Jim Shooter
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| Jim Shooter | |
 Shooter (left) and Steve Englehart at Comic-Con |
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| Born | September 27, 1951 Pittsburgh |
| Nationality | American |
| Area(s) | Writer, Penciller, Editor, Publisher |
| Notable works | Legion of Super-Heroes Marvel Comics Valiant Comics Defiant Comics Broadway Comics |
Jim Shooter (born September 27, 1951 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) is an American writer, occasional fill-in artist, editor, and publisher for various comic books. He has a son named Benjamin and he stands 6'6".
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[edit] DC Comics
Jim Shooter grew up in a family that suffered severe financial hardship when he was young. In order to help with his family's finances, he began sending story ideas to DC Comics in the hopes of being hired as a comic book writer. At the relatively young age of 14, Shooter began selling stories to DC Comics for Adventure Comics, beginning with Adventure Comics #346 (July 1966), for which he provided not only writing but pencil breakdowns as well. Shooter created characters for Legion of Super-Heroes including Karate Kid, a teenage superhero who predated the martial arts fad of the 1970s; Ferro Lad, a teenage superhero who can transform to living iron; and Princess Projectra, who could cast realistic illusions.
Rather than submitting a standard script, Shooter's early method was to actually draw out entire stories in art breakdowns, and then add the dialog. LSH artist Curt Swan was so impressed with Shooter's sense of artistic layout and design he would often copy from the youngster's sketches. Many artists have since followed his lead. As Shooter began to take on additional writing assignments for Captain Action and other DC books, he began writing his stories as scripts, which was the preferred style at the company.
After his Legion series ended its run in Adventure Comics, Shooter had intended to retire from the comic book industry, as he had concurrently graduated from high school. The Legion of Super-Heroes stories had been relegated to the pages of Action Comics as a smaller back-up series in the late 1960s. However, Shooter but was coaxed out of retirement by members of Legion fandom several years later. He undertook a second run writing the Legion in the mid-1970s (now in their own book, Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes), but frequent creative conflicts with editor Murray Boltinoff eventually led Shooter to look elsewhere within the business.
[edit] Marvel Comics
In the mid-70s, Marvel Comics was undergoing a series of changes in the position of Editor-in-Chief. After Roy Thomas retired from the post in order to focus on writing, a succession of other editors, including Gerry Conway, Len Wein, Marv Wolfman and Archie Goodwin, took the job during a relatively short span of time, only to find the task too daunting as Marvel continued to grow and add new titles and a larger staff to turn out material. Shooter joined the Marvel staff as an assistant editor and writer, being most remembered for the Korvac Saga in Avengers. With the quick turnover at the top, he rapidly found himself rising in the ranks.
Shooter succeeded Archie Goodwin to become the ninth editor-in-chief of Marvel from 1978 to 1987. Shooter was made editor-in-chief over more established personnel at Marvel, and, during his tenure, certain long-time key staff defected to DC. Although there were complaints among some that he imposed a dictatorial style on the "Bullpen," he successfully managed to keep the line of books on schedule, add new titles, and develop new talent. During this period, publisher Stan Lee relocated to Los Angeles to better oversee Marvel's animation, television and film projects, leaving Shooter largely in charge of the creative decision making at Marvel's New York City headquarters.
Marvel enjoyed some of its best successes during Shooter's tenure as editor-in-chief, most notably Chris Claremont and John Byrne's Uncanny X-Men and Frank Miller's Daredevil. Although Claremont had been writing Uncanny X-Men for years before Shooter became editor, it reached the heights of popularity during his tenure; Miller's work on Daredevil was his first major industry assignment. Shooter believed that every title, no matter how unpopular, deserved a chance to succeed. Some have maintained that he abandoned a long-time Marvel Comics policy allocating the best writers to the best-selling titles; however, the notion of "best" is subjective, and his introduction of royalties had the opposite effect, encouraging star writers to stick with the better-selling titles. During the peak years under Shooter's editorial leadership, Marvel routinely captured nearly three-quarters of sales in the marketplace.
Shooter also helped revitalize Marvel's two flagship titles when John Byrne took over The Fantastic Four as writer/artist, and Roger Stern and John Romita, Jr. became the most prominent creative team on The Amazing Spider-Man. He pioneered a series of innovations in the American comics industry with toy tie-ins such as Shogun Warriors, Rom the Spaceknight, GI Joe, Transformers, and the mini-series and graphic novel formats.
In 1981, Shooter brought Marvel into the lucrative comic book specialty shop market with Dazzler #1 - featuring a disco-themed heroine with ties to the X-Men (based upon an unproduced motion picture set to star Bo Derek), this series was sold only through the speciality stores, bypassing the then-standard newsstand/spin rack distribution route altogether - this was the first direct sales only ongoing series from a major publisher; other titles following this lead, such as Marvel Fanfare and Ka-Zar, soon followed. Also under Shooter's editorial reign, Walt Simonson revamped The Mighty Thor and made it again a bestseller.
