JIM SHOOTER: THE ICON THAT COULD HAVE BEEN

[Old Fart]

Originally Posted by The Hedge

Oh, and all of 'em had the best EiC in the history of Marvel, Jim Shooter! Now we have someone that in my opinion is the second best, but we had to wait 15 years for Joe Quesada.

I certainly have to agree, Shooter was certainly one of the best, probably second behind JQ

I certainly remember the chaos of missed deadlines and fill in stories, including some reprints. He made Marvel a much tighter ship and far more professional. His editing skills also helped with the improvement in scripting that Marvel needed. His tenure coincided with a radical improvement and the above titles quoted by The Hedge were highlights that I don't believe have been matched in the time since. It is to his credit that Marvel was still around for JQ to rescue from bankruptcy.


I also enjoyed with varying degrees his other ventures in comic publishing. I only wish that Icon had come to pass as I'd have been there to buy them. I think it a great pity that slurs and small minded thinking from such as JB have stopped him getting any writing gigs in recent years.

Best of luck Jim.

[Quato]

As one of the few people who ever saw a Daring Comics press pack, I'm a bit shocked this project was going to leave out the ideas he had for that line of comics.

I knew that Shooter and Rosenberg had been in communication, but I didn't know Adam Post was also involved. It's an interesting article since I host a web based checklist for Defiant, Broadway, Triumphant and Malibu comics at the time. I personally can't stand Malibu Comics but I offered a checklist for fans because I like the information being out there and people were digging up some cool info.

I guess I'm just indifferent to the concept. I like the idea of Jim Shooter returning, but he can't do it alone. I'm skeptical that Post and Rosenberg would give Jim the carte blanche he needs to do it right.

Jim writes epics, he doesn't write stories. They take about a year to properly evolve. Younger generations would would have to be taught to be patient because the payoff is indeed worth the wait. Unfortunately, most new readers pick up a Shooter story and think he's going to magically reveal the larger story in one issue.

Take the Dogs of War series for example. Jim plotted issue #1 and #8. The writer, Art Holcomb just had to get the reader to issue #8. He did a great job, but sales were dropping so fast that readers never really got the greater story that Jim had plotted. The line of comics ended before the story was finished. The same is true for Broadway. So what happens when Jim gets his epic story out? You get a publisher like Valiant that shook the whole industry and challenged the big two.

I'd support this line if it ever came out. I just think the industry needs to get healthier and sell more comics before these guys come in with their product. Diamond needs a competitor first. That may never happen,

Q

[Xero]

Originally Posted by RichJohnston

Jim Shooter will be working on a Legion project at DC next year.

Good because I've missed his stuff, the Broadway books were the last things I remember him writing or editing and they were excellent.

[vbartilucci]

Taken from my own fanzine, "One Thin Dime an' Two Thick Pennies, appearing in THWACK! the Comics APA.

VB: Some people are getting some varied opinions of Ken. Considering that John Byrne claims that you told him, to his face, "There are no homosexuals in the Marvel Universe", there are people surprised that you created this character at all.

