, Pepsi Clear, New Coke, and The Arch Deluxe from McDonalds (the mentioned products were bombs, especially the Ford Pinto {http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Pinto for more info} ) was. While I don't approve of everything Joe Quesada has done, he pretty much had to clean up the mess Bob Harras made, which took a herculean effort (no pun intended.) So for all people that complain about OMD & BND for Spiderman, just look at Bob Harras' tenure at Marvel,Bob H makes Joe Q look like Steve Jobs. Honorable mentions should go to Tom Defalco as well.

New Coke wasn't a bomb it accomplished exactly what it was meant to do, namely being able to repatent the secret Formula under Coke Classic, protecting the formula's recipe for another 100 years...

[Reptisaurus!]

Sure, but that assumes that the yardstick to measure by is "stability." As a reader, I don't care all that much about stability, beyond the ability to keep going -- I care about whether the company's producing stuff I want to read. So "best" and "worst" might vary wildly, depending on your yardstick.


As a reader, I totally agree.

But then again, I think it would be pretty stupid of comic companies to pander to MY personal taste as a reader. DC would currently be publishing a stable of SOLO knock-offs, and Iron Fist would be Marvel's flagship book.

I basically see the job of EIC as balancing the creative needs of the artists/writers/audience against the commercial concerns of distributing corporate product - Stuff like building "brand identity" and getting books out on time and suchlike.

What I like as a reader, even from the big two, is unfettered creative expression, but in many cases it seems commercially un-viable to give the creators that kinda freedom. It IS a numbers game.

I think too often these days, readers put themselves in the position of industry analysts, more interested in who's winning the numbers battle or the market share battle than who's doing books they like. Not saying you're doing that, just using it as an illustration -- if losing Englehart didn't hurt Marvel financially, I don't care; I still think it was severe damage. Losing Ditko saw Spider-Man sales go up, but I still think it was a bad thing.


I (we, even?) do that to some extent because that's how the companies see themselves. Commercial art - including comics - is basically about turning a profit. So to maintain a healthy historical perspective you have to be aware of the numbers game, right?

(Mostly, of course, the numbers game means that stuff I personally like gets cancelled within a year or two.)

How many imprints were there, between 1940 and 1942?

I had been under the impression that the cornucopia of Non-pareil Publishing and Magazine Management and all that came along a bit later.


Nah, you're right. (My source was vaguely remembered interviews with Lee and Kirby cross-checked against Wikipedia.)

Although All Winners Comics # 1 (http://www.atlastales.com/sI/179) was dated Summer '41, and published by "USA Comics Magazine Corp." That might(??) have crossed-over with Simon's EIC tenure.

[Omega Alpha]

I think too often these days, readers put themselves in the position of industry analysts, more interested in who's winning the numbers battle or the market share battle than who's doing books they like.



Well, in our defense, almost every week a fan-favorite book is cancelled because of low sales (Captain Britain & The MI-13 is probably the most recent example) and we're told this happens exactly because of sales. So, caring about them and the state of industry in general too much is almost inevitable.

[Kurt Busiek]

As a reader, I totally agree.

But then again, I think it would be pretty stupid of comic companies to pander to MY personal taste as a reader.

Sure. But at the same time, I'm not going to judge "best" the way the publisher's board of directors would. I'm going to judge based on delivering results I like. Other people will judge based on results they like.

Otherwise, McDonald's is the best restaurant in town. And fooey to that, sez I.

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

Well, in our defense, almost every week a fan-favorite book is cancelled because of low sales (Captain Britain & The MI-13 is probably the most recent example) and we're told this happens exactly because of sales. So, caring about them and the state of industry in general too much is almost inevitable.

In which case, I'd be concerned about the sales on the books I like, but I still wouldn't judge the best EIC on who did the best job making a profit, because an EIC could cancel everything I like and still manage that.

If the books you like don't sell, then does it really matter if the publisher has lots of books you don't like that do sell? To them it does, but to the individual reader it doesn't.

So if that's the yardstick, I'm going to be looking for the EIC who kept the books I like going for the longest, or kept coming up with books I like even if they didn't last. I want reading material I enjoy far, far more than I want the publisher to have a smokin' annual report.

kdb

[Reptisaurus!]

Sure. But at the same time, I'm not going to judge "best" the way the publisher's board of directors would. I'm going to judge based on delivering results I like. Other people will judge based on results they like.

Otherwise, McDonald's is the best restaurant in town. And fooey to that, sez I.

kdb

Hmm. If we're judging editors by the quality of the line under their leadership, Stan Lee (Mid-to late '50s), Stan Lee (Late '60s,) Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, and the first half of Joe Quesada are my favorites.

And, geez, I guess Tom Defalco is my least favorite, maybe? That's the era I'm probably least familiar with, though. Lots of confusilated X-men stuff.

Although the J.M.D Spider-man was my favorite since Ditko. And Foolkiller and Stray Toasters and Man Without Fear were under his watch, all in my top ten-or-so favorite Marvel projects ever.

Picking a favorite is too hard. It's easier just to credit the corporate guy who seems evilist with being the best. :biggrin:

[protonik]

The first half of Harras's tenure was pretty dire.

The early Harras period had the problem that they were coming off of the four offices split and he had to rework the Marvel offices and get some cohesion back in Editorial. His early years were blighted because of that & he takes a lot of the blame for the failures of the top dogs like the Heroes Reborn deal, the Heroes' World buyout etc. when he was just the guy editing the books when those things occurred. Harras brought things back under control, gave us a fun Spidey, started rebuilding the Avengers to a top tier book with the Heroes Return reboots. He really led the charge in revitalizing those books once Jim Lee gave them back. His real failure and why he was fired was for something even Joe Quesada has failed to really do, create a lasting, consistent sales increase in the aftermath of a huge movie release. In Harras' case it was X-Men. With Spidey impending the Marvel brass (now Toybiz, not Terry Stewart et al who caused Marvel's failure early on in the Harras period) wanted to capitalize BIG, as big as DC did when the Burton Batman was released. Joe failed to do that. The firing of Harras seems to have been too soon. Much of the early successes of QUesada & Jemas could arguably have been as a result of the later period of Harras' years like Avengers/JLA.

One editor I saw missing was Gerry Conway. He and Wolfman were horrible as EIC and used it mostly to get the books they wanted to write as opposed to working for the books. I like both guys and I don't think they thought they were doing wrong but for example Conway immediately took over Avengers from Englehart when Conway became EIC after having lobbied for it for years and Thomas etc. expressing happiness with what Englehart was already doing.

[protonik]

It depends on how much of the blame for Marvel near-bankruptcy we can dump on Harras or Defalco.

None of it... Terry Stewart deserves the blame, certainly not Harras and DEFINITELY not DeFalco as DeFalco oversaw the best years Marvel had sales wise and his early handful of years (he was EIC before the break up of the Marvel editorial offices into 4 groups that failed to work together) were some of the best in writing & art, feeding off of Shooter's tenure and into some of DeFalco's own initiatives like the summer bi-weekly stories in the Avengers & X-Men books and the Annual events like Serpent Crown. The collector's market bottoming out and Stewart's rampant spending like buying FLeer/Skybox, Toybiz, Heroes World, Malibu, & frivolous lawsuits against Defiant comics etc. were what led to the bankruptcy along with insisting on Marvel catering to a long gone collector's market.

[protonik]

Nah. The Byrne/Claremont X-men and Frank Miller Daredevil stuff is into multiple printings, and both probably will be in print for decades to come.

And Byrne's Fantastic Four and the later Claremont X-Men stuff, Secret Wars, the huge demand for Stern's Avengers in trade, Kraven's Last Hunt. Quesada seems to ignore anything from the 80s and 90s. I mean c'mon he published a book called the "Best of Spider-man" and it was all JMS crap, no Stan Lee, no Stern, no Conway, no MIchelenie etc. Also we've been getting a few Michelenie/Layton trades of Iron Man as well.

[MiracleMan]

DeFalco ran it into the ground by living off of Shooter's Marvel

[protonik]

I surprised with Quesada haters because he pulled Marvel out of bankruptcy, created so heralded runs, revitalized comic book movies, and making risky purchases and decisions for the simple sake of the fans.


Urmmmm, about all of that has nothing to do with QUesada and his decisions. QUesada DID NOT revitalize comic book movies and has little to say about such things. He certainly didn't pull Marvel out of bankruptcy or make any risky purchases!!!! Joe runs the publishing division so he approved together the teams that put together runs like Captain America & Ultimate Spider-man etc. but the editors of those books signed those creators to the books. But the publishing division is still a LOSS leader for the overall Marvel Entertainment machine. A loss leader is something where a product is turned out at little to zero profit in order to bring in greater interest such as, in this case, movie producers & financiers. The success of Toy Biz's Spider-man & X-men toy lines I would say are a bigger contributor to getting Marvel out of a MASSIVE debt and the movies which are licensed by Marvel Characters Inc., not the publishing house by the way, are also a BIG, BIG contributor to that as investors saw movies like Spider-man breaking box office records and the rest of the Marvel films producing respectable numbers. Marvel's first flop was Elektra keep in mind. The continued success of the films are what allowed Marvel Entertainment to be formed & then Marvel Films. If ANYBODY should be credited with Marvel's financial success it is former head honcho Avi Arad and current Kevin Feige, along with the business acumen of Ike Perlmutter. Quesada is a small player in that boat. Sure, he's been brought into the movie making process for Marvel Studios but mostly as a consultant and certainly not in a major way but mostly in order to keep the books & films similar in tone... ie taking back what is going on in the films to the books.

[CrimsonComedian]

Joe Quesada because of Amazing Spiderman: One More Day.

[protonik]

Quesada hired and tasked Arad. End of discussion

Ermmm, no. Avi Arad was CEO of Toy Biz, the company that bought Marvel & hired Quesada. He has been producing Marvel animation & films since 1992... sorry, no Quesada hiring Arad and tasking him. LOL. I hope that was sarcasm on your part.

[protonik]

Are we talking worst editor "creatively" or "financially".

Creatively, I tend to go with Defalco. 1987 to 1994 was a pretty dark time creatively for marvel. I'm actually blanking on much loved runs from that era.

Serious question: What WERE the good storylines from that era.

Englehart, Starlin & Marz on Silver Surfer, the INfinity Gauntlet, MIchelenie/McFarlane/Larsen/Bagley on Spider-man, Jim Lee on X-Men, Hama/Silvestri on Wolverine, Harras/Texeira on Ghost Rider, Valentino on Guardians of the Galaxy, Byrne's SHe-Hulk, West Coast Avengers & Namor, Mike Baron & Carl Potts on Punisher, Chuck Dixon & JRjr on Punisher, Walt Simonson on Fantastic Four, Simonsons' on X-Factor, the Inferno arc, Acts of Vengeance... should I keep going?

[MiracleMan]

Ermmm, no. Avi Arad was CEO of Toy Biz, the company that bought Marvel & hired Quesada. He has been producing Marvel animation & films since 1992... sorry, no Quesada hiring Arad and tasking him. LOL. I hope that was sarcasm on your part.

No, which has been under Quesada's control since Arad's departure. So no sarcasm.

Urmmmm, about all of that has nothing to do with QUesada and his decisions. QUesada DID NOT revitalize comic book movies and has little to say about such things. He certainly didn't pull Marvel out of bankruptcy or make any risky purchases!!!! Joe runs the publishing division so he approved together the teams that put together runs like Captain America & Ultimate Spider-man etc. but the editors of those books signed those creators to the books. But the publishing division is still a LOSS leader for the overall Marvel Entertainment machine. A loss leader is something where a product is turned out at little to zero profit in order to bring in greater interest such as, in this case, movie producers & financiers. The success of Toy Biz's Spider-man & X-men toy lines I would say are a bigger contributor to getting Marvel out of a MASSIVE debt and the movies which are licensed by Marvel Characters Inc., not the publishing house by the way, are also a BIG, BIG contributor to that as investors saw movies like Spider-man breaking box office records and the rest of the Marvel films producing respectable numbers. Marvel's first flop was Elektra keep in mind. The continued success of the films are what allowed Marvel Entertainment to be formed & then Marvel Films. If ANYBODY should be credited with Marvel's financial success it is former head honcho Avi Arad and current Kevin Feige, along with the business acumen of Ike Perlmutter. Quesada is a small player in that boat. Sure, he's been brought into the movie making process for Marvel Studios but mostly as a consultant and certainly not in a major way but mostly in order to keep the books & films similar in tone... ie taking back what is going on in the films to the books.


Marvel's toy sales were dropped dramatically due to loss of interest in comics. The infamous comics crash of Marvel in the 90s happened before Quesada was EiC. Then after movie licensing of Blade and other titles into movies as well as creating Marvel Knights for more adult and mature books, creating Icon in which creators on their titles, hiring Arad as producer for the films. That was all Quesada. You people look so little into the past, just because of OMD and other recents revelations makes you disregard Quesada's impact.

