Jim Shooter, who died yesterday at age 73, was undeniably one of the most important figures in modern comics history. His run as Marvel editor in chief saw some of its greatest innovations – and greatest controversies. His rules for making comics were strict and sometimes arbitrary – but he also brought on people like Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz and oversaw the Claremont/Byrne X-Men, Simonson’s Thor, the first superhero graphic novels (Marvel Super Special’s like The Death of Captain Marvel) and a lot more. And of course, Secret Wars. He made a lot of great comics.
Shooter was just about my favorite superhero writer as a kid. He had a knack for characterization that was definitely shorthand (catchphrases and character quirks) but also kept the interpersonal drama bubbling under as a soap opera that a teenager could love. He and George Perez started something that was to be the Ultron Saga – a 12 issue run in the Avengers involving Wonder Man, Jocasta and the rest. It was doubtless the awesome Perez art that kept me locked into this, but Shooter’s plotting and dialog captured me – I must have reread those issues a dozen times. Apparently, there were deadline problems, and Perez didn’t finish the run, and the story didn’t end as well as it began – one of my first big disappointments as a comics reader. But man, the beginning was great.
As I was breaking into writing about comics into the 80s, Shooter was often more of the villain of the story, at least as the fanzines of the time had it, first for killing off Jean Grey by editorial decree, a story recounted by Shooter himself here. Later there was the controversy over Jack Kirby’s artwork. It was all enough to make him the bad guy in my book. In 1986, I believe, I made a trip to the Marvel offices to visit my friend Peter Sanderson. As I rode up in the elevator I thought to myself, “I hope I don’t run into Jim Shooter.” Of course, when the elevator opened up, there was Shooter himself, getting on as I got off. I must have mumbled hello and felt terrified.
Despite what I must now classify as youthful over-dramatization, Shooter was liked and respected by many as the below memorials will attest. He came back with Valiant Comics, one of the first and most successful character line reboots of the 90s. After that he came back with Defiant Comics, a company whose name was probably a little too on the nose. In the 2000s, Shooter was a constant presence at comic cons, most often found in the hotel bar hanging out and telling stories with all who would listen. He was a guest at last weekend’s Heroes Con. He truly loved comics and comics people until his dying breath.
I never got to know Jim Shooter, but here are some memories of those who did, and some photos that were being shared, starting with this of a very young Jim Shooter. He didn’t change much.
Paul Levitz: This is a hard one to write, and he’d have done it better if allowed by fate to write his own obit. Jim Shooter has apparently passed after a battle with cancer. Jim was a complex man, and our relationship just one of the minor complexities.
As an adolescent, he decided to learn to write comics and draw them, and tactically studied what he thought were the best written comics of the mid-1960s (Marvels, as written mostly by Stan), and targeted his pitch to what he thought was one of the most old-fashioned/weakest comics (DC’s Legion of Super-heroes). Ridiculously, impossibly, the first story he submitted was bought by editor Mort Weisinger, not an editor particularly focused on new talent. And even more incredibly, it was one of the best written comics on the stands that month. And he was 13 when he started this project, 14 when it was published.
I was 9 when I read about that in the Legion’s letters page, and sitting on my porch in Brooklyn, for the first time thought that I might do something writing comics…after all, 14 wasn’t THAT far away. (For the record, I didn’t sell a comics story until I was 17, and that was with the geographic advantage of being a New York kid, not working from Pittsburgh. And if I eventually measured up, it wasn’t until my 20s.)
Jim’s writing progressed, and his Legion was often the best written comic in the DC line, if not mainstream comics. He stopped trying to sketch out his stories, and that sometimes improved the art and sometimes didn’t, depending on who he was teamed with. But like a number of the best writers of my generation, his art skills made him a far better comics writer.
We played poker for years, rose to very different but significant positions in comics. We competed sometimes (didn’t think he could get Marvel’s management to follow our lead and start royalties since it would be much more expensive for them, but he did–and while I regretted DC not getting the advantage for a while, I was glad for our field that he did). We watched each other, learned from each other (I learned a lot that led me never to take an editor-in-chief role from the damage it did to Jim and his approach did to Marvel), occasionally conspired (the rescue of Jack Abel in a time of need), each championed the comic shop market within our companies in very different ways, and our paths crossed and paralelled in strange ways (we each had three distinct runs on Legion). I like to think our respect for each other continued throughout. And many of my best works as a writer were firmly based on characters he created or defined.
Jim was an excellent super hero writer, a character creator, an editor with an eagle eye, and a man who gave his all to what he did. From my perspective, he was far weaker as an enterprise leader, and unfortunately that was what he most wanted to be. His sense of history was not, in my view, as good as his sense of fiction. But what he did well, he did gloriously…and my inner child will always be grateful for his inspiration.