[edit] Valiant Comics
After leaving Marvel, Shooter fronted an effort to purchase the floundering publisher from its corporate ownership, losing out at the last minute to Ronald Perelman's slightly higher bid. He then founded a new company, Voyager Communications, which published comics under the Valiant Comics banner. Shooter brought many of Marvel's big name creators with him, including Bob Layton and Barry Windsor-Smith.
Valiant entered the market in the 1990s, selling more than 80 million books in its first five years. Its characters have seen print in numerous languages across the globe and have been featured in best-selling video games. With the new company enjoying great success in the direct market, Shooter was ousted in a corporate dispute that was sparked when his partners expressed their desire to sell the company. There was also a dispute about the number of titles Valiant should publish. Shooter felt that he couldn't control the quality of more than ten titles at a time, since he insisted on personally editing each title, while his partners believed that more titles would bring in additional profit. In June 1994, Valiant was sold to then-video game giant Acclaim Entertainment for $65 million. Upon this acquisition, Valiant's name was changed to Acclaim Comics.
At the time, all comic book publishers were suffering decreased sales as the comics market contracted, and Valiant/Acclaim Comics was no exception. Sales continued to drop despite the success of video game titles based on Valiant characters, such as Turok and Shadowman. Acclaim soon lost its sports licenses and suffered from under-performing sales of the new titles they introduced, such as BMX XXX, which served to drive profits down further.
In 1999, Acclaim ceased all publication of its comics titles and filed for bankruptcy in 2004. In 2005, after a series of rights auctions and legal battles, Valiant Entertainment was recognized as the legal owner of the Valiant characters, although it is not apparent what part, if any, Jim Shooter has in the current company.
[edit] Other companies: Defiant Comics & Broadway Comics
Shooter, together with several of his loyalist coworkers, went on to found Defiant Comics. After some initial success with the first title, the new company failed to secure an audience in the increasingly crowded direct sales market and quickly folded thirteen months after its first title appeared, its resources drained in part by a prolonged court battle with Marvel Comics over Defiant's use of a title (Plasm) resembling one used on a title from Marvel's British imprint (Plasmer).
Shooter went on to found Broadway Comics, which was an offshoot of Broadway Video, the production company that produces Saturday Night Live; but this line folded after its parent sold the properties to Golden Books. He then announced his intention to form yet another comic book publisher, Daring Comics, but nothing came of it. He returned to Acclaim for a brief stint in 1999 to write Unity 2000 (an attempt to combine and revitalize the older and newer Valiant universes) but Acclaim folded after the completion of only three of the planned six issues. In August 2000, he became part-owner and creative consultant for the sci-fi firm Phobos Entertainment; however, the website has disappeared since. In a 2004 article that is no longer available on the website Silver Bullet Comic Books, Tim Hartnett interviewed Jim Shooter. In the interview, Jim discussed that his "main occupation is working for a company called TGS, Inc. developing entertainment content for an internet site." TGS, Inc. was acquired by Ascent Media Systems & Technology Services in October 2005 and no longer recognizes TGS, Inc. as a separate entity and does not list employee names on the website.
[edit] Full Circle: Return to DC, Return to the Legion
In September 2007, DC Comics announced that Jim Shooter would be the new writer of the current Legion of Super-Heroes (Vol. 5) series, beginning with issue #37, following the departure of writer Mark Waid who had left the series in mid-2007 with issue #30. Shooter's return to the Legion, a little over 30 years from his previous run, will be his first major published comic book work in years.
[edit] Criticism
Shooter was criticized for radical reworkings of several iconic Marvel heroes, including temporarily replacing Captain America, Iron Man and Thor with new men behind the masks and changing Spider-Man's familiar red-and-blue costume to a black-and-white suit.
Shooter angered and alienated a number of creators by insisting on strong editorial control and strict adherence to deadlines. Despite his success in revitalizing Marvel, instituting an art return program, and his implementation of a policy which gave creators royalties when their books passed certain sales benchmarks, and when characters they worked on were licensed as toys, Shooter still found himself in near-constant conflict with many of Marvel's top writers and artists. This led to many, including Steve Gerber, Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, John Byrne, Frank Miller, Doug Moench, and other Marvel mainstays, leaving to work for DC or other companies. Shooter also failed to attract much new talent from the United Kingdom (as DC managed to do, resulting in considerable success and critical acclaim). Shooter's opposition to dropping the Comics Code cast Marvel as a conservative force in a rapidly changing comics industry.
