Barry Windsor-Smith came to me with a completely penciled and written graphic novel. It was the about the development of the "mighty, raging fury" inside Bruce Banner, who, he revealed, was the product of an abusive home. I looked it over. I thought it was brilliant, one of the best comics stories I'd ever seen. I offered Barry a contract and an advance. He turned me down — temporarily. He proposed to finish the thing — then, if I would agree to publish it as created, no alterations whatsoever, he would sign a contract and take the money. I was willing to agree to that in writing on the spot, but he said, no, when it's finished. Okay. Fine by me. I already knew, from what he'd shown me, that there'd be no problem.

Barry showed the work around a bit to people in the office. I guess he allowed Al Milgrom or someone to make photocopies of it. Ask Al. I was later given to understand that Al kept the copies in the Hulk drawer of his flat file. Bill Mantlo, looking through the drawer to see what current Hulk artwork had come in, saw the copies. He then blatantly ripped the story off for a regular issue of the Hulk. In those days, I was on the road a lot, spending time in Europe with the licensees, at our London office, in L.A., or on licensing trips elsewhere. The book went to press without my seeing it. How Al didn't notice, or someone else didn't notice, I don't know.

Barry was furious. I don't blame him. He, however, blames me, as of the last time I heard. Okay, the buck stops here, I suppose. ASIDE: This wasn't Bill's first shot at plagiarism. He routinely recycled other peoples' Marvel stories — Goodwin's Iron Man stories, old Stan and Steve Spider-man stories…others. Many of those recyclings happened before my time as EIC.

But while I was EIC, he ripped off a Harlan Ellison story for an issue of the Hulk. That issue I signed out — but I had never seen the episode of Outer Limits (I think) that Bill had ripped it from, so I didn't know. I remember thinking what a good story it was, and that Bill must be improving. The day the book hit the stands, Roger Stern called me and said, "Are you nuts?! This is a Harlan Ellison story!" I said, "It is?" Then my secretary told me Harlan Ellison was on the other line. Harlan said, words to the effect, you ripped me off. I said, yes, I know, I just found out about it. That admission calmed him down.

I asked him what he wanted. Should we turn this over to the lawyers and let them work something out? I assured him that there was no contention, that Marvel did it and would fess up to it. Harlan's damages, by statute, would have been in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and he had us dead to rights. But, he said he'd settle for the same money as Bill was paid to "write" the script, an acknowledgement, plus a lifetime subscription to everything we ever published. Done. Thank you, Harlan.

I wanted to fire Bill, but he had a friend upstairs — the financial V.P. — who resisted. It was my call. I could have fired Bill over his objections, but I decided, stupidly, that the subsequent hostile relationship with the financial guy would be worse than policing Bill better.

P.S. Marvel had a program, in those days, that paid for college and college level courses taken by employees, up to 100% for courses directly job related. The financial officer decided what qualified, and for what level of support. He decided that helping put Bill through LAW SCHOOL qualified, but Joe Rubenstein's painting classes justified only the minimum support.

P.P.S. Immediately after passing the bar, Bill's first act as a lawyer was SUING MARVEL regarding issues with his contract.

I'd like to say that for all the professional issues I had with Bill, I had no personal ones. I'm very sorry about what happened to him. I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

He was always friendly and personable when we worked together. You couldn't help but like the guy. Even professionally, while the plagiarism was disturbing, he did a number of good things, too. He was willing to pitch in and do the jobs nobody else wanted. He worked well with Steve Ditko on ROM and did some good things with the Micronauts. For that matter, he was the one who suggested that I consider licensing Micronauts. And he created characters in droves.

I sincerely wish him and his family well.

Peter David Recalls:
John Byrne has several popular lies he likes to tell about me. One of his favorites jus resurfaced over on his board in a thread about whether the internet has ruined comics, in which he responds to the following set-up line--

"Wasn't the ending to Alpha Flight #12 spoiled at a comic convention by another comic professional?"

--with the following lie:

"Peter David handed out xeroxes of Guardian's death at a con about a month before the book shipped."

Nnnnnno. A popular lie of John's, but no. Number one, it wasn't at a convention; it was at a get-together for retailers. Number two, it wasn't Guardian's death. It was an unlettered two page dream sequence in which Heather was seeing a dessicated Guardian tearing out the ground. Number three, it was part of a package of about two dozen photocopied highlights from assorted Marvel titles. Number four, the material in question was handed to me by Denny O'Neil, the book's editor when I--in my capacity as sales manager at the time--was going around collecting material to put into the package. And when I said to him, "Are you sure you want me to include this in the material?" Denny replied, "Sure, what's the harm?" Number five, retailers at the get together had no idea that the sequence actually indicated that Guardian really died. I know this because when John showed up at the get-together, he looked at the material, screamed at me at the top of his lungs, "How could you be showing this to retailers?!? It gives away the fact that Guardian dies!" and stormed out of the room, slowing only long enough to kick over a standing ashtray on his way out. At which point stunned retailers said, "Guardian DIES?," started looking at the xeroxes again, and were muttering, "I thought it was just a dream sequence..."