JS I never Told John that. I don't know what he's talking about.,

Okay, it's like this. As far as gay characters in the Marvel Universe, I was once interviewed by one of the local gay newspapers. The story the guy was intending to write was, "Marvel discriminates against gays". He sat down and started asking me about my anti-gay stance. And I said that's ridiculous, we don't have an anti-gay stance. We don't show a lot of heterosexual sex in the comics, why would we show any homosexual sexuality? And he said, "Why aren't there any Marvel Superheroes who are gay?" I said there were lots of them. He asked which ones, and I said, "You can't tell, can you?" And it was like a trial, he said "no further questions," and he left.
The point was, we weren't out to do gay comics. And whether or not a character was gay or not was incidental to the action that it was not what we were focusing on. I imagine that there's some evidence that some of the heroes aren't gay. Or at least aren't public about it. It wasn't that there were no gay characters, not that the subject was taboo, the thing was that I didn't want to do morality plays. I didn't want to do propaganda. I used to just tell guys, if you do a good story, and inherent in that story is any point about the human condition, that's good. That's called "Content", I like it. But if you set out to do a story that's really about your political point of view, I don't want it. Bill Mantlo did a story that was totally propaganda. Anti-NRA, pro-gun control story, that's what the story was about. It wasn't about the hero, it wasn't about what was happening to the character, it was him moving characters around like chess pieces to prove his point about gun control. Now, my position on gun control is nobody's business, and was completely irrelevant to that comic book. And I would have had the same opinion if Larry Hama (who happens to have an opposite opinion on gun control as Bill) had done an "everyone oughta have a handgun" morality play. And in truth, I found that more offensive, to do propaganda for any cause, whether you think it's right or not. Now if he had done a story where one character, or a hundred characters, was pro gun-control, fine. If he decided that Robbie Robertson was anti-handgun, fine; Batman is anti-handgun. But there's a difference between a character having a belief that comes up in the natural course of events and structuring events into a little morality play to proselytizing your political point of view.
If I said anything to John, it was probably along those lines. I don't want you to do a comic about gay issues. If you want to do a comic about Alpha Flight, and somebody in there is gay, I don't care. If you want to do a story where someone being gay is a factor, I don't care. But don't do me a morality play. I also remember objecting to the idea that you have ONE gay character, in all your books, the only one you declare is gay...and you have him get AIDS. I found that to look like we were sending a message. And we're not. The position of Marvel Comics...is no position, on the topic. The position is to tell good stories, and in them to have whatever comments about the human position that arise. Not to set up a gay character and then knock him off in a way that looks like you're trying to send a message.
In short, I strongly object to dreck, I strenuously object to assholery, to things that are against or irrelevant to what we're trying to do. And what we're trying to do is entertain. And to me the best entertainment is the kind that has content. So I'm all in favor of touching every issue you want to touch, but not in favor of this trash propaganda. I'll stand by all the things I've ever written, I've ever said. And if I'm misunderstood, and lied about, well, that's not news to me. That happens a lot.

[idkidd]

As one of the few people who ever saw a Daring Comics press pack, I'm a bit shocked this project was going to leave out the ideas he had for that line of comics.

Was that the post-Broadway company where Jim was going to self publish (I'm thinking I heard of one book with the possible title Anomalies?). How'd you see the press packet and could you give us any details on the contents?

[pop monkey]

Thanks for the informative post, vbartilucci! A refreshing change from the knee-jerk, antagonistic hearsay posts we've seen plenty of here (and by "plenty", I mean at least one).

[hondo]

I read a lot of Shooter-era comics back in the day. There was some of the best stuff Marvel had ever done (Claremont / Byrne / Cockrum / Paul Smith Uncanny X-Men, the original series Moon Knight, Simonson Thor, Byrne's FF) and some real dreck (Dazzler, pre-Byrne She-Hulk, New Defenders, Mark Gruenwald's Captain America).

He was very opinionated but he could usually back up his points. He was supposed to run it like a business and did a pretty good job. Marvel produced Epic Illustrated (sorely missed), the Shadowline imprint (I thought it was great and can't believe Marvel doesn't look to do something with that again as long as they're resurrecting damned near everything else) and the original premise of the New Universe (Marvel's real-world counterpart based on real science and physics).

At the time, he was a Company Man. He was a pitchman, just like Stan before him, and in doing that, you promote Marvel and the house characters, and try not to inflate creators above The Product. In doing so, one of the roles he had to play was to suppress creators' rights as long as he could, because he and Marvel knew how much that was going to cost them. That same thinking is what drove the whole lack of returning Jack the King Kirby's original art back to him.

Many, many top shelf creators refused to work Marvel because of Shooter.

Later, I LOVED his Valiant stuff. I loved it enough to follow him to Defiant and even the subpar production standards of Broadway. I was anxious for Daring and the news of Icon One is bittersweet.

I've always said that Shooter should adopt a pen name and come back into the industry. In fact, about 10 years or so back, Marvel had that Brotherhood title written by "X", and I've always said that it was Shooter. Did we ever find out who that was ?

I would love to see him get together with some people and tackle the Gold Key characters again, or maybe revisit some of his previous characters (I thought Charlemagne was pretty cool and Warriors of Plasm was good too). He was going to partner up with Mile High Owner Chuck Rozanski and put Daring together. What happened there ?

My biggest beef about Shooter is that years later when confronted with some of these controversial items from his past, his history is either horribly revisionist favoring him, or he truly is delusional. I admire the man, but he, like a few other seasoned vets, sometimes take too much credit, like the whole "first American graphic novel" assertation.

All that said, I've heard for about 3 or 4 years now that Shooter's still got an untold LSH story in him, and I hope DC puts it together. Shooter's dialogue is horrible though, not unlike John Byrne's, so hopefully someone else will cover that.