Shooter declared that there were to be no gay heroes in the Marvel Universe.[citation needed] At that time, the Comics Code Authority prohibited direct references to homosexuality, but some creators had hinted at it in a veiled manner, notably John Byrne's depiction of Northstar in early issues of Alpha Flight. A story Shooter wrote for The Rampaging Hulk magazine (which was not submitted to the Comics Code Authority for approval) portrayed a violent, ugly side to gay life, depicting an attempted rape of Bruce Banner in the shower of a YMCA.
Shooter himself scripted the 12-part limited series Secret Wars which set records at the time for comic book sales. Secret Wars was criticized by some as an over-hyped series that served no purpose other than to bring together all the company's major characters for no good reason, and also simply to promote a new line of Marvel action figures, but was praised by others as having well earned its place atop the charts.
Shooter was often blamed by the comics fan press for corporate decisions his position required him to defend, most notably with respect to Marvel's long-running disputes with Jack Kirby over creator's rights and the return of the latter's original artwork from 1960s comics. Though Shooter had always wanted to return Kirby's artwork[citation needed], Marvel was at the time going through protracted litigation in which Kirby was seeking retroactive title and compensation for work and characters he'd created under work-for-hire. Company owners felt that a return of artwork at this time would be a de facto admission that the characters/work belonged to Kirby, and so employees were instructed not to return Kirby's artwork. As the public face of Marvel at the time, Shooter took much of criticism for this company mandate.
Efforts to tap into the young children's market with the Star Comics imprint failed[citation needed]. The New Universe, a Shooter idea to jump-start a new line of heroes, separate from the mainstream Marvel continuity, also failed when company executives, at the time in the process of selling the company, significantly reduced funding for new projects, thus Shooter was unable to attract and pay top talent. With chief competitor DC creatively and commercially resurgent with Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and Watchmen, the Crisis on Infinite Earths limited series, and Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns, Marvel's image began to suffer.
In the midst of sales stagnation, his relationships with company executives as well as with the free-lance writers and artists on whom the company depended deteriorated. Shooter's image also suffered from a rather bitter and petulant testimony against the Comics Journal in a lawsuit trial brought by writer Michael Fleisher. With ownership of Marvel changing hands, it was believed that Shooter's tenure at the company would cease. To those within the industry, his subsequent termination did not come as a surprise, and initially, the reaction from the community was overwhelmingly positive. His successor was Tom DeFalco.
However, in recent years, Shooter has granted several lengthy interviews about the inner workings of the company which he was not permitted to do while an employee there. Given the amount of time that has passed since the end of his tenure with Marvel Comics, his negative reputation has been significantly reduced.
Shooter was also viewed as being too controlling, as during his tenure at Valiant Comics, he felt the need to edit every comic book produced by the line. His partners in the company felt that expanding the line would have profitable for all, but Shooter was unwilling to yield any of his editing duties in order for this to happen.
[edit] References in comic books
In Legends #5 (March 1987), Guy Gardner easily defeats Sunspot, an egotistical supervillain who resembles Jim Shooter, who has attained 'the ultimate power', personified in a glowing red circle on his left hand (an obvious reference to Star Brand[citation needed]) who wished to create a "new universe".
In Marvel's G.I. Joe #1 (1982), a computer screen identifies the original thirteen Joes, plus a character named Shooter with his image replaced by a question mark. Hama has stated that this was a reference to Jim Shooter, Editor-in-Chief of the series. In 2006, in G.I. Joe: Declassified, Hama made the secret Joe member an African-American female by the name of Sgt. Craig, who works behind the scenes and sacrifices herself for the sake of a mission.
John Byrne declared that it was decided to destroy Pittsburgh in The Pitt just because it's the city where Shooter was born.
[edit] External links
- An interview with Jim Shooter
- Evaluation of Shooter's tenure by former Marvel editor James Owsley / Christopher Priest
- Harbinger: The Beginning article at Variety Online
- Harbinger: The Beginning Press Release at Newsarama
- The Ten Most Important Comic Books of the 1990s (Harbinger by Jim Shooter is ranked #1)
| Preceded by Archie Goodwin |
Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief 1978–1987 |
Succeeded by Tom DeFalco |
| Preceded by Gerry Conway |
Avengers writer 1977–1978 |
Succeeded by Tom DeFalco |
| Preceded by Marv Wolfman |
Daredevil writer 1977–1978 (with Gerry Conway in early 1977) |
Succeeded by Roger McKenzie |
| Preceded by Bob Budiansky & Danny Fingeroth |
Avengers writer 1981–1982 |
Succeeded by Steven Grant |
| Preceded by Frank Springer |
Dazzler writer 1984 |
Succeeded by Mike Carlin |
