shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,709
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Post by shaxper on Apr 25, 2022 10:02:57 GMT -5
I'm not sure we've ever really discussed this before.
Doug Moench has repeatedly asserted that the reason he left Marvel in 1983 was that Jim Shooter had a plan called "The Jim Shooter Theory of the Big Bang of the Marvel Universe" in which every major Marvel character was going to get replaced or significantly altered in order to boost sales, beginning with Shang-Chi. Moench has also indicated that no one else who was with him at Marvel will back him up and go on record about this.
Shooter himself has acknowledged encouraging creators to shake up the status quo and make big changes during this time, but he denies that he required it. And others have argued that this all stemmed from Marvel's fear that creators would sue for the rights to the characters they made, and that replacing them with slightly different characters and/or slightly altering their appearances would mitigate some of the damage if that ever came to pass.
Whatever the case, it is obvious that most of Marvel's top tier characters underwent major changes between 1983 (when Moench claims this was said) and 1986. The ones I can think of include:
Replacements John Walker James Rhodes Julia Carpenter Heather MacNeil Hudson Sharon Ventura She-Hulk (on the Fantastic Four) Magneto (leading the X-Men) Possibly even Rodimus Prime replacing Optimus Prime in The Transformers
Cosmetic changes Spiderman's alien costume Grey Hulk Iron Man's silver and red costume Thor's battle armor Storm's mohawk Wolverine as Patch Possibly even Megatron becoming Galvatron in The Transformers
Possible intended replacements that were aborted Rick Jones as The Hulk Beta Ray Bill Daredevil's identity nearly gets exposed during this era ("Born Again"). Maybe he was originally slated to be replaced?
Anything else I'm missing? Anyone have more knowledge about all of this?
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Post by Ricky Jackson on Apr 25, 2022 10:42:24 GMT -5
Thor wearing battle armor and growing a beard during Simonson's run is another
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Post by jason on Apr 25, 2022 14:05:49 GMT -5
Scourge killing off the majority of Marvel's B-list villains must fit as well, right?
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Post by berkley on Apr 25, 2022 15:35:16 GMT -5
I had already pretty much quit reading Marvel by 1983 so most of these I either don't know at all or have heard of them only through online comments decades later. I have to say, though, none of them sound too appealing.
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Post by berkley on Apr 25, 2022 15:36:52 GMT -5
Wasn't there something planned for MoKF too? I thnk I remember someone mentioning it here sometime.
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Post by badwolf on Apr 25, 2022 15:41:36 GMT -5
Was this around the time that Iron Fist was stupidly killed off?
I don't think I ever heard of this Big Bang theory but I don't blame Doug for splitting if it was real.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,709
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Post by shaxper on Apr 25, 2022 15:42:13 GMT -5
I had already pretty much quit reading Marvel by 1983 so most of these I either don't know at all or have heard of them only through online comments decades later. I have to say, though, none of them sound too appealing. I was always aware of these changes, which were all before my time, but it didn't occur to me until now that they all occurred so close together in time. I'd assumed they'd been changes made by the creators because it made sense for the characters and not that it had been some editorial mandate (or firm request). The origin of this thread idea was my reading the 1985/1986 Hulk stories. #324 is the big one everyone knows where Hulk goes gray again, but then we don't see the Hulk for half a year after that, Bruce claiming he can control the creature now, and Rick Jones conveniently becoming a green Hulk in his absence. Then, suddenly, Al Milgrom leaves the title, and the very next issue Peter David has the gray Hulk front and center, the Rick Jones Hulk departing very soon after. The whole thing smacks of tension between Milgrom and Shooter, Shooter presumably pushing for the gray Hulk, and Milgrom presumably resisting and pushing for the Rick Jones Hulk instead.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,709
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Post by shaxper on Apr 25, 2022 15:49:57 GMT -5
Wasn't there something planned for MoKF too? I thnk I remember someone mentioning it here sometime. Yes. According to Moench, Shooter wanted Shang Chi dead and replaced with a ninja. Now, as a huge fan of Moench who has studied his interviews pretty closely, I can tell you that Moench has absolutely misremembered some incidents from his past very badly, so it's possible the situation wasn't this extreme, but there had to have been a germ of truth in there somewhere. Why would Moench invent the whole thing? Was this around the time that Iron Fist was stupidly killed off? Yes, though he was not replaced with someone else, so that may have been more of a low sales decision.
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Post by badwolf on Apr 25, 2022 16:07:07 GMT -5
Was this around the time that Iron Fist was stupidly killed off? Yes, though he was not replaced with someone else, so that may have been more of a low sales decision. He was replaced with a H'ylthri... oh, I see what you mean.
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Post by commond on Apr 25, 2022 18:04:43 GMT -5
It seemed that Shooter wanted to shake up the books that weren't doing well, beginning with MoKF. The thing is, Shooter was so intensely disliked that anything he said was going to snowball, to the point where there were rumours that Shooter wanted to kill off the entire Marvel Universe. Moench leaked it to the fan press, Shooter ended up having to deny it, and Hembeck would later spoof it. I do think there's truth to the idea that Shooter wanted to make wholesale changes, however I don't think he directly ordered Moench to kill off Shang-Chi. If Shooter had been that gung-ho about killing off Shang-Chi, the next writer would have done it. There was a lot going on at the time. Moench was devastated over Gene Day's death, as we know. Ironically, DC would end up killing their entire universe and relaunching their core titles with new heroes and new origin stories, and Marvel would follow suit when DC began overtaking them in sales. And the trend only intensified as the 90s began.
