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Blockhouse posted:It honestly sounds like that era was just loads of petty bullshit going on behind closed doors Shooter was kind of a tyrant but he also overseeing a lot of big, creative egos.
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Apr 30, 2024 14:24
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Blockhouse posted:It honestly sounds like that era was just loads of petty bullshit going on behind closed doors So when John Byrne took over Fantastic Four and declared that he was going to make Fantastic Four great again, because they'd drifted too far away from Kirby/Lee's vision of the book, he was implicitly (often explicitly) saying that Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, etc. wrote poor, wrongheaded FF stories. And all of these people also came up as fans and read the same interviews and had feelings about them. And creators had cliques/friendships they'd formed either as fans or young pros who got high and watched grindhouse movies together or whatever, and took sides on these things. There was also the fact that editorial leadership was often hands-off and changed frequently in this period: Roy Thomas was one of the first of this generation, and the first editor-in-chief that Marvel had post-Stan. He lasted about two years before stepping down and getting replaced by Len Wein, who quit after a year and handed it off to Marv Wolfman, then Gerry Conway, then Archie Goodwin, then finally Jim Shooter. All of these people were between 24 and 32 years old when they became EiC, with the exception of Goodwin who was a decrepit 39 years old when he took the job. Also with the exception of Goodwin (and then Shooter), none of them seemed super interested in the business/editing side of the job, and so everything in that realm was pretty hands-off until it wasn't for whatever mercurial reason, which allowed for a lot of free creative expression but also was pretty bad for things like "consistency" or "making sure books come out on time" or "formal mediation of editorial disagreements" and so on. Shooter was also a younger fan-turned-pro but unlike most of the others he had spent most of his pre-EiC freelance professional period living in Pittsburgh* and not hanging out with all of the other folks; Wein, Wolfman, and Conway were all native New Yorkers, and Goodwin and Thomas both had moved to NYC as teenagers to attend college so in many cases they knew each other from local nascent comics-fan-culture stuff before becoming pros. So Jim Shooter became the nexus of a lot of "petty bullshit" because he was a nominal outsider who thought he should wear business wear and pushed "business" ideas and tried to be an actual boss. He definitely had his share of dubious-to-awful creative/business ideas and contributed to some of the feuds, but there was always going to be a lot of conflict for anyone coming into a company where you started demanding formal pitches as opposed to "we were all doing acid and one of my buddies said they had a cool Fantastic Four story". Obviously interpersonal and creative conflicts never go away as a Thing, but late 70s/80s comics, not entirely dissimilar to pro wrestling of the era, was a transitional period where the industry was rapidly changing and people responded in outsized ways to the changes. Arguably the closer parallel would be pro wrestling in the 2000s, because in both cases there was a generation of people who grew up wanting to make superhero comics/wrestle and that was the end goal for them. The majority of the Golden/Early Silver Age comics creators were people who dreamed of working in Hollywood or as literary writers or perhaps comic strip artists and ended up making superhero comics because they couldn't break into those fields/they needed a steady paycheck. Similarly, an even greater majority of wrestlers in the 20th century were guys who couldn't make it to the NFL/MLB/NBA, or were recruited from local bodybuilding gyms or strip club bouncing gigs because they had the right look. Stan Lee wanted to write the Great American Novel, Jack Kirby wanted to work for Walt Disney or make the next Prince Valiant. Hulk Hogan wanted to be in a rock band, The Rock and Stone Cold and Goldberg and etc. etc. all wanted to be pro football players. John Byrne and Frank Miller and most of their generation grew up wanting to make Superman and Batman comics, and the current crop of pro wrestlers grew up knowing they wanted to wrestle. And again, that creates friction with the previous generations, and also a whole new set of heightened conflicts between people within that cohort as they come into the field with their own preconceptions. * Shooter also briefly went to college in NYC, but moved back to Pittsburgh for several years prior to getting the staff job at Marvel. His Pittsburghiness led to that town getting poo poo on a lot in Marvel Comics of the time, the most spectacular example being John Byrne taking over a New Universe book after Shooter's ouster and immediately nuking Pittsburgh and turning it into a radioactive pit of misshapen monsters. Really a lot of the petty grudges and beefs in 70s/80s comics come back to John Byrne being an incredible rear end in a top hat.