I’m glad we had lunch about a year ago, and shared a stage talking about the direct market at NY Comic Con not long past. And I hope he’s sitting down at a poker table on a cloud with so many of our card-comrades past, dealing out the deck to Denny, Marty, Roger, Jack, Len and the rest.
My condolences to Ben, and to everyone else who loved Jim or counted themselves a friend or collaborator with him. ANd thanks, Jim, for the stories.
Larry Hama: Jim Shooter has returned to the Universe after a grim battle with esophageal cancer. My condolences to his family and close friends. He was a complicated man, though many felt he was divisive. I believe he felt like he was doing the right thing at least. Back in the ‘eighties, I had a young protege of Frank Miller writing and drawing for one of my B&W anthology books. I thought he was brilliant. One Monday he came into the Marvel office with a sheaf of paperwork. He had been on the books for a full year, and thereby qualified to be on the health and insurance plan, so I walked him upstairs where he was informed that yes, he was fully qualified, but they only did the paperwork for the plan on Wednesdays. Tuesday morning, his wife called and informed me that he had a massive heart attack and died. I walked into Jim’s office with the paperwork and explained the situation. Without hesitation, Jim took the paperwork from me and went upstairs to push it through. He said, “They owe it to him, we just won’t mention that he already passed.” I witnessed him doing stuff like that several times. None of it was made public for obvious reasons. It could have cost him his job, but he did the right thing.
Steve Leialoha: I’m sorry to hear that Jim Shooter has passed away after a long illness.
I first met Jim up at Marvel when I started working there in 1975! I think he was an assistant editor at the time. He moved up the chain of command quickly. He was always a controversial figure; some great ideas (instituting royalties!) and others not quite so much (resulting in a mass exodus to DC…).
I always try to get along with those I’m working with which I did on several interesting projects. When trouble inevitably arose, I just tried to keep my head down until the dust cleared. That’s tricky when gravitating towards the tall guys in the room…
The last time I saw him a year ago, he bought me dinner! Thank you, Jim
Nick Barrucci: Jim Shooter passed away. You may have liked him as a person, you may not have. He had a very strong personality. I had good interactions with him. I liked him.
Regardless of how you feel, Jim was a champion of the industry, and we wouldn’t be where we are at today without Jim. He was a great man. He had vision. He strengthened the industry.
God speed Jim. You told some great stories, and your legacy is one that very few could ever hope for. Thank you for having blessed our industry.
Kurt Busiek: RIP Jim Shooter. A complicated legacy, but one filled with a tall, tall stack of good stories.
I only had one significant encounter with Jim Shooter, aside from seeing him in the office a lot. While the X-FACTOR launch crossover was in the works, he called me into his office (I was working as the assistant editor on MARVEL AGE at the time) and told me he’d heard they were using the idea I’d come up with as a fan to resurrect Jean Grey. He said he didn’t believe in comics pros not getting paid for their work, so he arranged for me to be credited in the issue of FANTASTIC FOUR that included my explanation (or a version thereof), and paid me for two issues of plot at John Byrne’s page rate. This was very, very welcome, since being assistant editor on MARVEL AGE did not pay well enough to live on in the NYC area.
I’m also told he had me (and Ernie Chan) fired from POWER MAN & IRON FIST, since the sales were flat, but I never had that confirmed, so I don’t know if that was the truth or something Denny used to avoid a conflict; Denny was known to blame things on Jim that Jim never had a part in. So who knows?
Other than that, I went by the Marvel offices when I was still in college, just to look at it, and when I was about to head in to the lobby through the revolving doors, he came out and almost bowled me over. And later, one time I was helping a friend of a friend move, we got to the apartment and he almost bowled me over again, coming down the stairs with an entire bureau on his back.
Oh, and after ASTRO CITY went on hiatus after the first 6 issues at Image, he was one of the publishers who offered to pick it up, though we wound up going with Wildstorm.
He was always a pleasant to interact with on a personal level, but I never worked for him directly, and I know that could be a very different experience.
I loved a lot of his writing, including his run on DAREDEVIL, first run on AVENGERS and of course the immortal WHAT IF 3.
He made a major impact on the comics industry, directly or indirectly shaping both Marvel and DC in the 1980s, and the echoes of his presence will be felt for a long, long time.
Danny Fingeroth: From Man-Thing v2, #11, 1981 (Claremont/Mayerik/Wiacek)…
Erik Larsen:
Well, shit–we just lost another one. Jim Shooter just passed away. He was 73.