Great article. Thanks 'Rama.

[Heffaloo]

Originally Posted by The Hedge

Someone asked for facts? Ok, under Shooter, in his last years we had:

Denny O'Neil and Dave Mazzucchelli on Daredevil under the guide of Ralph Macchio

Tom DeFalco and Peter David on Spider-Man under his best editor to date, JIm Owsley, someone you now appreciate as Cristopher Priest.

John Byrne on Fantastic Four and Alpha Flight.

Walter Simonson on Thor.

Bil Mantlo, Mike Mignola and an ever evolving sal Buscema on Hulk.

Chris Claremont, John Romita Jr and Bill Sienkiewicz on Uncanny X-Men and New Mutants, someone will not believe it but there was a time when characters were not talking and moving while posing for a picture. Oh, and they had the best editor they could have, Ann Nocenti.

Roger Stern and John Buscema on Avengers guided by the spirit of the Marvel Universe, Mark Gruenwald.

Oh, and all of 'em had the best EiC in the history of Marvel, Jim Shooter! Now we have someone that in my opinion is the second best, but we had to wait 15 years for Joe Quesada.

I was right with you all the way up until the last line.

[Jeremy Williams]

..so anybody knows what happened to the progect and why Jim left?

[steven_eks]

that picture of shooter is downright creepy--like dracula or "the devil"

*shivers* i should lay off the PCP.

eks

[Zugernaut]

Originally Posted by vbartilucci

Taken from my own fanzine, "One Thin Dime an' Two Thick Pennies, appearing in THWACK! the Comics APA.

JS . . . I used to just tell guys, if you do a good story, and inherent in that story is any point about the human condition, that's good. That's called "Content", I like it. But if you set out to do a story that's really about your political point of view, I don't want it. Bill Mantlo did a story that was totally propaganda. Anti-NRA, pro-gun control story, that's what the story was about. It wasn't about the hero, it wasn't about what was happening to the character, it was him moving characters around like chess pieces to prove his point about gun control. Now, my position on gun control is nobody's business, and was completely irrelevant to that comic book. And I would have had the same opinion if Larry Hama (who happens to have an opposite opinion on gun control as Bill) had done an "everyone oughta have a handgun" morality play. And in truth, I found that more offensive, to do propaganda for any cause, whether you think it's right or not. Now if he had done a story where one character, or a hundred characters, was pro gun-control, fine. If he decided that Robbie Robertson was anti-handgun, fine; Batman is anti-handgun. But there's a difference between a character having a belief that comes up in the natural course of events and structuring events into a little morality play to proselytizing your political point of view.

Would that other creators followed this approach. Other creators like, say, Judd Winick.

[vbartilucci]

Originally Posted by Zugernaut

Would that other creators followed this approach. Other creators like, say, Judd Winick.

I wouldn't neccessarily say Judd has been doing morality plays. He did a book that was close to his heart, but that's no sin. He may have a few more gay folks than other books, but there's nothing in Trials of Shazam that I see as terribly preachy.

There's nothing in Trials of Shazam I find terribly entertaining either, but it's not because he's too busy preaching.

And Juniper Lee is quite fun.

[Zugernaut]

Originally Posted by vbartilucci

I wouldn't neccessarily say Judd has been doing morality plays. He did a book that was close to his heart, but that's no sin. He may have a few more gay folks than other books, but there's nothing in Trials of Shazam that I see as terribly preachy.

There's nothing in Trials of Shazam I find terribly entertaining either, but it's not because he's too busy preaching.

And Juniper Lee is quite fun.

You rather conspicuously failed to mention Green Arrow.

[Jon Yeager]

Originally Posted by OM

...Sorry, I'm not paid to be your tutor. Again, you need to do your own research. Ever heard of Google? Try googling for links relating to Jim Shooter, John Byrne, "Death of Phonenix", "X-Men #137", Chris Claremont, Northstar, "No homosexuals in the Marvel Universe", "No gays in the Marvel Universe" "Hulk YMCA", and any other keywords you can think of related to the subject.

I'm not Shooter zombie, but that is the weakest comeback I've ever seen. If you tell another guy he's not allowed to write something because "facts" support a conflicting viewpoint, you'd best be willing to cite the sources of said facts. Otherwise, sit down and be quiet.

The truth of it is, even in the best case scenario, your "facts" would be the result of an internet telephone game. You read about something somewhere that got repeated and repeated and always with a little spice thrown in with every repetition, and you believe it because someone said it. Period.