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Apr 30, 2024 14:39
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That's a legit great post. Brings to light quite a few of the cliques and issues those creators were going through in that era, which I wasn't familiar with. It is funny that it can be nearly wholly summarized down to: Byrne was a tremendous rear end in a top hat and that snowball just kept running down the hill, growing, and destroying everything in its path. And here he is in the nu20's, making X-Men fanfiction, 40 years later. Meanwhile, Chris Claremont keeps yelling at clouds, pissed off newer creators like Mike Carey, Hickman, or Gillen are mishandling "his" characters. Yet, still comes out much better than Byrne, professionally at least -- Chris even gets to write stuff for Marvel occasionally, whereas the latter just burned through all the bridges he could.
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Apr 30, 2024 15:10
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Claremont still has an exclusive contract with Marvel, which they take advantage of pretty much never. But maybe that's not true anymore; I just haven't heard otherwise. And "take advantage" is doing some heavy lifting there.
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Apr 30, 2024 15:18
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danbanana posted:Claremont still has an exclusive contract with Marvel, which they take advantage of pretty much never. But maybe that's not true anymore; I just haven't heard otherwise. And "take advantage" is doing some heavy lifting there. He's currently writing Wolverine: Madripoor Knights and it's been... okay. It feels like something he could have written back in the 80's. And he wrote another comic for them a year ago, but I didn't like the premise and have since forgot what it was. Edit: okay, I looked it up, it was an X-Treme X-Men follow-up, sold as a comic for people who weren't jelling with the Krakoa era. It lasted five issues and also had Salvador Larroca on art like in the good old days of the early 00's. Saoshyant fucked around with this message at 15:27 on Apr 30, 2024 |
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Apr 30, 2024 15:21
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was that recent Claremont Nightcrawler series any good? what i saw of the art looked pretty cool at least.
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Apr 30, 2024 15:50
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The Nightcrawler series is almost a decade old at this point. More recently Claremont's contributed to a bunch of one-shots/anthologies/anniversary issues and is now settling into a series-of-mini-series: Gambit (2022) X-Treme X-Men (2022-2023) Wolverine: Madripoor Nights (2024) Wolverine: Deep Cut (coming this July)
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Apr 30, 2024 15:54
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The topic of "fans who became writers" just reminds me of a topic I read earlier on r/xmen discussing if writers hated Gambit or not. The theory was, because he was a 90s creation, comic book writers in the 2000s had no real interest in him and were like gently caress these stupid TAS fans. Kinda the reverse of what I've always heard about how writers in the 2000s who grew up with Kitty Pryde in the 80s (and had a crush on her) made sure to obsess over her once they could write books. How true any of this is, I dunno. Sounds like people just being mad their faves were mistreated and looking for a reason. Also I just finished Trial of Magneto #1. Whatever happens here, you gotta figure a bunch of people coming to arrest you for murder and your own daughter screaming at you like that has to leave a guy shaken and disillusioned. He did kinda start things but still.
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Apr 30, 2024 16:27
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Edge & Christian posted:The Nightcrawler series is almost a decade old at this point. Sure, but I'm even older. Is it any good or what?
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Apr 30, 2024 17:36
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I believe you're talking about the one with Todd Nauck on art. I remember liking it. I'm a fan Nauck's art though so that might have influenced me more. Especially considering I remember he was the artist but don't remember Claremont being the writer.
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Apr 30, 2024 17:44
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X-O posted:I believe you're talking about the one with Todd Nauck on art. I remember liking it. I'm a fan Nauck's art though so that might have influenced me more. Especially considering I remember he was the artist but don't remember Claremont being the writer. Yeah, that's the one. I don't exactly have high hopes for the writing based on what I've read of Claremont's post-'90s stuff, but the art looked snappy enough.