Jim was the editor-in-chief at Marvel when I was an aspiring artist. I sent him samples, which he politely rejected again and again. Eventually, I got in somewhere and started figuring stuff out. Jim gave me my first Marvel gig–a fill-in on the Mighty Thor. The two of us hammered out a plot in the hotel bar during a Chicago Comic Con. He had his favorite writer script the story and his favorite inker ink the story and that’s how I ended up subbing for Jack Kirby in that classic creative team. It would be the last issue Stan Lee and Vinnie Colletta ever worked on.
Jim was much loved and much loathed. He had very specific ideas of how things should be done and drove creators away from the company at times. He had his list of rules and woe be it to anybody who crossed him. But his reign didn’t last forever and eventually Marvel kicked him to the curb.
Jim licked his wounds and went on to form rival Valiant Comics, until, again, he was shown the door.
After that it was the short-lived Defiant Comics.
I’m sure many people will go on and talk about his many virtues and talents. I just worked with him the one time so I don’t have many stories to tell. I just have the one book where I subbed for Jack in that classic Thor creative team and had my name misspelled.
Walt Simonson: As everybody knows by now, Jim Shooter, former editor-in-chief of Marvel back from the late 70s into the middle 80s, has caught the last train out. He was a lot more than the EIC there, of course, but his bio is all over the web already. He was complex, as has also been said already, and there are a million stories. I’ll leave it for historians to sum up, but Weezie and I always found a core within Jim that we liked. So I’ll add two short comments as footnotes to his history. The first is this:
In June, 1980, Weezie and I were about to get married. I headed down to Maryland a day ahead of the wedding where my folks lived to take care of last minute arrangements for the ceremony. Weezie stayed behind in the Marvel offices working on the adaptation of the movie, Xanadu, that HAD to get to the printer ASAP! I made her promise to catch the train, and then pulled Jim aside and told him to be sure she got out of the offices in time to get to Maryland. He agreed. When the time came, the book hadn’t gone to the printer yet, Weezie was still working furiously on it, and Jim went into her office to tell her to hit the road. Weezie, without breaking stride, barked at him to get out of her office because she still had work to do and she wasn’t leaving till it was done! Jim was 6’7” or whatever but he wisely beat a hasty retreat. Fortunately, the book went out in time and Weezie made it to the church just as the wedding rehearsal was getting started. Literally. And Jim gave us a really nice flashlight as a wedding gift so we could find our way in the dark. We still have it. Still works.
The other footnote is mine. When old Marvel was at 387 Park Ave. S., Jim’s office was adjacent to Anne Nocenti’s. Baseboard heating ran through Jim’s office into Anne’s. Consequently, some of the conversations in Jim’s office could be heard in Anne’s. I don’t remember who told me but it was reported that once my name came up and Jim was overheard to say, “Simonson. Another big gun who can’t be aimed.” I loved it. I’ll be using that as my epitaph. LOL.
We’re saddened by your departure but glad you’re free from pain, Jim. Godspeed.
Fred Hembeck: I owe an awful lot to Jim Shooter. When things weren’t working out with his first choice to write the Fantastic Four Roast, he called and asked me to helm the book. Since that worked out nicely, we wound up doing a second project, Fred Hembeck Destroys the Marvel Universe. The real bad guy in that book was supposed to be Jim himself, but he pointed out that the Marvel bigwigs wouldn’t take kindly to seeing his name in the title, so he suggested I instead take the credit–and the logo. Well, I didn’t fight him very hard, and here I am, decades later, one of very few cartoonists with their actual name part of an actual Marvel Comic. Jim did that. And when he edited the Roast, he changed the dialog in one panel depicting Nova simply because changes to the character had been made that I was unaware of while working on it. That was it. As for the FH Destroys the MU, well, my favorite part of what was originally a 48 page book was a lengthy framing sequence starring Jim (as Marvel’s Editor-In-Chief) and his three assistants, Bruce, Clark, and Diana. However, the book was delayed just long enough (my fault) to miss out on being published before Marvel let him go. It eventually came out in a truncated 32 page version with nary a cartoon Shooter in sight, which was a shame. Those pages–fully completed–are posted on my inert but still existent web-site. During the early eighties, I ran into Jim often as mutual guests at various comic-cons, but after leaving Marvel, I believe I only ever saw him once at a show. He was always friendly, and the two times we worked together, he couldn’t have been nicer. I’m very sorry to learn of his passing. Thanks, Jim–you made me a star!http://www.hembeck.com/Destruction/Beginning/Page1.htm
Bob Hall: Just heard that Jim Shooter passed. He’d been in a lot of pain and I suspect he may have been ready. I hope so.