[protonik]

Joe Q modernised the coloring department by computerising it.

No. That occurred when Marvel bought Malibu... it was specifically why they bought Malibu actually. By the time Quesada came along computer colouring had been the industry standard for a few years.

[protonik]

I think it is wholly unfair to say Bob Harras is the worst Marvel Editor ever. People want to blame him for a period of time where Marvel went bankrupt. But this was also Marvels most successful time in terms of sales. This was when the industry as a whole was at it's highest point. Sure there were some stinkers in terms of storylines (i.e. Clone Saga).

Harras came in after the crash occured in 1996. Marvel was then divided into editorial fiefdoms.

[protonik]

No, which has been under Quesada's control since Arad's departure. So no sarcasm.




Marvel's toy sales were dropped dramatically due to loss of interest in comics. The infamous comics crash of Marvel in the 90s happened before Quesada was EiC. Then after movie licensing of Blade and other titles into movies as well as creating Marvel Knights for more adult and mature books, creating Icon in which creators on their titles, hiring Arad as producer for the films. That was all Quesada. You people look so little into the past, just because of OMD and other recents revelations makes you disregard Quesada's impact.

first you said Arad was HIRED by QUesada... he wasn't and my comments on Joe have ZERO to do with any opinion I have for or against OMD and BND. QUesada had NOTHING to do with Blade... LOL, that was long before Quesada took over the publishing division in 2000. Blade was, I believe in 1998, maybe 1999.

From your post it seems I know MORE about Marvel history than you do. Have you read the book on the Marvel buyout by Arad & Perlmutter? Apparently not. Arad & Perlmutter hired Jemas, who hired QUesada. FACT.None of what you say was Quesada. I mean my god there is a fracking book on the whole ordeal! Arad's credits on Marvel projects date back to 1992, before Quesada even DREW a Marvel comic!!!! Avi became the head of Marvel's film & animation businesses in 1993... All this is detailed in Comic Wars by Dan Raviv (ISBN: 0-7679-0830-9) Do some REAL research or provide some sources for your information becaause you are sooooooo off base and a cursory research proves you wrong. Hell, just watch the credits in the old 90s Marvel animation... right there, Avi Arad.

[protonik]

That was about to happen, don't know how and why

I read it hear somewhere

Not true. The truth is that Marvel Entertainment was considering shutting down the publishing division & licensing the characters off to other publishers to produce, eliminating any cost to produce while continuing to produce profits for the company. Jemas saved the publishing division by going to bat for it at corporate meetings. It was never a real threat but was something under consideration. Kind of like when you talk about buying a new car but don't ever go out looking for one, you are just talking about it. It was based on the success of Heroes Reborn & Marvel Knghts.

[MiracleMan]

first you said Arad was HIRED by QUesada... he wasn't and my comments on Joe have ZERO to do with any opinion I have for or against OMD and BND. QUesada had NOTHING to do with Blade... LOL, that was long before Quesada took over the publishing division in 2000. Blade was, I believe in 1998, maybe 1999.

From your post it seems I know MORE about Marvel history than you do. Have you read the book on the Marvel buyout by Arad & Perlmutter? Apparently not. Arad & Perlmutter hired Jemas, who hired QUesada. FACT.None of what you say was Quesada. I mean my god there is a fracking book on the whole ordeal! Arad's credits on Marvel projects date back to 1992, before Quesada even DREW a Marvel comic!!!! Avi became the head of Marvel's film & animation businesses in 1993... All this is detailed in Comic Wars by Dan Raviv (ISBN: 0-7679-0830-9) Do some REAL research or provide some sources for your information becaause you are sooooooo off base and a cursory research proves you wrong. Hell, just watch the credits in the old 90s Marvel animation... right there, Avi Arad.


Quesada moves Blades franchise into series and notoriety while coinciding its sequel release with Marvel Knights. Fact

Arads credits and alliance with Marvel begins in 92. Yes that is true. But Quesada hires him into Marvel Studio's film branch. Fact

OMD and BND was a broad statement to Quesada haters and not just you solely.

You do not know more about more about Marvel history than I do, if not just as much. Fact

Jemas hired Quesada. True. Arad hired Jemas. Also true. But that doesnt mean Arad had anything to do with Quesada being hired.

Arad's Marvel cartoons were succesful. But for Marvel Studios. Not Marvel Comics which is a part of this topic

[protonik]

Quesada gave us MK. nuff said. he aint the worst

No, he was a part of Marvel Knights. Perelman & Stewart gave us Marvel Knights.

[MiracleMan]

With Quesada's funding of Marvel funds to finance

[protonik]

Quesada moves Blades franchise into series and notoriety while coinciding its sequel release with Marvel Knights. Fact

Arads credits and alliance with Marvel begins in 92. Yes that is true. But Quesada hires him into Marvel Studio's film branch. Fact

OMD and BND was a broad statement to Quesada haters and not just you solely dumbass.

You do not know more about more about Marvel history than I do, if not just as much. Fact

Jemas hired Quesada. True. Arad hired Jemas. Also true. But that doesnt mean Arad had anything to do with Quesada being hired.

Arad's Marvel cartoons were succesful. But for Marvel Studios. Not Marvel Comics which is a part of this topic

First of all, no need to call people names, that is abuse and I will report you for it. Secondly, you said Quesada hired Arad and then said Quesada was responsible for the revitalization of the comic book film... not a fact. Quesada did NOT hire Arad into Marvel's film branch, that can not be a fact because Arad was head of Marvel Studios in 1992 and a producer on X-Men & Spider-man, both brokered & set up BEFORE Quesada as well as Marvel's TV products like Generation X. Marvel Knights Blade comics were a HUGE flop, in fact no Blade comic has ever been a success... FACT. You're stretching and you are wrong.

Timeline of Marvel's take over by Toy Biz: http://www.randomhouse.com/features/comicwars/timeline.html

From Random House. I think that is trustworthy. Buy the book man, you'll see that your worship of Quesada as the "Saviour" of Marvel Comics will be much like the Avengers facing Korvac/Michael.

[protonik]

With Quesada's funding of Marvel funds to finance

Wow, you like to be wrong... Marvel Knights started 2 years before Quesada became EIC. Sure, MK continued after he became EIC but it was still licensed to Event Comics, a company he had to leave when he became EIC to avoid conflict of interest issues that it would bring up. Palmiotti & Joe's wife ran the company, which no longer exists though the line continues as an imprint. It was before their contract expired, it's own company.

[MiracleMan]

if i like to be wrong how come my list above is pure well known fact. MK was from Event which Quesada was involved in. Quesada helping Marvel out of bankrupcty even more

[protonik]

Marvel Studios was founded in 1993, Avi Arad became head of it on May 13 of that year until he moved into the executive producer position of the studios film output in 1998. Arad was co-owner of Toy Biz with Ike Perlmutter, who was also on Marvel's Board of Directors since 1993 and Chairman from 1995. Toy Biz would emerge as the owners of Marvel Comics in 1997 meaning that Arad & Perlmutter were Quesada's boss so how the heck can Quesada hire his own boss to run a studio he had been running since 1993? If you look at the executive board of Marvel comics NOWHERE is Quesada listed.

As to comics being what brought Marvel out of bankruptcy... Marvel was over half a BILLION in debt... with your best selling book going for about 150K and you are producing them at 20 cents a pop or thereabout how in the heck did Quesada pull Marvel out of bankruptcy? He didn't. Spider-man & X-Men movies pulled Marvel out of bankruptcy... that was Arad... who Quesada did NOT hire.

[MiracleMan]

Marvel Studios was founded in 1993, Avi Arad became head of it on May 13 of that year until he moved into the executive producer position of the studios film output in 1998. Arad was co-owner of Toy Biz with Ike Perlmutter, who was also on Marvel's Board of Directors since 1993 and Chairman from 1995. Toy Biz would emerge as the owners of Marvel Comics in 1997 meaning that Arad & Perlmutter were Quesada's boss so how the heck can Quesada hire his own boss to run a studio he had been running since 1993?


He didnt hire him to the studios in general but to the film branch of the studio in general which spawned Avi Arad Productions

[protonik]

He didnt hire him to the studios in general but to the film branch of the studio in general which spawned Avi Arad Productions

No he didn't. QUesada couldn't hire his own boss! Arad was the owner of the company with Ike Perlmutter, I've demonstrated that. He left the company to form his own company in 2005 but continues to work for Marvel Studios as an independent producer. Quesada has no say in the movies, the animations yes, a recent development. Quesada has said in interviews he has no say in the movies & what happens & what gets made. That has even been shown in this thread! What you are saying is just like saying that a manager of a Wal-mart gets to hire the head of the marketing division for the company! DO you realize what that sounds like. This post alone is a contradiction. Arad was head of Marvel Studios so Quesada needed to hire him into the film branch? How does that make sense?

[MiracleMan]

No he didn't. QUesada couldn't hire his own boss! Arad was the owner of the company with Ike Perlmutter, I've demonstrated that. He left the company to form his own company in 2005 but continues to work for Marvel Studios as an independent producer. Quesada has no say in the movies, the animations yes, a recent development. Quesada has said in interviews he has no say in the movies & what happens & what gets made. That has even been shown in this thread! What you are saying is just like saying that a manager of a Wal-mart gets to hire the head of the marketing division for the company! DO you realize what that sounds like. This post alone is a contradiction. Arad was head of Marvel Studios so Quesada needed to hire him into the film branch? How does that make sense?


It doesnt become contradiction. MS grew a new branch seperate from the original to self produce and fund movies. Quesada appointed Arad to it.

[protonik]

Then why is Kevin Feige the guy that has been running the show? Avi Arad left when Marvel brokered their deal for the 10 movies & is a producer in name only on Iron Man. Kevin Feige has been running Marvel Studios since before Iron Man 1 started shooting. Avi Arad has his own company now. Ike Perlmutter & the Board of Directors at Marvel named Feige to the head of the movie division. Again, Quesada is head of the PUBLISHING division and has no say on the movies, TV shows etc. He only has a say in animation as COO for Animation. Feige in turn has no say in the publishing division. They do call Joe in as a consultant, but they also call in Bob Layton on Iron Man for example or Bendis as another example because they work with the characters in the comics. Quesada couldn't have hired Arad as he has no say in the matter.

[MiracleMan]

Then why is Kevin Feige the guy that has been running the show? Avi Arad left when Marvel brokered their deal for the 10 movies & is a producer in name only on Iron Man. Kevin Feige has been running Marvel Studios since before Iron Man 1 started shooting. Avi Arad has his own company now. Ike Perlmutter & the Board of Directors at Marvel named Feige to the head of the movie division. Again, Quesada is head of the PUBLISHING division and has no say on the movies, TV shows etc. He only has a say in animation as COO for Animation. Feige in turn has no say in the publishing division. They do call Joe in as a consultant, but they also call in Bob Layton on Iron Man for example or Bendis as another example because they work with the characters in the comics. Quesada couldn't have hired Arad as he has no say in the matter.

He appointed Arad for head of the film studios and will produce any Marvel Movie till the Avengers is released. Feige now has hold sole rights of the Marvel Studios film productions. Arad is gone, yes that is true

[Kurt Busiek]

Again, Quesada is head of the PUBLISHING division and has no say on the movies, TV shows etc.

Actually, he's the head of Editorial, which is one piece of publishing. The head of publishing is the Publisher, Dan Buckley.

Oh, and Alan Fine is President and CEO of Publishing, as well.

The editor in chief doesn't run the company. He runs the editorial department. Joe's recently been promoted to "Chief Creative Officer," but even that doesn't put him in charge of publishing; the President/CEO and Publisher/COO are still in charge of Publishing overall.

kdb

[protonik]

Marvel Divisions:

* Marvel Toys (formerly Toy Biz): a toy company owned by Isaac Perlmutter since the 1990s.
* Spider-Man Merchandising, L.P.: A joint venture of Marvel and Sony Pictures Consumer Products Inc. that owns the rights to Spider-Man movie related licensed products.
* Marvel Characters B.V. (The Netherlands)
* MVL International C.V. (The Netherlands)
* Marvel International Character Holdings LLC (Delaware)
* Marvel Entertainment International Limited (United Kingdom)
* Marvel Property, Inc. (Delaware)
* Marvel Internet Productions LLC (Delaware)
* Marvel Toys Limited (Hong Kong)
* MRV, Inc. (Delaware)
* MVL Development LLC (Delaware)
* Marvel Film Productions LLC (Delaware)

[edit] Subsidiaries

* Marvel Characters, Inc.: intellectual property holding company;
* Marvel Publishing, Inc.: publisher of Marvel Comics;
* Marvel Studios: a film and television production company;
* MVL Film Finance LLC: holder of Marvel's Movie debt and theatrical film rights to the ten characters as collateral. [10]
* Marvel Animation: Subsidiary charge with oversight of Marvel's animation productions.[11][12]
* Film Slate Subsidiaries”
o MVL Rights, LLC: subsidiary holding movie rights of all Marvel Characters with some on contract with MVL Film Finance
o Iron Works Productions LLC: subsidiary holding debt to finance the Iron Man movie.[13]
o MVL Productions LLC: an indirect wholly owned a film development subsidiary [14]
o Incredible Productions LLC (Delaware): subsidiary holding debt to finance the Incredible Hulk film
o MVL Iron Works Productions Canada, Inc. (Province of Ontario)
o MVL Incredible Productions Canada, Inc. (Province of Ontario)[15]
* Asgard Productions LLC (Delaware)
* Green Guy Toons LLC (Delaware)
* Squad Productions LLC (Delaware)[16]

Do you honestly think Joe Quesada runs all of this? A board of directors oversees all of this... Dan Buckley oversees Marvel Publishing, not Joe Quesada, he just oversees creative. Joe doesn't have the power you give him, nor does his boss. Joe didn't guide Marvel out of bankruptcy. Arad guided Marvel ENTERTAINMENT out of bankruptcy after Ron Perelman & Terry Stewart drove the company into the ground by, as Busiek points out, mismanaging things by buying card companies, toy companies, other publishers, bad licensing, sticker companies and distributors. It wasn't the publishing division that went bankrupt but the umbrella that the publishing division was a part of.