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Apr 30, 2024 17:57
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Edge & Christian posted:So when John Byrne took over Fantastic Four and declared that he was going to make Fantastic Four great again, because they'd drifted too far away from Kirby/Lee's vision of the book, he was implicitly (often explicitly) saying that Roy Thomas, Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman, etc. wrote poor, wrongheaded FF stories. And all of these people also came up as fans and read the same interviews and had feelings about them. And creators had cliques/friendships they'd formed either as fans or young pros who got high and watched grindhouse movies together or whatever, and took sides on these things. My favorite example of this is in West Coast Avengers where he brought back 'emotionless, colorless Vision' which he felt was the true vision of Roy Thomas and John Buscema and not the 'having emotions, colorful Vision' which was done by those hacks Roy Thomas and John Buscema. Byrne also once got into a fight with himself on his message board. Somebody had responded to a comment and Byrne did one of his tirades about how the commenter must be an idiot and a poster pointed out Byrne himself said that, it had just been quoted so many times it no longer had Byrne's name on it.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:07
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:Yeah, that's the one. I don't exactly have high hopes for the writing based on what I've read of Claremont's post-'90s stuff, but the art looked snappy enough. Claremont really liked working with Nauck, so a lot of his more verbose tendencies are reined in and the book's pretty decent as a result. There are still a lot of "Claremont-isms," like the Shadow King showing up to mind-control the X-Men into attacking Kurt, but they're deliberately writing a big science-fiction swashbuckler story. There are actually a few things about that book that have yet to be followed up on, like Kurt getting a couple of young mutant sidekicks who've never shown up again.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:25
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And also that run is not like some of the "Nostalgia Minis" we see today where a writer takes on a five issue mini or something they worked on 20+ years ago from what I remember. It was a full on series set in the present. I think it ran for a full year or so as well.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:33
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X-O posted:And also that run is not like some of the "Nostalgia Minis" we see today where a writer takes on a five issue mini or something they worked on 20+ years ago from what I remember. It was a full on series set in the present. I think it ran for a full year or so as well. Yeah, it's no Nightcrawler: The Hidden Years, thank God.
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Apr 30, 2024 19:52
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Going back to the Jean Grey/Madelyne Pryor thing, did anyone at Marvel ever talk about resolving the issue with Madelyne actually being the real Jean? From what I understand, the connection between the two was originally supposed to be pure coincidence (and a little bit of a red herring,) and Madelyne and Scott's relationship was going to allow him to be moved off of center stage. So I get that saying "no, she really WAS Jean the whole time!" might seem a little cheap, but it's got to be better than making Scott out to be such an rear end in a top hat.
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Apr 30, 2024 20:14
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Dawgstar posted:My favorite example of this is in West Coast Avengers where he brought back 'emotionless, colorless Vision' which he felt was the true vision of Roy Thomas and John Buscema and not the 'having emotions, colorful Vision' which was done by those hacks Roy Thomas and John Buscema. New Vision was an awful idea, although I will say I kind of like the colors better, he looked like a ghost.
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Apr 30, 2024 20:23
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Uncle Boogeyman posted:was that recent Claremont Nightcrawler series any good? what i saw of the art looked pretty cool at least. I thought it was decent at the time, haven't read it since it came out.
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Apr 30, 2024 21:45
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Luchacabra posted:Going back to the Jean Grey/Madelyne Pryor thing, did anyone at Marvel ever talk about resolving the issue with Madelyne actually being the real Jean? I don't think that's ever been canon. Madelyne was retconed from being a normal human into being a Jean clone created by Sinister to sire a powerful mutant. When she died, her memories moved back to Jean through Phoenix bullshit (or whatever), so Jean could remember (and actually play the role of) being Nathan's mom and it wasn't going to be as awkwaaaaard (it still was, honestly). In the Krakoa era, with Madelyne resurrected and Jean hanging around they actually (mostly) sorted out their issues after that whole Dark Web crossover.