And if it's on the net, it's got to be true, huh?

Here's another viewpoint to chew on : I'm not even an X-fan, and even I know that The Death of Jean Grey is possibly the greatest and most-remembered event in the history of Marvel Comics. Ahead of Bucky's death. Ahead of Spider-Man's marriage. It even made its way into the movies. The Death of Jean Grey has flat-out *defined* the X-Universe, and was one gigantic step towards cementing that franchise.

And the homosexual ban? Name me a media that didn't have it back in those days. It simply wasn't acceptable to the average person. How do you know Shooter himself wouldn't have been the first to green-light homosexual stories when they finally DID become more acceptable? How do you know Joe Quesada wouldn't have banned them back in the 80's the same way Shooter *allegedly* did? Shooter didn't mind a cigar-toting Wolverine -- while Quesada has a company-wide ban on depictions of smoking in effect. How is that NOT simply the result of the different times they were both in?

Before asking other people to think before they write something that makes them look like idiots, you may want to tone down your own bravado, and spend a little more time thinking yourself.

Jon
PS: Despite this "homosexual ban", I learned that Northstar was gay before I ever saw two women kissing on TV. What is commonplace today simply wasn't back then, and any one of us would have made the same call Shooter allegedly did if we'd had the company's interests ahead of our own leftist agenda.

[dr.no]

vbartilucci, thanks for your post. Very informative.

[Not From Around]

So, when will he get around to doing the next comic about a group of ordinary people who get superpowers and go on the run from somebody?

[vbartilucci]

Originally Posted by Zugernaut

You rather conspicuously failed to mention Green Arrow.

You know, you're right; I honestly forgot he was writing it, which may speak volumes. I'm actually quite enjoying that book. I only started reading it in earnest One Year Later, and I've been quite pleased.

This is an example of a character that has always been a screaming liberal, so if any issues get convered in the book, I don't see the issue. So again, I don't see any blatant preaching getting in the way of storytelling here.

[vbartilucci]

While I was whelmed by Northstar's Coming Out issue, I found it HI-friggin'-larious that when the second printing came out, the cover was altered so the Alpha Flight logo was bright lavender.

[AAB]

Originally Posted by Prometheus3

Moochng off of ROM, Transformers, and GI Joe franchises? How did he mooch? It sounds like it could be the equivalent of Marvel's deal with Halo. These comics are used to get younger kids into comics. Did you even read any of those franchises? Because I have heard great things about ROM and nothing bad about the other two.

And it sounds like Jim Shooter never put quantity over quality, he only wanted comics on time. If you want to wait two years for your issues, fine, but me I like my comics within two months of their scheduled release date.

Marvel published a higher quality hard cover Halo graphic novel of which they also mooched off the crowds who get all geeked over the Halo video game. Just creating a sci-fi gn would not have served the purpose of gaining new readers while mooching off of someone else’s creative ideas in the video game market, i.e. Halo. Kudos for Marvel for pulling it off successfully. Yeah, I enjoyed those comics back then also, but I would not rank them in my top 100.

Heck yeah Shooter put quantity over quality, delivering a book on time or not. Many of these people on this forum are stating how great they think all of his work has been. I would never trade the 2000-2006 years of Marvel for the 1980-1987 years. 'Jim Shooter' was a great writer' -Zippedy-Dooo! He was OK, but whether you like it or not, the cheesy flavored specks still stick to the synthesized crunchy, yet edible, cheese stick. His work had its moments, it was edible, but it was too much junk food comics than actual substantive healthy dosages of graphic stories. He had dead lines and blah ba dee blah, but he and the publishing company of Marvel choose to keep it all simple and Millie-Vanillie'd the character based assets to nothing more than predictable narrow tales. There were some cool ideas with X-Men and Daredevil, but I credit those more with the creative teams that with Shooter. He and Marvel needed to profit and the quality suffered. The ink work on many titles was deteriorating, off the top of my head I recall the art in Web of Spider-Man and New Mutants suffered seriously. He wanted quantity of titles and laid less emphasis about the big picture of developing interrelated stories which reflect the stories consequences on evolving the Marvel Universe landscape. Instead he and Marvel mooched off and helped fan the flames of the speculator bubble with their FIST ISSUE COLLECTORS ITEM! tag on many of their eighties comics. These ploys helped rake in more dough for the company. And why rock the boat trying to develop or advance story telling which may need to surpass the quagmire of the Comics Code when you can keep publishing title after title with the same steriod bloated bodied cheese. Make a West Coast Avengers, make a Secret Wars II (mo' money! mo' money!), the Defenders had no purpose besides being something more to publish, add more Spidey titles. Marvel is a publishing company and not in the business to 'advance' sequential story telling. They were out to make money by publishing Charmed mass produced work. Simonson on Thor was awesome -and Byrne was really good, especially if you like art work that has every one look structurally the same, but his sci-fi stuff was definitely great; Shooter did not write FF nor Thor though. As the comic book market grows, which it apparently is, I hope Marvel keeps the keeps the big picture story telling in line and maintains their respect for 'advancing' sequential story telling like Quesada has greatly contributed toward, even though it is still a publishing company.