I am not saying Joe has been bad for Marvel. Marvel Comics is in better shape than it was but looking at the numbers it isn't that significant a bump when compared to, say, the 80s. That isn't even Joe's fault as comics are no longer in 7-11s or grocery stores anymore. They are in specialty shoppes & book stores. The distribution system is poor & a possible monopoly by Diamond. What Joe has done in the current market is amazing. I don't agree with his decisions all the time & I certainly do not like his disregard for Marvel history (he shows a lack of respect for the Avengers on the Ultimate Avengers DVD) etc. but that is why I am not an editor at Marvel. So I am not dissing your hero, just saying he gets too much credit for the business side of the company when he should be getting his kudos for the creative side. The movies saved the company & Arad was the one who was doing all the work on that side and now Feige. Joe didn't hire Arad. Even were your arguement half true, it would have to have been Buckley and both men answered/answer to Arad though I am unsure if Arad still owns a part of the company with Permutter. Even in the animation department Joe has someone he has to answer to...

[MiracleMan]

Marvel Divisions:

* Marvel Toys (formerly Toy Biz): a toy company owned by Isaac Perlmutter since the 1990s.
* Spider-Man Merchandising, L.P.: A joint venture of Marvel and Sony Pictures Consumer Products Inc. that owns the rights to Spider-Man movie related licensed products.
* Marvel Characters B.V. (The Netherlands)
* MVL International C.V. (The Netherlands)
* Marvel International Character Holdings LLC (Delaware)
* Marvel Entertainment International Limited (United Kingdom)
* Marvel Property, Inc. (Delaware)
* Marvel Internet Productions LLC (Delaware)
* Marvel Toys Limited (Hong Kong)
* MRV, Inc. (Delaware)
* MVL Development LLC (Delaware)
* Marvel Film Productions LLC (Delaware)

[edit] Subsidiaries

* Marvel Characters, Inc.: intellectual property holding company;
* Marvel Publishing, Inc.: publisher of Marvel Comics;
* Marvel Studios: a film and television production company;
* MVL Film Finance LLC: holder of Marvel's Movie debt and theatrical film rights to the ten characters as collateral. [10]
* Marvel Animation: Subsidiary charge with oversight of Marvel's animation productions.[11][12]
* Film Slate Subsidiaries”
o MVL Rights, LLC: subsidiary holding movie rights of all Marvel Characters with some on contract with MVL Film Finance
o Iron Works Productions LLC: subsidiary holding debt to finance the Iron Man movie.[13]
o MVL Productions LLC: an indirect wholly owned a film development subsidiary [14]
o Incredible Productions LLC (Delaware): subsidiary holding debt to finance the Incredible Hulk film
o MVL Iron Works Productions Canada, Inc. (Province of Ontario)
o MVL Incredible Productions Canada, Inc. (Province of Ontario)[15]
* Asgard Productions LLC (Delaware)
* Green Guy Toons LLC (Delaware)
* Squad Productions LLC (Delaware)[16]

Do you honestly think Joe Quesada runs all of this? A board of directors oversees all of this... Dan Buckley oversees Marvel Publishing, not Joe Quesada, he just oversees creative. Joe doesn't have the power you give him, nor does his boss. Joe didn't guide Marvel out of bankruptcy. Arad guided Marvel ENTERTAINMENT out of bankruptcy after Ron Perelman & Terry Stewart drove the company into the ground by, as Busiek points out, mismanaging things by buying card companies, toy companies, other publishers, bad licensing, sticker companies and distributors. It wasn't the publishing division that went bankrupt but the umbrella that the publishing division was a part of.

I am not saying Joe has been bad for Marvel. Marvel Comics is in better shape than it was but looking at the numbers it isn't that significant a bump when compared to, say, the 80s. That isn't even Joe's fault as comics are no longer in 7-11s or grocery stores anymore. They are in specialty shoppes & book stores. The distribution system is poor & a possible monopoly by Diamond. What Joe has done in the current market is amazing. I don't agree with his decisions all the time & I certainly do not like his disregard for Marvel history (he shows a lack of respect for the Avengers on the Ultimate Avengers DVD) etc. but that is why I am not an editor at Marvel. So I am not dissing your hero, just saying he gets too much credit for the business side of the company when he should be getting his kudos for the creative side. The movies saved the company & Arad was the one who was doing all the work on that side and now Feige. Joe didn't hire Arad. Even were your arguement half true, it would have to have been Buckley and both men answered/answer to Arad though I am unsure if Arad still owns a part of the company with Permutter. Even in the animation department Joe has someone he has to answer to...

Actually he is Editorial for all of those. Thats what Editor in Chief means

[Kurt Busiek]

Actually he is Editorial for all of those. Thats what Editor in Chief means

No, it really doesn't.

You seem very confused about all of this.

kdb

[protonik]

Actually he is Editorial for all of those. Thats what Editor in Chief means

Uhhhhhhhhhh no. What the heck does an editor have to do with.. say... toys? Nothing. He isn't the editor in chief of all those. He is the EIC of the publishing division. That is one... tiny... element of Marvel. Yeah, back in Stan's day the EIC oversaw everything but that was back in the 60s. Thomas had diminished powers when Stan quit editing the books & he was publisher for years. Stan was only that powerful because his uncle owned the company and back then all that was, was Marvel publishing. Goodman sold the company & things changed. The EIC is now a creative person, not the show runner.

[MiracleMan]

Marvel Divisions:

* Marvel Toys (formerly Toy Biz): a toy company owned by Isaac Perlmutter since the 1990s.
* Spider-Man Merchandising, L.P.: A joint venture of Marvel and Sony Pictures Consumer Products Inc. that owns the rights to Spider-Man movie related licensed products.
* Marvel Characters B.V. (The Netherlands)
* MVL International C.V. (The Netherlands)
* Marvel International Character Holdings LLC (Delaware)
* Marvel Entertainment International Limited (United Kingdom)
* Marvel Property, Inc. (Delaware)
* Marvel Internet Productions LLC (Delaware)
* Marvel Toys Limited (Hong Kong)
* MRV, Inc. (Delaware)
* MVL Development LLC (Delaware)
* Marvel Film Productions LLC (Delaware)

[edit] Subsidiaries

* Marvel Characters, Inc.: intellectual property holding company;
* Marvel Publishing, Inc.: publisher of Marvel Comics;
* Marvel Studios: a film and television production company;
* MVL Film Finance LLC: holder of Marvel's Movie debt and theatrical film rights to the ten characters as collateral. [10]
* Marvel Animation: Subsidiary charge with oversight of Marvel's animation productions.[11][12]
* Film Slate Subsidiaries”
o MVL Rights, LLC: subsidiary holding movie rights of all Marvel Characters with some on contract with MVL Film Finance
o Iron Works Productions LLC: subsidiary holding debt to finance the Iron Man movie.[13]
o MVL Productions LLC: an indirect wholly owned a film development subsidiary [14]
o Incredible Productions LLC (Delaware): subsidiary holding debt to finance the Incredible Hulk film
o MVL Iron Works Productions Canada, Inc. (Province of Ontario)
o MVL Incredible Productions Canada, Inc. (Province of Ontario)[15]
* Asgard Productions LLC (Delaware)
* Green Guy Toons LLC (Delaware)
* Squad Productions LLC (Delaware)[16]

Do you honestly think Joe Quesada runs all of this? A board of directors oversees all of this... Dan Buckley oversees Marvel Publishing, not Joe Quesada, he just oversees creative. Joe doesn't have the power you give him, nor does his boss. Joe didn't guide Marvel out of bankruptcy. Arad guided Marvel ENTERTAINMENT out of bankruptcy after Ron Perelman & Terry Stewart drove the company into the ground by, as Busiek points out, mismanaging things by buying card companies, toy companies, other publishers, bad licensing, sticker companies and distributors. It wasn't the publishing division that went bankrupt but the umbrella that the publishing division was a part of.

I am not saying Joe has been bad for Marvel. Marvel Comics is in better shape than it was but looking at the numbers it isn't that significant a bump when compared to, say, the 80s. That isn't even Joe's fault as comics are no longer in 7-11s or grocery stores anymore. They are in specialty shoppes & book stores. The distribution system is poor & a possible monopoly by Diamond. What Joe has done in the current market is amazing. I don't agree with his decisions all the time & I certainly do not like his disregard for Marvel history (he shows a lack of respect for the Avengers on the Ultimate Avengers DVD) etc. but that is why I am not an editor at Marvel. So I am not dissing your hero, just saying he gets too much credit for the business side of the company when he should be getting his kudos for the creative side. The movies saved the company & Arad was the one who was doing all the work on that side and now Feige. Joe didn't hire Arad. Even were your arguement half true, it would have to have been Buckley and both men answered/answer to Arad though I am unsure if Arad still owns a part of the company with Permutter. Even in the animation department Joe has someone he has to answer to...

No, it really doesn't.

You seem very confused about all of this.

kdb

If an Editor In Chief isnt lead ediotrial for all of these above then tell me who is

[MiracleMan]

Uhhhhhhhhhh no. What the heck does an editor have to do with.. say... toys? Nothing. He isn't the editor in chief of all those. He is the EIC of the publishing division. That is one... tiny... element of Marvel. Yeah, back in Stan's day the EIC oversaw everything but that was back in the 60s. Thomas had diminished powers when Stan quit editing the books & he was publisher for years. Stan was only that powerful because his uncle owned the company and back then all that was, was Marvel publishing. Goodman sold the company & things changed. The EIC is now a creative person, not the show runner.

He has any say in toys, games, merchandise that tie into any comic books

[Kurt Busiek]

Yeah, back in Stan's day the EIC oversaw everything but that was back in the 60s.

Actually, no.

First, Stan didn't run everything. He ran the editorial department. Martin Goodman ran the company. Stan didn't negotiate animation deals and T-shirt licensing, or negotiate with printers and distributors. He got the comics made.

Second, there was no EIC in Stan's day. The first editor in chief Marvel had was Jim Shooter. Prior to that, everyone being called an EIC here had the job of Editor. There was no Editor In Chief position.

kdb

[protonik]

An EIC is only editor for the publishing division and then only in America. Marvel UK has their own EIC. The rest of those are movie divisions or toy divisions or short term financial set ups for various licensed properties like the Incredible Hulk or the one with Sony for Spider-man... All an EIC does at Marvel is final approval on stories & creative teams and he can be overturned by the Publisher and the Board of Directors. It just means that Joe is Breevort, Alonso, Macchio, etc. boss. He has no say in what Kevin Feige does or whoever runs Marvel UK does...

I can't believe you are going to try to go with Busiek... damn.

[protonik]

Actually, no.

First, Stan didn't run everything. He ran the editorial department. Martin Goodman ran the company. Stan didn't negotiate animation deals and T-shirt licensing, or negotiate with printers and distributors. He got the comics made.

Second, there was no EIC in Stan's day. The first editor in chief Marvel had was Jim Shooter. Prior to that, everyone being called an EIC here had the job of Editor. There was no Editor In Chief position.

kdb

Thanks for the clarification Kurt, I appreciate it from someone who knows...

[Kurt Busiek]

If an Editor In Chief isnt lead ediotrial for all of these above then tell me who is

No one person is "lead editorial" for all those companies.

Not all of them produce creative material in the first place, and as such those don't have someone in charge of editorial, because they don't have editorial departments.

Of the ones that do creative things, they have people working at those companies.

kdb

[protonik]

He has any say in toys, games, merchandise that tie into any comic books

No, he doesn't. They ask him for his opinion but they can ignore him just as easily. He has said in the past that he has no say in what get's made. They ask him what is going on in the books & choose whether to use that or not but he can't say "that isn't Wolverine's current costume so you can't use that in a toy" or "this game has to reflect the events of World War Hulk" or "You only get to use this art for you towels". He has been asked to produce art for some of the toys, but he gets paid by Hasbro for the Invaders art for example.

