Joe Quesada or Jim Shooter?

[David Walton]

When did Peter move back in with Aunt May??? And is he so down on his luck that he's not successful in his Horizon job???

The Brand New Day era, which directly followed OMD's lead.

[Nomads1]

Shooter's 80. No doubt about that. However, I do think it's an unfair comparission. Marvel in the 80's was all about selling comics, and that meant producing the best stories possible, breaking new grounds (creatively speaking), and truly captivating it's readers. Marvel post Quesada is no longer in the business of selling comics. Its comics division main goal is keeping visable proprieties that can be made into films or used to sell bucketloads of merchandizing. For that, you really don't need to tell the best stories, creatively break new grounds nor captivate your reader. As long as the casual/ocasional fans keep the boat afloat, all is good. Recycle the same old stories or the same few characters.

Peace

[Darrell D.]

Quesada by far.
Most of the 80s, with the obvious exceptions, read like hackwork.

[Leocomix]

Shooter once said that Marvel would rathzer produce a good comic that didn't sell than a bad one that sold gagngbusters. He changed that. He destroyed the creative spirit of the 70s. To start with he alienated a number of creators (Wolfman, Wein, Gerber, Thomas, Perez, Colan) then he alienated the other ones (Moench, Byrne, Miller). In fact, he single-handedly was responsible for the DC renaissance of the 80s by driving away so many top creators from Marvel. He had god-awful comics (Thor 1978-1983, Fantastic Four 1978-1981) that people always forget about due to the passage of time, many of the perennial titles of the 70s came to an end (Defenders, Master of Kung Fu)
By the end of his tenure (Secret Wars II) crap was the norm and the X-Men franchise had crept all over the Marvel universe.

Quesada was the reverse, he arrived in a company that was producing a lot of crap and made gold (Marvel Knights, X-Statix, JMS, Bendis' & Maleev Daredevil), once again there was the will that every comic produced should be good.

[David Walton]

I think your take on Shooter is...interesting, Leocomix.

You don't mention Miller's Daredevil, Byrne's FF, Stern's ASM and Avengers, or Simonson's Thor.

[Aaric Rivad]

I think Shooter's high points were higher (literally and figuratively), but you can't deny Quesada's success over a longer period of time. And while Quesada has "No More Mutants" and "One More Day," you can't ignore Shooter's often ridiculous demands of his writers.

Gun to my head? Shooter, but not by much.

[Leocomix]

I think your take on Shooter is...interesting, Leocomix.

You don't mention Miller's Daredevil, Byrne's FF, Stern's ASM and Avengers, or Simonson's Thor.

Because I don't focus on the odd things out but on the whole line. What about DD sans Miller? What about O'Neil's Spider-Man? The Hypno-Hustler? The Iguana? Gang War? The late DeFalco era with all rushed and fill-in issues? Stern's Avengers aren't as good as Thomas, Englehart or Michelinie's. In addition, Macchio was the one who protected Simonson and Miller from Shooter's tendencies.
Now I understand that some people were young in the 80s and probably didn't watch for the whole line. They probably just read a handful of comics and remember those fondly. Before Shooter one would just buy every issue of every magazine, especially those starting in the 60s. After Shooter you had to pick which issues were worthy. Even classic reprints were better than the fill-ins during the Shooter era. For anyone who lived through the 70s, Shooter wasn't all rosy.

[spider-prime]

Shooter gave us Secret Wars. For that, I will hump his leg forever.

[PwrdOff]

Shooter would totally beat the crap out of Quesada, the man is massive and scarier looking than most Marvel supervillains.


Oh right, editing. To make a fair judgement you'd probably have to give Quesada the benefit of at least a decade of hindsight, but in general I prefer Shooter. Quesada seems to be really arbitrary with his editorial interference, where he will let some writers do whatever the hell they want, but then insist on throwing in a bunch of arbitrary crap at his own discretion. Shooter was at least pretty uniformly and consistently heavy-handed.

[graffiX]

This was tough for me, as I think both did great jobs.

I went with Shooter in the end.

[smalltalk66]

Shooter--at least he RESPECTS the idea of character continuity and established canon...

[smalltalk66]

Shooter would totally beat the crap out of Quesada, the man is massive and scarier looking than most Marvel supervillains.


Shooter was at least pretty uniformly and consistently heavy-handed.

I've spoken to Shooter---you're both right lol

[Darrell D.]

Shooter--at least he RESPECTS the idea of character continuity and established canon...

That doesn't mean much if the story is utter crap, though.
Shooter wasn't the best in terms of creators' rights, either.

[Michael P]

Quesada does seem to be better at making his creators happy.

[Darrell D.]

Quesada does seem to be better at making his creators happy.

True. He also appears to have a better rapport with them. That may be due to Quesada being one of the guys that saw the fight for creator rights in the 90s.