[prolix]

Wow. This is probably the largest collection of people I have ever seen who actually like Shooter. I think he was a good writer but many, many creative people will tell you he is a dick. I don't have documentation or an argument with anyone who wants to have an opinion but Jim Shooter's reputation in the industry is that he is a dick.
Having said that, he has made a ton of money for other people, been screwed out of a ton of money and has certainly paid for his sins.
And on another note, hey we're all geeks here. Why can't we all just get along?

[Cat-Scratch]

Interesting, but I'm glad it didn't come to be. Jim Shooter's work at Valient/Acclaim was great and bad. The bad was that he firmly believed in setting out the future for all of the characters; resulting in it being hard for any other ideas to be used for them, the characters. The great were the comics themselves. They were a breath of fresh air compared what was also out at the time. I still look at Harbinger, H.A.R.D. Corps, X-O Manowar, Armorines and Solar as some of the best comics of that period and still some great ideas that hold up today. Archer & Armstrong was also great, the first 12 issues that is. As for Jim Shooter the person, didn't know him, so I can't say other then he read from the fanzines of the time as a typical mangement type - good sometimes, bad the rest. Politics never lay down. I still reel at the thought that this fellow wrote some of the more entertaining Legion of Super-Heroes stories of the 60s/70s as a kid!

[ziza9]

Originally Posted by vbartilucci

Taken from my own fanzine, "One Thin Dime an' Two Thick Pennies, appearing in THWACK! the Comics APA.

VB: Some people are getting some varied opinions of Ken. Considering that John Byrne claims that you told him, to his face, "There are no homosexuals in the Marvel Universe", there are people surprised that you created this character at all.

JS I never Told John that. I don't know what he's talking about.,

Okay, it's like this. As far as gay characters in the Marvel Universe, I was once interviewed by one of the local gay newspapers. The story the guy was intending to write was, "Marvel discriminates against gays". He sat down and started asking me about my anti-gay stance. And I said that's ridiculous, we don't have an anti-gay stance. We don't show a lot of heterosexual sex in the comics, why would we show any homosexual sexuality? And he said, "Why aren't there any Marvel Superheroes who are gay?" I said there were lots of them. He asked which ones, and I said, "You can't tell, can you?" And it was like a trial, he said "no further questions," and he left.
The point was, we weren't out to do gay comics. And whether or not a character was gay or not was incidental to the action that it was not what we were focusing on. I imagine that there's some evidence that some of the heroes aren't gay. Or at least aren't public about it. It wasn't that there were no gay characters, not that the subject was taboo, the thing was that I didn't want to do morality plays. I didn't want to do propaganda. I used to just tell guys, if you do a good story, and inherent in that story is any point about the human condition, that's good. That's called "Content", I like it. But if you set out to do a story that's really about your political point of view, I don't want it. Bill Mantlo did a story that was totally propaganda. Anti-NRA, pro-gun control story, that's what the story was about. It wasn't about the hero, it wasn't about what was happening to the character, it was him moving characters around like chess pieces to prove his point about gun control. Now, my position on gun control is nobody's business, and was completely irrelevant to that comic book. And I would have had the same opinion if Larry Hama (who happens to have an opposite opinion on gun control as Bill) had done an "everyone oughta have a handgun" morality play. And in truth, I found that more offensive, to do propaganda for any cause, whether you think it's right or not. Now if he had done a story where one character, or a hundred characters, was pro gun-control, fine. If he decided that Robbie Robertson was anti-handgun, fine; Batman is anti-handgun. But there's a difference between a character having a belief that comes up in the natural course of events and structuring events into a little morality play to proselytizing your political point of view.
If I said anything to John, it was probably along those lines. I don't want you to do a comic about gay issues. If you want to do a comic about Alpha Flight, and somebody in there is gay, I don't care. If you want to do a story where someone being gay is a factor, I don't care. But don't do me a morality play. I also remember objecting to the idea that you have ONE gay character, in all your books, the only one you declare is gay...and you have him get AIDS. I found that to look like we were sending a message. And we're not. The position of Marvel Comics...is no position, on the topic. The position is to tell good stories, and in them to have whatever comments about the human position that arise. Not to set up a gay character and then knock him off in a way that looks like you're trying to send a message.
In short, I strongly object to dreck, I strenuously object to assholery, to things that are against or irrelevant to what we're trying to do. And what we're trying to do is entertain. And to me the best entertainment is the kind that has content. So I'm all in favor of touching every issue you want to touch, but not in favor of this trash propaganda. I'll stand by all the things I've ever written, I've ever said. And if I'm misunderstood, and lied about, well, that's not news to me. That happens a lot.