He was ten years younger than me when he took the reins of Marvel and I’ll confess that I was scared of him. I was just starting and felt I knew nothing. Jim was a remarkably tall kid who seemed to know everything. As the years went by we became friends. He was good to me. I was shy about whatever talent I may have had and Jim always seemed to like me – or my work or whatever. Any way he kept me in work for a long time. I remember once when I was in the office he asked what I was getting paid. After I told him, he announced to the room: “Just look at this guy. He does great work, he’s older than dirt and we’re paying him shit!” He seldom did things half way. He was on the board if a little Off- Off Broadway theatre company we had and later, at Valiant he convinced me I could write and offered me Shadowman, and that changed my life. Lately we hung around any number of comic cons, sometimes arguing over which of us was right about how Yellow Jacket slapping the Wasp was supposed to have gone but mainly telling each other stories, most of them true and closing bars in towns small and large all over the country. I will leave it to others to talk about the influence he had on the world of comics. I just want to say that he was my friend and I’ll miss him.
Kelley Jones: Jim Shooter has passed away.
When I got hired to draw comics for Marvel Comics many years ago Jim Shooter flew out to do several signings in my area and asked if I’d come and meet him, which I did with great trepidation because he was the boss of bosses and I was just starting out. When he finished a signing he asked if I’d like to go out for a meal anywhere I wanted and we could talk about making comic art professionally. I told him let’s go to McDonalds.
We talked for hours and a lot about Jack Kirby.
When it was over he asked why did I want to eat at McDonalds of all places. I told him very earnestly that I didn’t want Marvel to pay for an expensive meal as I was a nobody.
He laughed his ass off and hugged me saying I was Marvel material!!
He was always very kind to me all the years after.
God bless him.
Brent Anderson: When I politely and calmly expressed a contrasting view of Marvel’s art production policies, Jim Shooter responded “You’re a class act, that’s why we pay you the big bucks.”
Jim was a mixed bag that often didn’t mix well with others, but he always treated me with respect and cordiality. I believe he truly valued my friendship. He invited me to special Marvel dinners and lunches, movie previews, plotting sessions for books I was involved with or books he wanted me involved with, and to play volleyball in Central Park on Sundays.
Jim wasn’t happy when I left Marvel following Bruce Jones and April Campbell to San Diego, Pacific Comics and Somerset Holmes, but he respected my choice and lauded the work I did there and since. Jim Shooter was there for me in the very beginning when I needed a kind word, a bit of helpful advice, or a reality check when I was naive or callow.
I owe Jim a lot, and am glad for the opportunity to publicly express this in his memory.
Jim Lee: RIP Jim Shooter. A towering figure in comics-literally and creatively-who helped shape the modern Marvel Universe. As Editor-in-Chief in the late ’70s and ’80s, he raised storytelling standards, instituted fill in issues to keep the books out on time, and oversaw iconic runs like Claremont & Byrne’s X-Men, Simonson’s Thor, Miller’s Daredevil, and events like Secret Wars (my understanding was that he was, in fact, the Beyonder). A pretty damn magical time if you were a fan like me.
Later, after I broke into comics in 1987-l’ll never forget the first time I was brought into the Marvel offices. Jim gave me a 15-minute crash course in storytelling (which he apparently did for all new pros getting hired at the House of Ideas); it was as informative as it was succinct-absolutely masterful.
And long, long before that, I grew up reading that he had sold a Legion of Super-Heroes script to DC at just 13 years old.
That one fact gave me eternal (and probably overly optimistic) hope. Thank you, Jim, for that bit of kindling and of a lifetime of memories
Joe Illidge: A gentleman of comics has informed many of us that Jim Shooter has passed on, and comics is much lesser for it.
I knew Jim as his Valiant Comics, then later his Defiant Comics, operated during the same timeline as my time in Milestone, and the two groups intersected in various ways.
I reconnected with Jim in the early second decade of this century, and we had some good talks in which I always gained some kind of wisdom.
We know he changed comics and pop culture forever. We know he set a standard for story and rules that gained him respect and enemies at the same time, and with all that he was a man who in his career and life exemplified the words of the companies he worked for and built.
He was a marvel.
He was valiant.
He was defiant.
He was a meat and potatoes guy who decided that a beloved superhero had to die because you can’t kill a planet of 8 billion inhabitants and just go off into the sunset.
Sorry to see him go. Glad he’s no longer in pain.
Fabian Nicieza: Having heard the news about Jim Shooter’s passing, I wish peace to a man who rarely seemed at peace.
First as a reader and then as a professional, he was instrumental in my having a writing career and I thank him for that.
I had nothing but spirited and positive interactions with Jim personally, both at Marvel and since then, but I also saw for myself and know firsthand from others who did not, so even in that I thank him for showing me multiple aspects of how office interactions work.
Though he was certainly complicated, I strongly believe Marvel, the direct market, and possibly the industry itself, might not exist today without what Jim Shooter did as EiC.
The comic that broke my heart
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