[StoneGold]

Actually, no.

First, Stan didn't run everything. He ran the editorial department. Martin Goodman ran the company. Stan didn't negotiate animation deals and T-shirt licensing, or negotiate with printers and distributors. He got the comics made.

Second, there was no EIC in Stan's day. The first editor in chief Marvel had was Jim Shooter. Prior to that, everyone being called an EIC here had the job of Editor. There was no Editor In Chief position.

kdb

So wait, who was that Ed guy who kept interrupting all my comics to try and sell me back issues?

[Leocomix]

No. That occurred when Marvel bought Malibu... it was specifically why they bought Malibu actually. By the time Quesada came along computer colouring had been the industry standard for a few years.

But Marvel still used old-time techniques and colorists until Joe fired them.

[Leocomix]

Englehart, Starlin & Marz on Silver Surfer, the INfinity Gauntlet, MIchelenie/McFarlane/Larsen/Bagley on Spider-man, Jim Lee on X-Men, Hama/Silvestri on Wolverine, Harras/Texeira on Ghost Rider, Valentino on Guardians of the Galaxy, Byrne's SHe-Hulk, West Coast Avengers & Namor, Mike Baron & Carl Potts on Punisher, Chuck Dixon & JRjr on Punisher, Walt Simonson on Fantastic Four, Simonsons' on X-Factor, the Inferno arc, Acts of Vengeance... should I keep going?

If these are the good storylines then you're doomed. None is better than mediocre. Englehart's, Starlin's, Michelinie's, Simonson's and Byrne's best belong to another era. Larsen, Lee, Silvestri, McFarlane,Valentino are a poor era in storytelling. The X-events are the symbol of the decline of that series where storylines are dictated by editorial decree (we need a huge crossover every summer that ties in with as many pother titles as possible) rather than by Claremont's creativity.

[Leocomix]

DeFalco ran it into the ground by living off of Shooter's Marvel

A good way of saying it.

[Leocomix]

Miller's DD and Byrne Claremont X-Men

And Byrne's Fantastic Four and the later Claremont X-Men stuff, Secret Wars, the huge demand for Stern's Avengers in trade, Kraven's Last Hunt. Quesada seems to ignore anything from the 80s and 90s. I mean c'mon he published a book called the "Best of Spider-man" and it was all JMS crap, no Stan Lee, no Stern, no Conway, no MIchelenie etc. Also we've been getting a few Michelenie/Layton trades of Iron Man as well.

Just the few jewels in that crown, I'm afraid. I doubt there is a huge demand for Stern's Avengers. The Stern visionaries didn't do too well. The Stern Avengers exist in trades, if there was a huge demand, Marvel would have reprinted the rest. Yet his best work, Dr Strange, lies in obscurity.

[protonik]

There was a Stern visionaries? I worked in a comic book shoppe for 5 years and was assistant manager until last year and nary did I see any of Stern's Avengers being offered in reprint outside of the quickly sold out Masters of Evil arc, Under Seige. You got a link? I'd like to get that book and I am not being sarcastic...

[Talisman]

Wasn't his Kang/Immortus saga also reprinted?

[Reptisaurus!]

There was a Stern visionaries? I worked in a comic book shoppe for 5 years and was assistant manager until last year and nary did I see any of Stern's Avengers being offered in reprint outside of the quickly sold out Masters of Evil arc, Under Seige. You got a link? I'd like to get that book and I am not being sarcastic...

Not Avengers. There was one volume of Stern's Spider-man, reprinting his earliest (not particularly well known, or even GOOD) work on the title.

Shockingly, it sold poorly and no more volumes were commissioned.

The whole thing strikes me as being poorly managed: Marvel didn't reprint the material the fans really wanted (Hobgoblin and Juggernaut, specially.)

But it probably scuttled any chance of Stern's Avengers being reprinted in the immediate future, as well.

[Sighphi]

I started this whole Avi Arad/ Joe Q thing in page 2 or 3 or something and Miracleman is STILL stuck with his opinion of things so......I'm pretty sure he isnt going to change his mind. This is why i stop replying to his stuff, he is just not going to accept anything outside of what he thinks is going on.

And after a dozen pages plus i find it funny that people are STILL blaming Harras for stuff that he didnt do and giving credit to some of the cool stuff he did to Joe Q.
The human animal is amazing.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

The relaunch of Avengers, Cap and Iron Man was the Bob Harras tenure, not Joe's. And Bob wasn't just overseeing it, either -- those creative teams were assembled by him.

kdb

He also gave characters like Alpha Flight ,Deadpool and Mavrick a shot at monthly books in 1997. Its true the AF and Maverick books didn't last. But the fact is , Deadpool wouldn't be what he is today as a huge character in the company if it wasn't for the decision to go with it as a solo book in 1997.


Marvel Studios was founded in 1993, Avi Arad became head of it on May 13 of that year until he moved into the executive producer position of the studios film output in 1998. Arad was co-owner of Toy Biz with Ike Perlmutter, who was also on Marvel's Board of Directors since 1993 and Chairman from 1995. Toy Biz would emerge as the owners of Marvel Comics in 1997 meaning that Arad & Perlmutter were Quesada's boss so how the heck can Quesada hire his own boss to run a studio he had been running since 1993? If you look at the executive board of Marvel comics NOWHERE is Quesada listed.

As to comics being what brought Marvel out of bankruptcy... Marvel was over half a BILLION in debt... with your best selling book going for about 150K and you are producing them at 20 cents a pop or thereabout how in the heck did Quesada pull Marvel out of bankruptcy? He didn't. Spider-man & X-Men movies pulled Marvel out of bankruptcy... that was Arad... who Quesada did NOT hire.

As Kurt has posted the publishing division was the only profitable part of Marvel Comics. In the re-organization Bankruptcy (Chapter 11 I believe) Marvel claimed that the publishing wing would help them pull outta debt.

Because Marvel went into Bankruptcy in late 1996. A year later they emerged from it by Carl C. Icahn who bought the company basically. He paid off its debts to banks ($395 million , plus proceedes from Fleer and Panini) and took control of the company that fall of 1997. Heres the article.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/07/11/business/marvel-reaches-agreement-to-emerge-from-bankruptcy.html

MARVEL REACHES AGREEMENT TO EMERGE FROM BANKRUPTCY
Published: Friday, July 11, 1997

Marvel Entertainment Group reached an agreement yesterday with its creditors that promises to end months of bitter legal battles and allow the publisher of comic books to emerge from bankruptcy this fall. The deal called for two entities controlled by Carl C. Icahn, who won a legal battle last month to take control of the company, to buy the $610 million in secured claims that Marvel owes its banks. Marvel would pay its bank creditors $395 million in cash, proceeds from the sale of its subsidiaries Fleer and Panini and warrants to buy 10 percent of the reorganized company that would merge Marvel with Toy Biz Inc., a toy-making company that owns the right to manufacture toys based on Marvel characters. Shares of Marvel, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in December, rose 12.5 cents, to $2.375, while Toy Biz shares rose $1.3125, to $9.3125

There was no movies on the horizen til 2000. So the arguements that the movies would help Marvel pull outta bankruptcy is a bit of a longshot. Because the early comic book movie deals really wasn't that generous to Marvel. Its not til recently that changed .

[Kurt Busiek]

So wait, who was that Ed guy who kept interrupting all my comics to try and sell me back issues?

That was Ed Forbush, who was Stan's wife's cousin's nephew or something, and needed the work.

kdb

[protonik]

He also gave characters like Alpha Flight ,Deadpool and Mavrick a shot at monthly books in 1997. Its true the AF and Maverick books didn't last. But the fact is , Deadpool wouldn't be what he is today as a huge character in the company if it wasn't for the decision to go with it as a solo book in 1997.




As Kurt has posted the publishing division was the only profitable part of Marvel Comics. In the re-organization Bankruptcy (Chapter 11 I believe) Marvel claimed that the publishing wing would help them pull outta debt.

Because Marvel went into Bankruptcy in late 1996. A year later they emerged from it by Carl C. Icahn who bought the company basically. He paid off its debts to banks ($395 million , plus proceedes from Fleer and Panini) and took control of the company that fall of 1997. Heres the article.



There was no movies on the horizen til 2000. So the arguements that the movies would help Marvel pull outta bankruptcy is a bit of a longshot. Because the early comic book movie deals really wasn't that generous to Marvel. Its not til recently that changed .

Ahhh, thank you, much appreciated and it still kind of re-enforces the arguement that no, Joe Quesada did not save Marvel. But there was the Blade movie on the horizon and X-Men was in very early development as was Spider-man (James Cameron's treatment was under way with Arnie rumoured to play Venom & DiCaprio as Peter) as I remember Wizard at the time talking about them. Blade was released the next summer so it was definitely in the works when Icahn took over. Your post is greatly appreciated though!!!

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Ahhh, thank you, much appreciated and it still kind of re-enforces the arguement that no, Joe Quesada did not save Marvel. But there was the Blade movie on the horizon and X-Men was in very early development as was Spider-man (James Cameron's treatment was under way with Arnie rumoured to play Venom & DiCaprio as Peter) as I remember Wizard at the time talking about them. Blade was released the next summer so it was definitely in the works when Icahn took over. Your post is greatly appreciated though!!!

X-Men wouldn't come out til 2000, the movie was started on til 98/99 . The Blade movie ok...that I'll give you that came out in 98/99 in there. But the Spider-Man one from Wizard was a parody poster. One that Wizard was mocking in a sense.

Because for years the Spider-Man film rights were ****ED. James Cameron wanted to direct it and was attached for a long while. But the whole battle over the film rights slowed it down. The Wizard piece you remember seeing was from the April Fools day issue. I have it....and I remember the fake movie poster Wizard had artists draw for it. :tongue:

[Nevets F]

I started this whole Avi Arad/ Joe Q thing in page 2 or 3 or something and Miracleman is STILL stuck with his opinion of things so......I'm pretty sure he isnt going to change his mind. This is why i stop replying to his stuff, he is just not going to accept anything outside of what he thinks is going on.

And after a dozen pages plus i find it funny that people are STILL blaming Harras for stuff that he didnt do and giving credit to some of the cool stuff he did to Joe Q.
The human animal is amazing.

I don't often agree with you Sighphi, but this is a great post. It is amazing how people are.

Why people are still blaming Harras, when it has been proven he was not the one behind most of the stuff they blame him for is crazy. The hive mind of everyone thinking they have to hate Harras' run, regardless of the facts, is sad.

[protonik]

I think the people blaming DeFalco are just as misguided as the people blaming Harras. DeFalco had a lot to deal with after an amazing couple of years. The mass exodus of Image & their poaching of artists that Marvel would discover really hurt Marvel in the art department & DeFalco had to go with a lot of talent that just wasn't ready for the work they were being given & his go to guys like JRjr, Lim & Bagley could only draw so many books a month. Then there were the demands to put out MORE titles in order to generate more profits. He had to break at some point. It just wasn't the best time for anybody to be EIC.

Jason

[AllisterH]

No way no how Queseda though should even be in the running for worst EIC.

[mikekerr3]

No way no how Queseda though should even be in the running for worst EIC.

He shouldn't have to run for the title, he should be given it by acclamation. :tongue: I really don't see any serous competition for the title.

[DeadXMan]

Just remember defaclo and Harris is the reason Joe is the EiC

Blame them for running marvel into the ground and causing Joe to become Eic After the Bankruptcy.:tongue:

Of course none of this wouldn't of happen if they left Shooter in charge

[Leocomix]

I think the people blaming DeFalco are just as misguided as the people blaming Harras. DeFalco had a lot to deal with after an amazing couple of years. The mass exodus of Image & their poaching of artists that Marvel would discover really hurt Marvel in the art department & DeFalco had to go with a lot of talent that just wasn't ready for the work they were being given & his go to guys like JRjr, Lim & Bagley could only draw so many books a month. Then there were the demands to put out MORE titles in order to generate more profits. He had to break at some point. It just wasn't the best time for anybody to be EIC.

Jason

First, all the last EICs were promoted because the one before had goofed.The Image exodus was in 1992 whereas DeFalco had been in place for 5 years. So how come he wasn't prepared? More to the point, it was under his watch that those pencilers became prima donnas.

I really don't see any serous competition for the title.
Take the blindfold from your eyes, that will help.

[stelok]

I don't know who is the worse editor-in-chief , Tom Defalco for his total lack of creativity or Bob Harras, for exploiting the speculators' naivete and using the popular character labels (X-Men) rather than hiring talented creators in order to boost the sales.


Joe Quesada and Jim Shooter may have their bad points but they recognize creativity. During Joe Quesada's reign, Marvel hasn't seen so high a level of creativity since Stan Lee's time.