Nuff Said. Much better than JB hatred disguised as facts or "google research." Thanks for posting this. It's pretty straightforward and makes a lot of sense to me. I hate to be preached to or feel like I'm reading a story where characters are just set pieces used to express the writers political views. Give me good stories. Weave a philosophy into the tale that doesn't beat the reader over the head. Save the sermons for church.

[Cryptic]

Originally Posted by prolix

Wow. This is probably the largest collection of people I have ever seen who actually like Shooter. I think he was a good writer but many, many creative people will tell you he is a dick. I don't have documentation or an argument with anyone who wants to have an opinion but Jim Shooter's reputation in the industry is that he is a dick.
Having said that, he has made a ton of money for other people, been screwed out of a ton of money and has certainly paid for his sins.
And on another note, hey we're all geeks here. Why can't we all just get along?

I think there's a "market" for someone that can be a dick right now. Some people probably want someone that will say "no" to creators if they think it's not good in a long-term narrative or characterization sense... instead of "yes" because it will drive sales up. People want to see editors who edit instead of promote, and yes, sometimes creators will probably hate a person that says "no" to them and edits their work in ways they disagree with. Some people probably wish that Marvel was still more focused on storytelling than being a multimedia marketing company and they had editors instead of promoters and carnival barkers.

So it doesn't really surprise me at all that there are so many people that will come out and speak up in defense of a guy that is widely regarded as a "dick." In politics and government, in our entertainment in terms of characters people grew up with, in life... sometimes you need someone that says, "No, that's a stupid idea and we're not going to do that."

That's what I think a lot of people are looking for in a lot of respects in this country... in business, politics - everything. Sometimes you want to hang out with your buddy, but sometimes you need a cop. Sometimes you want someone that is opinionated, speaks their opinions, and tells you "no." Because we all do stupid things at times, even the best creators write utter crap at times. You need a filter so that people don't see the stupid or the crap, so that the smart and exemplary stuff stands out.

As a side note, I find myself wondering about something. Claremont's first X-Men run is widely regarded as one of the best. His couple of more recent returns to the X-Men have generated more or less universal ambivalence or even dislike. The common phrase around here is that Claremont "lost it." What if he didn't lose it, though? He's the same guy, he's obviously functional enough to dress himself in the morning... but here's a big difference... as we can see from stories here about Shooter, he had editors that would say "no" to him back in the day. What's the bigger stretch? That he somehow lost his higher brain functions as it only relates to writing comics, or that he worked better under someone that actually edited his work? That's why I'd rather see someone that everyone regards as a dick - but a professional dick - as EiC than someone that everyone likes and wants to kiss @$$ with - someone who's more of a talent agent and promoter.

[ziza9]

Well said Cryptic.

[Jamie Coville]

As Rich said, that Jim Shooter thing with DC was a very long time ago.

I believe I was the one to break the news in my interview with Jim, back in 1998.

From it:

Coville:
Have you ever considered writing for another company again? If so, why did you choose not to?

Shooter:
I haven’t had any offers to write for anyone, and the few times I’ve inquired, I’ve been told that I’m such a pariah that it would be impossible to give me work. I recently suggested to Paul Levitz at DC that I could do "Jim Shooter’s last Legion story," a novel length "untold tale" set in the same time as my old Legion stories. He liked the idea, and agreed, but a few days later called me back and reneged. He said that the hatred some people at DC had for me was so great, that to keep peace in his house, he had to back out of the deal.

A lot of stuff has changed at DC in 8 years.