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May 1, 2024 00:03
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It's crazy how as a kid my dad taught me that Jim Shooter was the devil, and now that I'm older I kinda think Jim Shooter owns, and a good portion of that newfound appreciation comes from Christopher Priest. And then I recall that Jim Shooter was apparently homophobic
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May 1, 2024 00:46
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The Maddie retcon always confused me, because without it she was still just a perfect copy of Jean, with no family of her own and a blank past. And with it, well, we've seen it. Maybe the editors had just read Cobra Space Adventures and were fully into "Hey, if your love interest dies, an identical woman that also just instantly loves you shows up in five minutes, it's great!"
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May 1, 2024 00:50
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Well they couldn't have read Cobra in English at the time I don't think, but a cool thought! I do dig the anime, and I got his other manga titles when they released them in the 2000s here.
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May 1, 2024 03:03
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Saoshyant posted:I don't think that's ever been canon. Madelyne was retconed from being a normal human into being a Jean clone created by Sinister to sire a powerful mutant. When she died, her memories moved back to Jean through Phoenix bullshit (or whatever), so Jean could remember (and actually play the role of) being Nathan's mom and it wasn't going to be as awkwaaaaard (it still was, honestly). It's so gross that they thought that Jean couldn't possibly love a baby if she didn't have memories of birthing it.
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May 1, 2024 03:35
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Rick posted:It's so gross that they thought that Jean couldn't possibly love a baby if she didn't have memories of birthing it.
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May 1, 2024 04:31
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So something I've been wondering - you know how there are histories of superhero costumes? Is there a history of Xavier's wheelchair? Has he gone through multiple ones or has he always had the goofy yellow hoverchair like I've seen in some comics and he always had in 90s TAS? NikkolasKing fucked around with this message at 10:16 on May 1, 2024 |
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May 1, 2024 09:53
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It varies but since getting his big titty shiar girlfriend he's eventually gone all hoversled.
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May 1, 2024 10:13
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Then he got working legs again and ditched the chair entirely.
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May 1, 2024 18:19
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NikkolasKing posted:So something I've been wondering - you know how there are histories of superhero costumes? Is there a history of Xavier's wheelchair? Has he gone through multiple ones or has he always had the goofy yellow hoverchair like I've seen in some comics and he always had in 90s TAS? It was a normal wheelchair until he regained the use of his legs in the '80s. Then he got the hoverchair in 1991, which I always chalked up to how Forge was working out of the mansion at the time, and it's become a fairly standard part of his kit ever since.
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May 1, 2024 19:51
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Saoshyant posted:Meanwhile, Chris Claremont keeps yelling at clouds, pissed off newer creators like Mike Carey, Hickman, or Gillen are mishandling "his" characters. From what I heard by all account he doesn't really keep up with X-men unless it interests him. I've heard he liked Tini Howard's stuff. Of course I'd also be annoyed if I was asked every 5 minutes my opinion on literally every X-men happening. He gives me big Harrison Ford vibes.
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May 1, 2024 21:34
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Fishylungs posted:From what I heard by all account he doesn't really keep up with X-men unless it interests him. I've heard he liked Tini Howard's stuff. If I remember correctly, Claremont said on the Jay & Miles podcast that he doesn't follow modern X-stuff, because he knows he'd either hate it or be intensely jealous of it.
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May 1, 2024 21:41
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I enjoyed Ms. Marvel karate chopping MODOK.
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May 1, 2024 21:50
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Wanderer posted:If I remember correctly, Claremont said on the Jay & Miles podcast that he doesn't follow modern X-stuff, because he knows he'd either hate it or be intensely jealous of it. there was a con appearance a while back which was basically just him giving out non-stop about how much he hates about the Krakoa era just from things he's heard so yeah
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May 2, 2024 06:51
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That sorta sucks for all the people who worked on the Krakoa era, since I'm guessing most of them are huge fans of Claremont's run on Uncanny, but also makes complete sense.