Set your watches. I'm sure John will be hauling out the equally fun "Peter David was so stupid he had a character fall to his death underwater" lie sometime within the next six months. That's one of his favorites.
www.peterdavid.net/archives/004716.html)

John Byrne Recalls:
Well, not surprisingly, Peter David's version is nearly completely wrong.
Let's check the details. First, it was a convention. I was sitting at my table signing books and doing sketches when a fan came up to me and said "So Guardian is the one who's gonna die, huh?" I smirked my best smirk and said "That woud be telling." The guy smirked back and thrust the xeroxes at me. "No, I know it's Guardian. Peter David is handing out xeroxes."

I then sought out David and discovered that he was, indeed, doing just that, sitting behind his table and handing out xerox copies of the death scene (which did have Heather in it. He got that much right.) I exploded. I threw a fit -- but nothing else. I demanded to know what the %#$@ he was doing sabotaging a story I had been working on for more than a year. A story whose Big Reveal the Alpha office had somehow managed to keep out of the fan press. David did his best deer-in-the-headlights impression, and said it was his "job" to promote the books. "BY GIVING AWAY THE ENDINGS??" By this time I was pretty much on the verge of having a stroke. To prevent myself throttling the little sh*t I left the room, in the process stumbling and falling over a chair. Howls of laughter in the room. (This became, in earlier iterations of the story, the chair "Byrne threw at Peter David.")

When I confronted Denny, later, he professed complete ignorance of the whole thing. And, of course, he absolutely assured me there was no way in hell he would ever have authorized David handing out xeroxes of the end of the story.

It's a typical tale that has grown in the telling, but this is the true version. And, as noted above, there are witnesses who support this version.

Post Script -- I notice David leaves out of this version of his tale the bit of embroidery where he and Tom DeFalco had to come up to my room to "calm (me) down." It's a tangled web. Hard to keep track of all the strands.
www.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13964&PN=1&TPN=3

Photo cover to Spider-Woman #50, shot behind Bob Camp’s loft on 37th Street by Eliot R. Brown. Painted enhancements by Bob Larkin.

Mike Carlin recalls:
“The Scarecrow was Mark Gruenwald. I was in front of him as The Needle (the guy with the needle). Werewolf By Night was colorist Bob Sharen. The guy hanging off the fire escape is Spongebob animator Vincent Waller. The Moth Lady was Mark G’s wife Belinda. Tigra was Annie Nocenti her own bad self. Brian Postman is the Hangman, though ya can barely see him. Not sure who played The Shroud—Ralph Macchio? White-haired guy in white is letterer Jack Morelli. And Green Hoodie guy MIGHT be Ren & Stimpy animator Bob Camp. Lynn Luckman was a secretary from the business-side of Marvel—and she looked awesome in the suit! In fact she’s the only character painter Bob Larkin didn’t have to "enhance” with costume-lines and such! Lotsa fun here!“ seanhowe.tumblr.com/post/30405732743/photo-cover-to-spider-woman-50-shot-behind-bob

Photographer Eliot R. Brown recalls:
“Mike [Carlin], Mark [Gruenwald] and I had been working on A) Mark’s OMNIVERSE #3, AND B) [THE OFFICIAL HANDBOOK OF THE] MARVEL UNIVERSE, and any time either of us needed to do something for the other, we did it. This was pretty much the way of the office—we would all jump through hoops for each other…this cover is an apex of self-sacrifice—never mind us crawling up and down fire escapes in the dank and the cold! Lynn—an executive secretary from the mythical "11th Floor"—was such a good sport to wear something so spandex-y and form fitting. She had to crouch on crumbly blocks of brick—she was a trooper! Now, I cannot recall if we did both shoots on the same day/night. I do know I didn’t take enough pictures at the time—well, I had to buy my own film! I do think Mark got us all some pizza, which paid off the extras. I also remember the shot of Belinda (his first wife) as Moth Person, was blown out because we shot that at the last moment in Camp/Waller’s place with room lighting! The print, cut out and pasted up by Redoubtable Ron Zalme, was worked on to make visual sense by Bob Larkin (major league cover painter).

I think I made $75 for this, but spent more on a new, improved lighting kit.

Oh yes! And the costumes? All from Mark Gruenwald’s Box O’ Costumes—he had all of these readily to hand!”
seanhowe.tumblr.com/post/30407174045/second-unit-photo-shoot-for-spider-woman-50-from