[AllisterH]

He shouldn't have to run for the title, he should be given it by acclamation. :tongue: I really don't see any serous competition for the title.

You're kidding me right?

In terms of creativity and ratio of good to bad comics, this decade IMO is tied for 2nd place with the 60s.

70s was marvel's best decade,
60s and 00s are the 2nd best
80s are a strong 3rd based mainly on early to mid 80s work.
90s were the worst except for a couple of stand outs...


(Or are you STILL griping about Civil War?)

[MiracleMan]

You're kidding me right?

In terms of creativity and ratio of good to bad comics, this decade IMO is tied for 2nd place with the 60s.

70s was marvel's best decade,
60s and 00s are the 2nd best
80s are a strong 3rd based mainly on early to mid 80s work.
90s were the worst except for a couple of stand outs...


(Or are you STILL griping about Civil War?)

i
Civil War would have been great if it had long lasting repercussions imo

[DeadXMan]

Like Osborn becoming the most powerful man in the MU?

[hondobrode]

Englehart, Starlin & Marz on Silver Surfer, the INfinity Gauntlet, MIchelenie/McFarlane/Larsen/Bagley on Spider-man, Jim Lee on X-Men, Hama/Silvestri on Wolverine, Harras/Texeira on Ghost Rider, Valentino on Guardians of the Galaxy, Byrne's SHe-Hulk, West Coast Avengers & Namor, Mike Baron & Carl Potts on Punisher, Chuck Dixon & JRjr on Punisher, Walt Simonson on Fantastic Four, Simonsons' on X-Factor, the Inferno arc, Acts of Vengeance... should I keep going?

Out of that list the only stuff that stands out to me is Byrne's work.

Simonson's FF was almost there, and the rest was kind of bleh. No offense to any of those creators, and I like work from almost all of them, but not what you've listed.

[mikekerr3]

Take the blindfold from your eyes, that will help.


No blindfold just the ability to detect crappy editing.

[mikekerr3]

You're kidding me right?

In terms of creativity and ratio of good to bad comics, this decade IMO is tied for 2nd place with the 60s.

70s was marvel's best decade,
60s and 00s are the 2nd best
80s are a strong 3rd based mainly on early to mid 80s work.
90s were the worst except for a couple of stand outs...


(Or are you STILL griping about Civil War?)


Not the CW just the damage done by Joes "genies". They made Spider-man un-enjoyable for me for the first time in over 4o years, completely destroyed the prime premise of the X-men and turned quite a few heroes into villains.

The fact that they didn't bother to even have a SHRA to work from and all the writers seemed to be righting about separate laws does say a lot about how bad an editor Joe is though.

[paulski]

You're kidding me right?

In terms of creativity and ratio of good to bad comics, this decade IMO is tied for 2nd place with the 60s.

70s was marvel's best decade,
60s and 00s are the 2nd best
80s are a strong 3rd based mainly on early to mid 80s work.
90s were the worst except for a couple of stand outs...

... in your opinion.

Me? I'd have them in a very, very different order.

And at least 30% of the people who have voted in this thread would disagree with your assertion about Quesada not being an option.

[StoneGold]

Admittedly, much of my ire towards Harras is his writing. Ye gods, I hated his Avengers. Granted, I bought his entire run, but I was a stupid kid then, what did I know?

[Brannon]

From what I gather from history, the decline in "quality" and the rise of crap like foil covers, endless events, and multiple covers has always been the brain child, or mandate if you will, of some corporate suit outside of the creative process. How good an EIC is allowed to be on an artistic level seems to be directly related to how intrusive and greedy your current owners are.

Creatively the darkest period for Marvel for me (looking back) was 1987-1997, so this covers all of the DeFalco tenure and most of Bob Harris'. Even then, you had some quality titles: Incredible Hulk by Peter David, Silver Surfer by Englehart and Starlin, Starlin's Infinity Gauntlet, DeFalco's Spider-Man and Thor (well, up till Eric Masterson at least) etc. Heroes Reborn got off to a great start, mainly thanks to Kurt Busiek's & Perez's Avengers.

Personally, I've always felt that the superhero genre "peaked" with stuff like Miller's Daredevil, Byrne's FF, Claremont's X-Men and Simonson's Thor in the early 80's--that certainly does not mean that good things haven't come since, but that special mix of modernization coupled with a firm commitment to the genre while maintaining the illusion of change, and strong characterization, seems to have been lost forever.

It's hard to say how much Shooter REALLY had to do with all this. He didn't hire any of these guys, with the exception of Simonson on Thor (who had worked for Marvel previously) correct?

[StoneGold]

Heroes Reborn got off to a great start, mainly thanks to Kurt Busiek's & Perez's Avengers.


That was Heroes Returns.

[Aziz Abbasi]

*Jim Shooter's run is my favorite run, I said he got fired but I don't put him in position of bad

*Joe Quesada: I have the feeling most votes for him are based on what he did for Spider-Man.
During this guy run:

We got the "Ultimate Universe"
"Norman Osborn" became a more enjoyable villain IMO
Cool movies entered theaters (I count Punisher as one of them, it is poorly underrated)
Spider-Man is funny again (Outside P.J's stories)
World War Hulk
Amadeus Cho
Incredible Hercules
Pleasant video games
"Joe Michael Straczynski" wrote many of the finest pieces in comics
Spider-Man is not a father of two psycho twins

[StoneGold]

*Jim Shooter's run is my favorite run, I said he got fired but I don't put him in position of bad

*Joe Quesada: I have the feeling most votes for him are based on what he did for Spider-Man.
During this guy run:

We got the "Ultimate Universe"
"Norman Osborn" became a more enjoyable villain IMO
Cool movies entered theaters (I count Punisher as one of them, it is poorly underrated)
Spider-Man is funny again (Outside P.J's stories)
World War Hulk
Amadeus Cho
Incredible Hercules
Pleasant video games
"Joe Michael Straczynski" wrote many of the finest pieces in comics
Spider-Man is not a father of two psycho twins


A good chunk of those wouldn't be Joe. Or at least, the video games, the movies, Ultimate Universe was being planned before he got there... and to a certain extent, I doubt he had much hand in the creation of Cho. On the other hand, he did create an environment where Greg Pak could.


Here's my thing on Quesada - there's been some pretty good comics that came out under him, and of those that weren't, there was still usually a feeling that at least they were trying. You didn't always get that before.

[Sighphi]

Like Osborn becoming the most powerful man in the MU?

I thought that was because he shot some chick in the head.

[[]D[]/\/\[]D @ Nite/So-tite]

Shooter made sure comics came on time and discontinued the use of reprints to make up for missed deadlines. He also alienated many writers early on (Steve Gerber, Marv Wolfman, Len Wein) who went to work for the competition. Due to the lack of good writers we saw the rise of the writer/artist system (Miller, Byrne, Simonson) and the proliferation of X-Men titles. However the groundbreaking comics of the time happened in the independent field or at DC. He created Epic for creator-owned material (Groo and Dreadstar were two of the highlights). He made comics based on toys (Rom, Micronauts, Secret Wars) and wrote them himself to make a lot of money. He tried to launch comics for kids (Star Comics) He started mini-series. He alienated more people (lost Miller, Starlin and Byrne), he created his own New Universe as the new "big thing", he made events comics and was finally let go. His period was concurrent with the editorship of Mark Gruenwald. MTU became Web of Spider-Man thus creating a third continuity title. They enforced a strong continuity but reduced invention by doing so. The only editor who left creative people free was Ralph Macchio and many of the best titles of the 80s and 90s were his work. Curiously he was continually passed for the EIC position. In 1987 started the original Masterworks line.

Wait a minute... Shooter didn't write those toy-based/licensed comics. Weren't they written by people like Bill Mantlo and Larry Hamma? Also IICR, those books were pretty successful, especially G.I. Joe, Tranformers, Micronauts and ROM (with ROM being more successful than the the toy it was based on).

Also, isn't Marvel responsible for making the Tranformers into what they are, including creating the storyline and the characters backstories, as well as giving Optimus Prime his name?

[Sighphi]

D[]/\/\[]D @ Nite/So-tite;9390632']
Also, isn't Marvel responsible for making the Tranformers into what they are, including creating the storyline and the characters backstories, as well as giving Optimus Prime his name?

Marvel? No.

[CyberCoyote]

I can't remember much Harras stuff, voted for JQ because I just feel he doesn't do much 'editing' at all. He lets the talent run free and it seems like someone else is running the show. Editors in general seem to have less power the lately. It's not the Spider-Man thing.. which I don't like either, that's just a single bad (to me) idea. But he seems more like the Yes man at Marvel than an editor.

[AllisterH]

I can't remember much Harras stuff, voted for JQ because I just feel he doesn't do much 'editing' at all. He lets the talent run free and it seems like someone else is running the show. Editors in general seem to have less power the lately. It's not the Spider-Man thing.. which I don't like either, that's just a single bad (to me) idea. But he seems more like the Yes man at Marvel than an editor.

Keep in mind this ALSO means that he's not breathing over Brubaker or JMS shoulder.

Just as a hands-off editor means that you can (erroneously) blame him for what you think is poor work by writers/artists on titles , it ALSO means that you can (erroneously) thank him for letting artists/writers do their best stuff on titles.

Fir every Loeb's Hulk, we have a Brubaker's Captain America.

[Reptisaurus!]

... in your opinion.

Me? I'd have them in a very, very different order.

And at least 30% of the people who have voted in this thread would disagree with your assertion about Quesada not being an option.

Y'know, I almost have to stick that under the "rule of 10."

All the holofoil cover X-crossover Liefeld stuff might seem great when you're ten, but an honest critical evaluation of the overall quality of Marvel's line NOW vs. Marvel's line 15-20 years ago is gonna make Quesada's tenure look really good.

But a substantial portion of the audience will consider the stuff published when they were ten the best. And since they're outgrowing comics now, they'll consider the current stuff the worst.

[Reptisaurus!]

It depends on how much of the blame for Marvel near-bankruptcy we can dump on Harras or Defalco.

OK. So they're cleared of all charges.

What about the big 'ol collapse in the publishing sector?

Obviously some of this is purely cyclical, some of this is obvious economics, some of this is Image (specifically) screwing up and not delivering a quality product on time...

But it also seems to me that SOME of this was due to an emphasis on stuff like cover gimmicks*, endless crossovers, and Marvel's (specific) practice of flooding the market with product in order to reduce the visibility of the competition.

Can I hold some of THAT against Harras?



* Which I have nothing against, and I think one of the strengths of comics-as-a medium is the structural malleability of the whole package. They can be bigger or smaller or 3-D, made out of different materials, open and close differently - And the cover is certainly part of this package, and originality in cover design, structure, and form should be considered a good thing. Or a good thing if incorporated into an overall quality package.

[mikekerr3]

OK. So they're cleared of all charges.

What about the big 'ol collapse in the publishing sector?

Obviously some of this is purely cyclical, some of this is obvious economics, some of this is Image (specifically) screwing up and not delivering a quality product on time...

But it also seems to me that SOME of this was due to an emphasis on stuff like cover gimmicks*, endless crossovers, and Marvel's (specific) practice of flooding the market with product in order to reduce the visibility of the competition.

Can I hold some of THAT against Harras?



* Which I have nothing against, and I think one of the strengths of comics-as-a medium is the structural malleability of the whole package. They can be bigger or smaller or 3-D, made out of different materials, open and close differently - And the cover is certainly part of this package, and originality in cover design, structure, and form should be considered a good thing. Or a good thing if incorporated into an overall quality package.


You really can't hold any of the bankruptcy against any of the EIC's The publishing part of the business made pretty good profits thougout, The other parts of the business and acquisitions are what killed them financially. Now the publishing section is such a small part of the bottom line that's even if it made no profit Marvel Entertainment would still have a fantastic bottom line. They would still be very profitable if the publishing area took a total loss each year.

Anywhat blaming the profit and loss of a company on the number two or three guy of the smallest division is kind of a stretch by any standards:biggrin:

[Reptisaurus!]

You really can't hold any of the bankruptcy against any of the EIC's The publishing part of the business made pretty good profits thougout, The other parts of the business and acquisitions are what killed them financially. Now the publishing section is such a small part of the bottom line that's even if it made no profit Marvel Entertainment would still have a fantastic bottom line. They would still be very profitable if the publishing area took a total loss each year.

Anywhat blaming the profit and loss of a company on the number two or three guy of the smallest division is kind of a stretch by any standards:biggrin:

I was wondering if they ever stopped making a profit - I'm fairly sure DC never did, and Marvel's outsold DC consistently for the last... what 35 years?

But let's get more specific. Let's look at the market fluctuations that closed (according to Wikipedia) 2/3rds of US comic shops and put a lot of people out of work. This is obviously not all or mostly Marvel's fault. But even if it's partially due to the guys running Marvel between '94-ish and '98-ish, that would probably be enough to make me vote for 'em as the worst. (Although this would be mitigated somewhat in Harras' case 'cause Marvel ended his term in a much more stable place than it began.)