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May 2, 2024 07:07
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Air Skwirl posted:That sorta sucks for all the people who worked on the Krakoa era, since I'm guessing most of them are huge fans of Claremont's run on Uncanny, but also makes complete sense. It totally sucks. You read Resurrection of Magneto and it's a very obvious massive love letter from Al Ewing to Chris Claremont's version of Storm and Magneto. But it's not his work, so he hates it and won't even read it. And that baffles me. Wearing these metaphorical blinds that get Claremont to believe nothing else is good and only he knows what's best. Funny enough, as I mentioned a couple days ago when Byrne came up, Byrne also wears these blinds and he is waaaay more publicly loud about it to the point of writing X-Men fanfiction just so people know how good his version is. Claremont at least just ignores it all and writes whatever side story he wants occasionally, either in non-canon universes or straight up in the past as extra lore.
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May 2, 2024 10:28
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It was his playground for decades now he's mad he's grown up and new kids are in it.
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May 2, 2024 11:47
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To be fair to Claremont; he did in many ways - along with Simonson - create the greater X-Men. By and large nearly every single X-Men depiction since his run has been either using his version of the characters, or directly responding to them. On top of that he had an unprecedentedly long run on the books, and got forced out in favor of people who did do a bad job of handling the characters and then ended up bailing on the company, anyway. Like yeah, he's a grumpy old man a bit and it's been decades, but I can see where he's coming from for sure.
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May 2, 2024 13:04
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Luchacabra posted:Going back to the Jean Grey/Madelyne Pryor thing, did anyone at Marvel ever talk about resolving the issue with Madelyne actually being the real Jean? The whole Madelyn thing is just so weird because Claremont insists she was always meant to be just a regular woman. And sure, the stories he wrote support that - there's a whole arc where Mastermind makes Cyclops think she's the Phoenix reborn, and it ends with him accepting that he needs to see her as her own person, not just a replacement for Jean. But at the same time, there were so many coincidences set up that it feels like it'd be absurd if none of them went anywhere and they were just all red herrings. Surely he didn't think it was good storytelling to establish that she had memories of nearly dying at the very moment Jean died on the moon, weird gaps in her memory, looked enough like Jean that other characters regularly mistook her, and then reveal none of it was actually important? I'm sure he had some other story in mind, but because he so publicly critised the whole Jean retcon he doesn't want to admit he was ever planning anything even vaguely similar.
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May 2, 2024 14:28
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It was just Claremont's way of explaining Scott's redhead kink in a comics code approved way.
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May 2, 2024 17:08
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Wanderer posted:If I remember correctly, Claremont said on the Jay & Miles podcast that he doesn't follow modern X-stuff, because he knows he'd either hate it or be intensely jealous of it. honestly i respect this
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May 2, 2024 20:43
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Angry Salami posted:The whole Madelyn thing is just so weird because Claremont insists she was always meant to be just a regular woman. And sure, the stories he wrote support that - there's a whole arc where Mastermind makes Cyclops think she's the Phoenix reborn, and it ends with him accepting that he needs to see her as her own person, not just a replacement for Jean. I think, were it not for all that, some of not all of those coincidences would've been explained as the same Jason Wyngarde mindfuck that culminated in UMX #174, where the whole team gets manipulated into nearly killing Cyclops. This far after the fact, it's easy to forget that most of those parallels are from that specific storyline, where it comes off like Wyngarde is using someone who happens to resemble Jean to twist the knife in the X-Men. It just happens that Scott's relationship with Maddie survives the attempt. Then, a few years later, the whole Jean Grey thing spins up, so Claremont and Louise Simonson hemstitch it all together to make something cohesive out of the mess they've been left with.
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May 3, 2024 00:09
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