[Leocomix]

D[]/\/\[]D @ Nite/So-tite;9390632']Wait a minute... Shooter didn't write those toy-based/licensed comics. Weren't they written by people like Bill Mantlo and Larry Hamma? Also IICR, those books were pretty successful, especially G.I. Joe, Tranformers, Micronauts and ROM (with ROM being more successful than the the toy it was based on).

Also, isn't Marvel responsible for making the Tranformers into what they are, including creating the storyline and the characters backstories, as well as giving Optimus Prime his name?

Shooter wrote Secret Wars. Zeck delivered some of the worst work of his career, Sal Buscema didn't want to draw SWII. Many writers hated how that threw hell over their series. This series was created as cross-promotion for toys.
Along with Shooter's creation of the Marvel Universe, Shooter tried to make the Marvel Universe secondary. All the series created after 1970 were canceled in favor of money-making repetitive X-titles thus impoverishing the Marvel Universe and invalidating the creative and building work of Thomas, Wein, Wolfman, Conway, Gerber. (This may have been a deliberate or unconscious decision on his part to cancel the titles created by the past editors he had driven away to avoid the legal troubles generated by Gerber and Kirby)

[hondobrode]

Wow ! I had never thought of it like that, but I think you're right, whether he was doing it consciously or unconsciously.

Still pretty hard to say overall which one I was most unhappy with, but I think it'd still be DeFalco. I've never felt the same about Marvel since he and Harras, and despite some misfires by Quesada and Jemas, I've turned around quite a bit about my feelings on Marvel.

The current stable of talent is incredible and certain characters and titles are still really good like Cap, DD, Iron Fist, Hulk. The Spidey Brain Trust is a stupendous team of creators that reminds me of what Carlin put together back on the 3 Superman titles during the Triangle Era, but I can't follow the OMD / BND thing. Sorry. Just can't get past it.

Don't like Bendis' Avengers either.

Haven't followed X-Men or been interested since Morrison's fresh approach. Too many barnacles I'm unwilling to work through.

[Kurt Busiek]

Shooter tried to make the Marvel Universe secondary. All the series created after 1970 were canceled in favor of money-making repetitive X-titles

This doesn't seem to match up to the history involved.

Jim launched NEW MUTANTS in 1983 and X-FACTOR in 1986. There were a few mini-series and specials as well, but the real outpouring of X-titles came after he was gone.

Plus, EICs don't cancel books; publishers do. EICs can recommend that books be canceled, but they don't pull the trigger.

That said, here's a list of the ongoing series created after 1970 that were still being published by 1978, when Jim became EIC, and when they were canceled:

1978
DEVIL DINOSAUR
ETERNALS
FOOM
KULL THE CONQUEROR
LAFF-A-LYMPICS
MAN FROM ATLANTIS
MARVEL CLASSICS COMICS SERIES

1979
BLACK PANTHER
FLINTSTONES
GODZILLA
HOWARD THE DUCK - replaced w/ b/w magazine which was canceled 1981.
HUMAN FLY
INVADERS
JOHN CARTER WARLORD OF MARS
MARVEL TREASURY EDITION - irregular by 1979, petered out 1981.
MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION
MS. MARVEL
NOVA
RED SONJA
SCOOBY-DOO
TARZAN
TOMB OF DRACULA
YOGI BEAR

1981
MACHINE MAN
MARVEL PREMIERE
MARVEL PREVIEW
MARVEL SUPER ACTION
RAMPAGING HULK/HULK Magazine

1982
SPIDEY SUPER STORIES

1983
CRAZY Magazine
GHOST RIDER
MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE - replaced w/THE THING which was canceled 1986.*
MASTER OF KUNG FU
SPIDER-WOMAN

1984
WHAT IF

1985
MARVEL TEAM-UP - replaced w/WEB OF SPIDER-MAN.

1986
DEFENDERS*
STAR WARS*
POWER MAN/IRON FIST (combined 1978)*

1987
DOCTOR STRANGE (2nd Series) - replaced w/STRANGE TALES.

NOT CANCELED DURING JIM'S TENURE
CONAN THE BARBARIAN
SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN
UNCANNY X-MEN

This isn't a complete list of Marvel cancellations -- the reason there's a big wad of them in 1978-1979, and then the numbers drop off isn't because Marvel isn't canceling books, but because they're canceling books Jim launched, too.

The vast majority of these were canceled due to low sales, or because the license lapsed and it wasn't profitable to pick it up again. The four asterisked titles were among those said to be canceled to make way for the New Universe, but (a) they were all selling poorly enough to be on the chopping block anyway, and (b) books launched during Jim's tenure were canceled at this time, too, so it wasn't the 1970s being targeted.

But those are the cancellations of 1970s titles that Jim supposedly axed to make way for a slew of X-titles. Where's the slew of X-titles? It didn't come during Jim's tenure. And why would he cancel five books in 1981 in order to make room for X-titles that weren't there to be published?

That's also pretending he got to pick and choose what was canceled.

In fact, Jim fought to keep a bunch of these books going -- MASTER OF KUNG FU and GHOST RIDER both lasted longer that they would have ordinarily, because Jim thought they should be able to sell and convinced the suits to let them try a little longer. POWER MAN/IRON FIST was at cancellation levels at least two years before it got the chop.

But more importantly -- which titles on that list should have survived? Which ones had the audience support to keep going, if only the EIC hadn't (supposedly) had it in for anything from the 1970s? It's mostly a list of books that never caught on or were on their last legs, after attempts to bolster their sales hadn't worked. And even then, some were shifted into new formats or packages to try to find a way to keep them going.

kdb

[protonik]

It's hard to say how much Shooter REALLY had to do with all this. He didn't hire any of these guys, with the exception of Simonson on Thor (who had worked for Marvel previously) correct?

Shooter had much to do with a lot of it as he was a very hands on EIC like JQ. Take the Phoenix saga, one of the greatest comic stories of all time. Originally the ending involved Jean having her powers stripped as punishment for the Phoenix crimes. Shooter had them change the ending, resulting in a much more powerful story... had Jean remained dead. He approved or recruited a lot of the creators on their books like Miller on Daredevil, he also guided Miller's artistic growth by insisting that he learn what to include in each panel etc. similar to his guiding of David Lapham (I think the similarities of storytelling style of the two speak volumes for Shooter's claims). He was integral in bringing in Barry Smith for his 80s Marvel projects such as Lifedeath 1+2, Machine Man (excellent Kirbypunk material), Daredevil etc. His own work on Avengers was almost as influential as Thomas & Englehart's runs.

[protonik]

I can't remember much Harras stuff, voted for JQ because I just feel he doesn't do much 'editing' at all. He lets the talent run free and it seems like someone else is running the show. Editors in general seem to have less power the lately. It's not the Spider-Man thing.. which I don't like either, that's just a single bad (to me) idea. But he seems more like the Yes man at Marvel than an editor.

I disagree. Marvel is crossover driven, which is editorially mandated and Joe has a big hand in crafting the events that are occurring in the Marvel books. Were creators allowed to run free as you say we'd have something more akin to SHooter than Quesada, which is similar to DeFalco's middling to later years where it was all about the summer event.

[protonik]

Shooter wrote Secret Wars. Zeck delivered some of the worst work of his career, Sal Buscema didn't want to draw SWII. Many writers hated how that threw hell over their series. This series was created as cross-promotion for toys.
Along with Shooter's creation of the Marvel Universe, Shooter tried to make the Marvel Universe secondary. All the series created after 1970 were canceled in favor of money-making repetitive X-titles thus impoverishing the Marvel Universe and invalidating the creative and building work of Thomas, Wein, Wolfman, Conway, Gerber. (This may have been a deliberate or unconscious decision on his part to cancel the titles created by the past editors he had driven away to avoid the legal troubles generated by Gerber and Kirby)

Ok, now you see you just made the same arguements against Shooter that people who don't like JQ have made about JQ...!!!

[SUPERECWFAN1]

This doesn't seem to match up to the history involved.

Jim launched NEW MUTANTS in 1983 and X-FACTOR in 1986. There were a few mini-series and specials as well, but the real outpouring of X-titles came after he was gone.

Plus, EICs don't cancel books; publishers do. EICs can recommend that books be canceled, but they don't pull the trigger.

That said, here's a list of the ongoing series created after 1970 that were still being published by 1978, when Jim became EIC, and when they were canceled:

1978
DEVIL DINOSAUR
ETERNALS
FOOM
KULL THE CONQUEROR
LAFF-A-LYMPICS
MAN FROM ATLANTIS
MARVEL CLASSICS COMICS SERIES

1979
BLACK PANTHER
FLINTSTONES
GODZILLA
HOWARD THE DUCK - replaced w/ b/w magazine which was canceled 1981.
HUMAN FLY
INVADERS
JOHN CARTER WARLORD OF MARS
MARVEL TREASURY EDITION - irregular by 1979, petered out 1981.
MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION
MS. MARVEL
NOVA
RED SONJA
SCOOBY-DOO
TARZAN
TOMB OF DRACULA
YOGI BEAR

1981
MACHINE MAN
MARVEL PREMIERE
MARVEL PREVIEW
MARVEL SUPER ACTION
RAMPAGING HULK/HULK Magazine

1982
SPIDEY SUPER STORIES

1983
CRAZY Magazine
GHOST RIDER
MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE - replaced w/THE THING which was canceled 1986.*
MASTER OF KUNG FU
SPIDER-WOMAN

1984
WHAT IF

1985
MARVEL TEAM-UP - replaced w/WEB OF SPIDER-MAN.

1986
DEFENDERS*
STAR WARS*
POWER MAN/IRON FIST (combined 1978)*

1987
DOCTOR STRANGE (2nd Series) - replaced w/STRANGE TALES.

NOT CANCELED DURING JIM'S TENURE
CONAN THE BARBARIAN
SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN
UNCANNY X-MEN

This isn't a complete list of Marvel cancellations -- the reason there's a big wad of them in 1978-1979, and then the numbers drop off isn't because Marvel isn't canceling books, but because they're canceling books Jim launched, too.

The vast majority of these were canceled due to low sales, or because the license lapsed and it wasn't profitable to pick it up again. The four asterisked titles were among those said to be canceled to make way for the New Universe, but (a) they were all selling poorly enough to be on the chopping block anyway, and (b) books launched during Jim's tenure were canceled at this time, too, so it wasn't the 1970s being targeted.

But those are the cancellations of 1970s titles that Jim supposedly axed to make way for a slew of X-titles. Where's the slew of X-titles? It didn't come during Jim's tenure. And why would he cancel five books in 1981 in order to make room for X-titles that weren't there to be published?

That's also pretending he got to pick and choose what was canceled.

In fact, Jim fought to keep a bunch of these books going -- MASTER OF KUNG FU and GHOST RIDER both lasted longer that they would have ordinarily, because Jim thought they should be able to sell and convinced the suits to let them try a little longer. POWER MAN/IRON FIST was at cancellation levels at least two years before it got the chop.

But more importantly -- which titles on that list should have survived? Which ones had the audience support to keep going, if only the EIC hadn't (supposedly) had it in for anything from the 1970s? It's mostly a list of books that never caught on or were on their last legs, after attempts to bolster their sales hadn't worked. And even then, some were shifted into new formats or packages to try to find a way to keep them going.

kdb

Great post..... but I had always heard that Power Man & Iron Fist , Kurt was a victim of the whole New Universe launch that Shooter wanted to do. That the titles sales were at a decent level then , but once went to the Bi-Monthly format , that it hurt it big time.

I maybe thinking of what Christopher Priest wrote on his website . That , Shooter told the editor (Denny O'Neil I believe) that the book was being cancelled at #125. And Denny was a bit irked at what had happened and decided to have Priest kill Iron Fist off.

[Talisman]

Great post..... but I had always heard that Power Man & Iron Fist , Kurt was a victim of the whole New Universe launch that Shooter wanted to do. That the titles sales were at a decent level then , but once went to the Bi-Monthly format , that it hurt it big time.

I maybe thinking of what Christopher Priest wrote on his website . That , Shooter told the editor (Denny O'Neil I believe) that the book was being cancelled at #125. And Denny was a bit irked at what had happened and decided to have Priest kill Iron Fist off.
Yeah, that and Dazzler were canceled even though sales were increasing on the titles to make room for the New Universe books.

[Kurt Busiek]

I had always heard that Power Man & Iron Fist , Kurt was a victim of the whole New Universe launch that Shooter wanted to do. That the titles sales were at a decent level then, but once went to the Bi-Monthly format , that it hurt it big time.

Sales weren't at a decent level.

When I was writing the book, it was selling substantially under 125,000 copies, which are wonderful numbers today, but cancellation-level numbers then. My royalty checks were enough to buy lunch. At Burger King. For one. And sales went down after I left. [Which isn't me bragging that my run was popular -- sales went up when Jo Duffy was on the book, dropped thereafter, leveled out while I was writing it, and dropped again after I left, so the best I can claim credit to is temporarily stalling the downslide.]

When Jim Owsley and Mark Bright were on it, they had a plan to make the book sell better, but it was going to take 12 issues of work before the book was where they wanted it editorially. On a bi-monthly book, that's two full years of "We'll get there." When the head of Direct Sales heard that, her reaction was, "If it's going to take two years to fix, you might as well kill it now, because it's not going to last long enough to get to the fix." But that's what they went with, and sure enough, it didn't last long enough to get to the "fix."

Shooter told the editor (Denny O'Neil I believe) that the book was being cancelled at #125. And Denny was a bit irked at what had happened and decided to have Priest kill Iron Fist off.

There's no way Denny didn't see the cancellation coming. As Jim [Owsley] once wrote, in another context, Ray Charles could have seen it coming.

kdb

[Kurt Busiek]

Yeah, that and Dazzler were canceled even though sales were increasing on the titles to make room for the New Universe books.

A lot of people have said that, but I've never seen anything to bear it out.

The Sales Department was certainly not under the impression that the sales were going up on those books in any meaningful way, for instance.

Plus, of course, you don't need to cancel books to make room for other books. If you've got a book that's selling well, you don't cancel it to add another, you do both, and bam, you've got two well-selling books. Canceling a book that's making money in favor of a book that might make money doesn't make economic sense.

Canceling a book that's selling poorly, though, and getting new books on the schedule that'll theoretically make more money; that does make sense.

And in no way were any of those books cancelled to that Jim could unleash a slew of X-books.

kdb

[[]D[]/\/\[]D @ Nite/So-tite]

A lot of insightful stuff in this thread.

Hey Kurt, while you're here... Someone brought up an interesting point in another thread. I've been trying to find the information to this myself. Could you help me out with this?

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showpost.php?p=9287768&postcount=37

Here's the full thread:

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=278061

Thanks.

[Kurt Busiek]

D[]/\/\[]D @ Nite/So-tite;9395800']A lot of insightful stuff in this thread.

Hey Kurt, while you're here... Someone brought up an interesting point in another thread. I've been trying to find the information to this myself. Could you help me out with this?

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showpost.php?p=9287768&postcount=37

ROM was available on newsstands, too, so the guy who thinks it might have only been available at the local comics shop is mistaken.

ROM, G.I. JOE and TRANSFORMERS were very strong sellers on the newsstand. So was SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN.

kdb

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Sales weren't at a decent level.

When I was writing the book, it was selling substantially under 125,000 copies, which are wonderful numbers today, but cancellation-level numbers then. My royalty checks were enough to buy lunch. At Burger King. For one. And sales went down after I left. [Which isn't me bragging that my run was popular -- sales went up when Jo Duffy was on the book, dropped thereafter, leveled out while I was writing it, and dropped again after I left, so the best I can claim credit to is temporarily stalling the downslide.]

When Jim Owsley and Mark Bright were on it, they had a plan to make the book sell better, but it was going to take 12 issues of work before the book was where they wanted it editorially. On a bi-monthly book, that's two full years of "We'll get there." When the head of Direct Sales heard that, her reaction was, "If it's going to take two years to fix, you might as well kill it now, because it's not going to last long enough to get to the fix." But that's what they went with, and sure enough, it didn't last long enough to get to the "fix."



There's no way Denny didn't see the cancellation coming. As Jim [Owsley] once wrote, in another context, Ray Charles could have seen it coming.

kdb

A lot of people have said that, but I've never seen anything to bear it out.

The Sales Department was certainly not under the impression that the sales were going up on those books in any meaningful way, for instance.

Plus, of course, you don't need to cancel books to make room for other books. If you've got a book that's selling well, you don't cancel it to add another, you do both, and bam, you've got two well-selling books. Canceling a book that's making money in favor of a book that might make money doesn't make economic sense.

Canceling a book that's selling poorly, though, and getting new books on the schedule that'll theoretically make more money; that does make sense.

And in no way were any of those books cancelled to that Jim could unleash a slew of X-books.

kdb

Thanks Kurt for laying it down.... here the link ...and article from Priest's site.

http://www.digital-priest.com/comics/adventures/curse.htm


I can't copy and paste it. But you can read what Priest wrote about Poweman & Iron Fist , Kurt.

[CyberCoyote]

I disagree. Marvel is crossover driven, which is editorially mandated and Joe has a big hand in crafting the events that are occurring in the Marvel books. Were creators allowed to run free as you say we'd have something more akin to SHooter than Quesada, which is similar to DeFalco's middling to later years where it was all about the summer event.

And we aren't currently in a setting where the summer event rules the roost? Not picking, but it is an event driven period. And as far as editorial.. Shooter got in knock down drag outs with his folks, they hated him because he had his hands in everything. Bendis just declared that he stated what he wanted for the Avengers books next year (the core of the MU right now) and it pretty much went exactly as HE wanted. Doesn't seem like it's a JQ driven franchise, it sounds Bendis driven. He actually seems more like the EIC these days than Joey (although who will ever know all the facts..)

[[]D[]/\/\[]D @ Nite/So-tite]

ROM was available on newsstands, too, so the guy who thinks it might have only been available at the local comics shop is mistaken.

ROM, G.I. JOE and TRANSFORMERS were very strong sellers on the newsstand. So was SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN.

kdb

Thanks. :cool:

[paulski]

Thanks for continuing to keep us all honest, Kurt. :smile:

[Kurt Busiek]

Thanks Kurt for laying it down.... here the link ...and article from Priest's site.

http://www.digital-priest.com/comics/adventures/curse.htm

I can't copy and paste it. But you can read what Priest wrote about Poweman & Iron Fist , Kurt.

Even he doesn't say the sales were going up. He says they were marginal to start with, and slipped even lower. He's right about that -- around that time. PM/IF was the lowest-selling Marvel Universe title other than U.S.1, the book often credited with killing off the Marvel Zombie.

[You see, these days a Marvel Zombie is someone who buys only Marvel comics. Used to be, a Marvel Zombie was someone who bought everything Marvel put out; the term was coined to describe people who wrote in asking that Marvel cancel GROO, because they didn't like it, but had to buy it because they bought everything Marvel put out. But U.S.1's sales dropped and dropped and dropped, and once Marvel fans weren't buying that one, it became easier to skip other books, too, and the line-wide loyalty that a large number of readers had for Marvel faded away.]

As for Jim's idea that making the book bi-monthly was an attempt to kill it, that doesn't really make sense. Books were made bi-monthly when they were selling badly. It often hurt their sales, but it also cut costs, and gave each issue twice as much time (in theory, at least) to sit on magazine racks and try to catch readers' eyes. And if the creators could reinvigorate a series, it could come back to monthly. POWER MAN/IRON FIST, in fact, had been bi-monthly before, and Jo Duffy and Kerry Gammill got it back up to monthly. DAREDEVIL had gone bi-monthly a while earlier, until Frank Miller was able to make it sell again. Even IRON MAN had gone bi-monthly at one point. X-MEN had been bi-monthly. DAZZLER had gone bi-monthly. It was one of the economic realities of the business at the time.

The people who decided when to make a book bi-monthly didn't need to sabotage books. If they wanted it dead, they could just cancel it -- they didn't need an excuse, beyond, "Sales on this book are low." PM/IF was made bi-monthly, like a number of other low-selling books at the time, because it was a low-selling book, and that's what they did with low-selling books.

Had Denny and Jim said, "Don't make the book bi-monthly, we'll have things turned around in three issues, and you'll have a much stronger book," the bean-counters might have listened; no book at Marvel was actually losing money, and if there's a reason to gamble, they weren't opposed to giving something marginal a chance. But Denny and Jim had a 12-issue plan, and that was too long for the bean-counters to think it was worth waiting.

The lesson to be learned from that is that when you're rolling toward the edge of a cliff, the time to change course is now, not a year from now. Other titles might have had enough cushion for long-term plans, but PM/IF had to make short-term adjustments to survive at all.

I hadn't been able to plan any better when I was on the book -- my first four issues were fill-ins, done without knowing I'd be regular on the book, and then I was six issues away from an anniversary issue, so I started building toward that while still finding my way into the series, figuring I'd get there, and then do the serious work of retooling the book after #100. And by the time I got to #100, I'd figure a lot of stuff out and made plans that I'm pretty sure would have worked well. But I got fired with #100 because the sales were blah; I didn't have the cushion either. I did two more issues as fill-ins, and never really got to have any traction on the book.

That's the sort of thing that happens early in your career, and Jim and I both were pretty new at the time.

kdb

[timomcshade]

I figured they guys that covered the 80's and 90's would get a majority of the vote. I voted for the Bob. I thougt JQ would get lots of votes and he did, and I can understand why, but I would like to defend him because I really believe he gets a bad rap and because I want to bring some positive conversation to the mix.

JQ has some balls. He has made some very unpopular decisions but has stood by them and defended them which is a big deal considering he is the 1st Marvel Editor to really have to handle the rabid fans due to the proliferation of the internet and increasing popularity of the cons and more mainstream attention. He doesn't need to do stuff like Cup O Joe or interact with the consumer at all but he does. That alone gives him points. Despite what you may think of JQ, under his "reign" he has been responsible for revitalizing the brand. He has brought in the top talent and kept them, revamped almost the entire universe AND created new ones with Marvel Knights and Ultimate Marvel. He did this by allowing his talent, in most cases, the freedom to do what they thought was best even if it was unpopular. Sure he will never be forgiven by some fans for stuff like One More Day/Brand New Day, although that change is now resulting in some great stories, or Avengers Disassembled or House of M or any of the other big events but it has paid dividends. Marvel now has nearly 60% of the market and a catalog soo diverse it makes others look thin.

Sure Bendis tore apart the Avengers but the titles are more popular now than ever. I already mentioned Spider-Man but he let Bendis do the same thing, then later Brubaker, with the X-Men and that line is the strongest it has been in a while. We have COSMIC based books. He has allowed stuff like Ghost Rider and Moon Knight and Punisher to have a chance in the regular Marvel U. Look what he allowed to happen to Daredevil. He let Captain America DIE! Yes he has had his misses but you cannot debate that underr him Marvel is in the best shape they have been in for a while.

I am not a JQ mark, I do critize where it is deserved(like the mess that is Loeb), but I just think the man gets a bad rep where it is not warranted.

[MiracleMan]

Also, keep in mind people Quesada's record isnt crystal but isnt as terrible as Harras or DeFalco

[SUPERECWFAN1]

Even he doesn't say the sales were going up. He says they were marginal to start with, and slipped even lower. He's right about that -- around that time. PM/IF was the lowest-selling Marvel Universe title other than U.S.1, the book often credited with killing off the Marvel Zombie.

[You see, these days a Marvel Zombie is someone who buys only Marvel comics. Used to be, a Marvel Zombie was someone who bought everything Marvel put out; the term was coined to describe people who wrote in asking that Marvel cancel GROO, because they didn't like it, but had to buy it because they bought everything Marvel put out. But U.S.1's sales dropped and dropped and dropped, and once Marvel fans weren't buying that one, it became easier to skip other books, too, and the line-wide loyalty that a large number of readers had for Marvel faded away.]

As for Jim's idea that making the book bi-monthly was an attempt to kill it, that doesn't really make sense. Books were made bi-monthly when they were selling badly. It often hurt their sales, but it also cut costs, and gave each issue twice as much time (in theory, at least) to sit on magazine racks and try to catch readers' eyes. And if the creators could reinvigorate a series, it could come back to monthly. POWER MAN/IRON FIST, in fact, had been bi-monthly before, and Jo Duffy and Kerry Gammill got it back up to monthly. DAREDEVIL had gone bi-monthly a while earlier, until Frank Miller was able to make it sell again. Even IRON MAN had gone bi-monthly at one point. X-MEN had been bi-monthly. DAZZLER had gone bi-monthly. It was one of the economic realities of the business at the time.

The people who decided when to make a book bi-monthly didn't need to sabotage books. If they wanted it dead, they could just cancel it -- they didn't need an excuse, beyond, "Sales on this book are low." PM/IF was made bi-monthly, like a number of other low-selling books at the time, because it was a low-selling book, and that's what they did with low-selling books.

Had Denny and Jim said, "Don't make the book bi-monthly, we'll have things turned around in three issues, and you'll have a much stronger book," the bean-counters might have listened; no book at Marvel was actually losing money, and if there's a reason to gamble, they weren't opposed to giving something marginal a chance. But Denny and Jim had a 12-issue plan, and that was too long for the bean-counters to think it was worth waiting.

The lesson to be learned from that is that when you're rolling toward the edge of a cliff, the time to change course is now, not a year from now. Other titles might have had enough cushion for long-term plans, but PM/IF had to make short-term adjustments to survive at all.

I hadn't been able to plan any better when I was on the book -- my first four issues were fill-ins, done without knowing I'd be regular on the book, and then I was six issues away from an anniversary issue, so I started building toward that while still finding my way into the series, figuring I'd get there, and then do the serious work of retooling the book after #100. And by the time I got to #100, I'd figure a lot of stuff out and made plans that I'm pretty sure would have worked well. But I got fired with #100 because the sales were blah; I didn't have the cushion either. I did two more issues as fill-ins, and never really got to have any traction on the book.

That's the sort of thing that happens early in your career, and Jim and I both were pretty new at the time.

kdb

Thanks Kurt for schoolin us man. I always love to read the inside info from someone who was there. Thanks again.

[grphxkindaguy]

Even he doesn't say the sales were going up. He says they were marginal to start with, and slipped even lower. He's right about that -- around that time. PM/IF was the lowest-selling Marvel Universe title other than U.S.1, the book often credited with killing off the Marvel Zombie.

[You see, these days a Marvel Zombie is someone who buys only Marvel comics. Used to be, a Marvel Zombie was someone who bought everything Marvel put out; the term was coined to describe people who wrote in asking that Marvel cancel GROO, because they didn't like it, but had to buy it because they bought everything Marvel put out. But U.S.1's sales dropped and dropped and dropped, and once Marvel fans weren't buying that one, it became easier to skip other books, too, and the line-wide loyalty that a large number of readers had for Marvel faded away.]
kdb

Did this make anyone else LOL? :biggrin:

thanks for the peek into history, Kurt!

[hondobrode]

Even though I'm buying less Marvel than ever, I think it's more my taste than the level of product.

I think Joe Q is doing a pretty good job. I'm still completely turned off by multiple title X-Men. If Ultimate Comics brings out a mutant team title I'll probably try it.

It's shocking that Quesada is in 2nd place in this poll ahead of DeFalco.

[Leocomix]

Ok, now you see you just made the same arguements against Shooter that people who don't like JQ have made about JQ...!!!

Really? I don't see that at all. For instance, the Marvel Universe is front and center. There are few if any licensed series. And the top talent gets routinely assigned to the Marvel titles created by Stan.

[Leocomix]

This doesn't seem to match up to the history involved.

Jim launched NEW MUTANTS in 1983 and X-FACTOR in 1986. There were a few mini-series and specials as well, but the real outpouring of X-titles came after he was gone.

Plus, EICs don't cancel books; publishers do. EICs can recommend that books be canceled, but they don't pull the trigger.

That said, here's a list of the ongoing series created after 1970 that were still being published by 1978, when Jim became EIC, and when they were canceled:

1978
DEVIL DINOSAUR
ETERNALS
FOOM
KULL THE CONQUEROR
LAFF-A-LYMPICS
MAN FROM ATLANTIS
MARVEL CLASSICS COMICS SERIES

1979
BLACK PANTHER
FLINTSTONES
GODZILLA
HOWARD THE DUCK - replaced w/ b/w magazine which was canceled 1981.
HUMAN FLY
INVADERS
JOHN CARTER WARLORD OF MARS
MARVEL TREASURY EDITION - irregular by 1979, petered out 1981.
MARVEL TRIPLE ACTION
MS. MARVEL
NOVA
RED SONJA
SCOOBY-DOO
TARZAN
TOMB OF DRACULA
YOGI BEAR

1981
MACHINE MAN
MARVEL PREMIERE
MARVEL PREVIEW
MARVEL SUPER ACTION
RAMPAGING HULK/HULK Magazine

1982
SPIDEY SUPER STORIES

1983
CRAZY Magazine
GHOST RIDER
MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE - replaced w/THE THING which was canceled 1986.*
MASTER OF KUNG FU
SPIDER-WOMAN

1984
WHAT IF

1985
MARVEL TEAM-UP - replaced w/WEB OF SPIDER-MAN.

1986
DEFENDERS*
STAR WARS*
POWER MAN/IRON FIST (combined 1978)*

1987
DOCTOR STRANGE (2nd Series) - replaced w/STRANGE TALES.

NOT CANCELED DURING JIM'S TENURE
CONAN THE BARBARIAN
SAVAGE SWORD OF CONAN
SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MAN
UNCANNY X-MEN

This isn't a complete list of Marvel cancellations -- the reason there's a big wad of them in 1978-1979, and then the numbers drop off isn't because Marvel isn't canceling books, but because they're canceling books Jim launched, too.

The vast majority of these were canceled due to low sales, or because the license lapsed and it wasn't profitable to pick it up again. The four asterisked titles were among those said to be canceled to make way for the New Universe, but (a) they were all selling poorly enough to be on the chopping block anyway, and (b) books launched during Jim's tenure were canceled at this time, too, so it wasn't the 1970s being targeted.

But those are the cancellations of 1970s titles that Jim supposedly axed to make way for a slew of X-titles. Where's the slew of X-titles? It didn't come during Jim's tenure. And why would he cancel five books in 1981 in order to make room for X-titles that weren't there to be published?

That's also pretending he got to pick and choose what was canceled.

In fact, Jim fought to keep a bunch of these books going -- MASTER OF KUNG FU and GHOST RIDER both lasted longer that they would have ordinarily, because Jim thought they should be able to sell and convinced the suits to let them try a little longer. POWER MAN/IRON FIST was at cancellation levels at least two years before it got the chop.

But more importantly -- which titles on that list should have survived? Which ones had the audience support to keep going, if only the EIC hadn't (supposedly) had it in for anything from the 1970s? It's mostly a list of books that never caught on or were on their last legs, after attempts to bolster their sales hadn't worked. And even then, some were shifted into new formats or packages to try to find a way to keep them going.

kdb
Regular series: Classic X-Men.
X-Men mini-series and spin-offs: Wolverine, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Firestar, Illyana and Storm, X-Men/Avengers, X-Men/FF, X-Men/Micronauts, Mephisto vs X-Men, X-Men/Alpha Flight, Alpha Flight (X-Men spin off), Dazzler (X-Men spin-off and various guest appearances by Rogue, Angel, Beast), stories in Marvel Fanfare, Marvel Graphic Novels (4,5,12,17), even the Falcon was advertised as a mutant (chased by a Sentinel) as were Cloak and Dagger.
The diversity created during the 70s, even if it was low-selling, disappeared under Shooter. I guess you're going to come over with a list of titles created then who show diversity but I remember a lot of X-Men and mutants titles. maybe the public is to blame for this but maybe the editor is for failing to find new writers, for losing some of his best writers, for assigning the less talented people to the fringe titles (Invaders had the worst art for the time, Carmine Infantino was the kiss of death for most series as were Ditko and Perlin, Robbins and Springer. The departures of Wolfman, Kirby, Gerber, Thomas meant the death (quick or slow) for their titles.
Creating new titles based on the success of past ones is a part of the trade. The FF are inspired by the original Human Torch, Plastic Man and monster books, Hulk is inspired by the Thing. Daredevil inspired by Spider-Man and the X-Men are a mix of FF and Spider-Man. But each has a number of innovative elements. I'm underwhelmed by the innovative elements in New Mutants, X-Factor and the mini-series.
For me Marvel Age titles are hybrid titles who combine super-heroes with other genres (romance, spy stories, etc)
I like the 70s pulp influence because it brings material from outside the super-hero genre. Happily we still had Frank MIller to bring manga and noir influence, Simonson to bring more Norse mythology influence to their classic Marvel titles. (I can't pinpoint what Byrne brought to the FF but it became less of a super-hero title and more of an adventure book with elements of soap opera, horror and sci-fi)
However the rest of the Marvel titles were generic super-hero titles. The distinctiveness of each title I perceived during the 60s and 70s faded.

[Kurt Busiek]

Regular series: Classic X-Men.
X-Men mini-series and spin-offs: Wolverine, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Firestar, Illyana and Storm, X-Men/Avengers, X-Men/FF, X-Men/Micronauts, Mephisto vs X-Men, X-Men/Alpha Flight, Alpha Flight (X-Men spin off), Dazzler (X-Men spin-off and various guest appearances by Rogue, Angel, Beast), stories in Marvel Fanfare, Marvel Graphic Novels (4,5,12,17), even the Falcon was advertised as a mutant (chased by a Sentinel) as were Cloak and Dagger.

I think this is kind of a stretch, here. I'm not at home, and can't look up the credits, but Cloak & Dagger were turned into mutants after Jim was gone, I'm pretty sure. Dazzler was not an X-Men spin-off; it was a series created out of whole cloth that was planted in X-Men as a means of introducing the character. And Alpha Flight was an X-Men spin-off but not a mutant book.

Marvel Fanfare and the Marvel Graphic Novels also featured stories of non-X-Men characters often, so listing them as part of some sort of wave of rejecting the other characters for X-titles doesn't make much sense. That Falcon mini-series didn't advertise him as a mutant; it actually pointed out that he wasn't one -- he was chased by a defective Sentinel.

Which series do you claim were canceled to make room for these? And why would a publisher cancel an ongoing series in order to put a short-run mini-series on the schedule? That's not how things worked.

The diversity created during the 70s, even if it was low-selling, disappeared under Shooter. I guess you're going to come over with a list of titles created then who show diversity but I remember a lot of X-Men and mutants titles.

So you expect me to list a bunch of titles proving you wrong, but the facts don't count when compared against your memories?

I think that if you look at the Shooter era based not on your memories but on the fact, you'd see that there were plenty of new projects that weren't X-projects. You may have disliked them, but that doesn't mean they're not there. Books got canceled largely due to low sales, just like always, and new series and mini-series were launched based on what looked promising.

maybe the public is to blame for this but maybe the editor is for failing to find new writers, for losing some of his best writers, for assigning the less talented people to the fringe titles (Invaders had the worst art for the time,

On the one hand, there are many people who'd disagree with you on that -- I'm a huge Frank Robbins fan, for instance, and lost interest in INVADERS only after he left. But more importantly, Jim Shooter had nothing whatsoever to do with Robbins getting the INVADERS assignment. Roy Thomas chose him himself, as writer/editor of the book, before Shooter was even EIC. So the idea that Jim assigned Frank to INVADERS is absurd.

Carmine Infantino was the kiss of death for most series as were Ditko and Perlin, Robbins and Springer.

You may think so, but (a) it has nothing to do with whether books were cancelled in favor of a tidal wave of X-series, (b) I don't think sales bear you out, since most of those artists had lengthy runs on books that either continued after they left or were canceled well after they were gone, and (c) all of the people you name, all of them, were working at Marvel before Shooter was EIC.

The departures of Wolfman, Kirby, Gerber, Thomas meant the death (quick or slow) for their titles.

While I agree that at least two of those names left because of friction with Shooter, that doesn't support your contention that Jim canceled books created in the 1970s to unleash a slew of X-titles.

Creating new titles based on the success of past ones is a part of the trade. The FF are inspired by the original Human Torch, Plastic Man and monster books,

No, they weren't.

Hulk is inspired by the Thing.

No.

Daredevil inspired by Spider-Man and the X-Men are a mix of FF and Spider-Man.

Here, you seem to be arguing that if there's a resemblance, that's what the series were inspired by, but it doesn't work that way. The FF weren't created because the Human Torch had been successful, it was created because JUSTICE LEAGUE had been successful. The Hulk isn't inspired by the Thing -- they're both monsters, but the Hulk is far more inspired by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

And none of this has anything to do with whether Jim Shooter cancelled a bunch of 1970s books so he could replace them with X-books.

I'm underwhelmed by the innovative elements in New Mutants, X-Factor and the mini-series.

That's fine. No one said you had to like them. I was responding to the charge that Jim cancelled 1970s titles to make way for a bunch of X-titles. Since Daredevil, FF, Spider-Man and Hulk are 1960s titles and weren't canceled during Jim's tenure, much less replaced by X-titles, they don't constitute an argument either way.

Happily we still had Frank MIller to bring manga and noir influence, Simonson to bring more Norse mythology influence to their classic Marvel titles.

Things that happened during the Shooter era, during which time you said he couldn't find any new writers.

The distinctiveness of each title I perceived during the 60s and 70s faded.

And you're welcome to dislike that. But it doesn't back up your claim that Jim canceled a bunch of 1970s titles to make way for a slew of X-titles.

As noted, Jim didn't cancel books (EICs don't cancel things, publishers do), and the vast majority of the 1970s books canceled during his tenure don't match up to the launches of X-books. Heck, of the projects you list above, in most cases nothing was canceled to make room for them -- Marvel simply added more stuff to the schedule.

The upshot of your post is that you didn't much like the Shooter Era, with certain exceptions that you don't seem willing to credit Jim for, though you'll blame him for stuff he had nothing to do with. I can quibble wit your history, but I wouldn't dream of arguing that you should like stuff you don't.

My post was in response to your assertion that Jim canceled a bunch of 1970s books to make way for a slew of X-titles, which simply isn't so.

kdb