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Post by chadwilliam on Apr 25, 2022 18:52:26 GMT -5
I'm not sure we've ever really discussed this before. Doug Moench has repeatedly asserted that the reason he left Marvel in 1983 was that Jim Shooter had a plan called "The Jim Shooter Theory of the Big Bang of the Marvel Universe" in which every major Marvel character was going to get replaced or significantly altered in order to boost sales, beginning with Shang-Chi. Moench has also indicated that no one else who was with him at Marvel will back him up and go on record about this.The bolded part is what I don't understand - why would no one back Moench up on this? "Tightlipped" isn't generally how those who discuss Shooter are described. Considering the fact that Shooter has been been accused of some pretty heinous things, a plan to kill off/radically change the Marvel Universe isn't really where I'd expect his detractors to draw the line as to what's acceptable to bring up/not. Chris Claremont and John Byrne have been pretty outspoken about Shooter's involvement in the death of Jean Grey, for instance. Any reason they'd be willing to discuss this in interviews/forums but maintain a code of silence about why, She-Hulk joined The Fantastic Four, for instance (or whatever the Chris Claremont X-Men equivalent be to that)?
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Post by Chris on Apr 25, 2022 19:11:05 GMT -5
Was this around the time that Iron Fist was stupidly killed off? Yes, though he was not replaced with someone else, so that may have been more of a low sales decision. James Owsley/Christopher Priest wrote about it on his site. From here - My run on POWER/FIST is likely most notorious for the series finale, in which Iron Fist was shockingly and inexplicably killed. This is one of those moments I find alternately flattering and annoying at once. Fist's death was senseless and shocking and completely unforeseen. It took the readers' heads clean off. And, to this day, people are mad about it. Forgetting, it seems, that (a) you were supposed to be mad, that death is senseless and Fist's death was supposed to be senseless, or that (b) this is a comic book. I already had a way to bring Fist back, and Fist creator John Byrne would certainly bring him back if I didn't get to it first. Like my trials with the DC Comics character TRIUMPH, the readers missed the point and villainized the writer to some degree. They loathed and hated Triumph, completely missing the point that that was exactly what they were supposed to do; he was designed specifically to be annoying, like Dr. Smith from Lost In Space. Fist's death was supposed to be shocking and senseless. It wasn't bad writing. The fact that, thirteen years after the fact, people are still annoyed about it speaks to the quality of the work, the impact of which has apparently not diminished over time. I trepidatiously add that Marvel has, of course, resurrected Iron Fist, and done not much with him. He is, once again, a reasonably generic member of the Marvel stable, the occasional guest star. Marvel revived the Power/Fist team with HEROES FOR HIRE, but the formula called for a larger group of heroes and bigger adventures and antagonists, with mixed results. The simplicity of the Cage/Fist chemistry was certainly a component of HFH, but it seemed, subjectively to me, to be lost amid the sprawling cast and plotlines. The expedient thing to say is, Iron Fist's death wasn't my idea. It was my idea in the sense of that is how I chose for him to die— brutally and senselessly. I was ordered to kill IF because the editor was deeply resentful of Marvel's decision to cancel the book, a book the editor (comics legend Denny O'Neil) invested himself in and worked _very_ hard with myself and artist MD "Doc" Bright. We were all pretty upset, but Denny was outraged. POWER MAN & IRON FIST was a critical success and was selling in excess of 100,000 copies; not a major hit in those days but the book was certainly profitable. Then the company, for no apparent reason, decided to change the publishing schedule from a monthly release to bi-monthly, which automatically depresses sales, and, once the sales projections skewed downward, that became justification enough to cancel the book to make room on the schedule for a new line of books that became the infamous and notorious "New Universe." Angered by the slight to our work on the book, in an editorial meeting Denny's assistant suggested we kill Iron Fist and cast the blame on Power Man. Doc and I really did not like the idea, but the editors were adamant, insisting if we didn't write the story he'd assign it out to someone else. I agreed to write the story on the condition that IF's death be senseless and, actually, extant to the story itself. The story and plotlines had resolved themselves by the time Iron Fist fell asleep in the hospital and was subsequently killed. It was shocking and unexpected and completely meaningless— which is how we all felt the company had treated us.
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Post by beyonder1984 on Apr 25, 2022 19:20:06 GMT -5
Shooter has asserted that he had the idea for Crisis before DC did, and wanted to simplify the Marvel Universe by rebooting it and discarding what didn't work.
I thought the community has moved beyond the idea that Shooter had bad ideas and all creators under him were better qualified to direct their titles.
"And others have argued that this all stemmed from Marvel's fear that creators would sue for the rights to the characters they made"
Sounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
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Post by badwolf on Apr 25, 2022 19:27:11 GMT -5
Yes, though he was not replaced with someone else, so that may have been more of a low sales decision. James Owsley/Christopher Priest wrote about it on his site. From here - My run on POWER/FIST is likely most notorious for the series finale, in which Iron Fist was shockingly and inexplicably killed. This is one of those moments I find alternately flattering and annoying at once. Fist's death was senseless and shocking and completely unforeseen. It took the readers' heads clean off. And, to this day, people are mad about it. Forgetting, it seems, that (a) you were supposed to be mad, that death is senseless and Fist's death was supposed to be senseless, or that (b) this is a comic book. I already had a way to bring Fist back, and Fist creator John Byrne would certainly bring him back if I didn't get to it first. Like my trials with the DC Comics character TRIUMPH, the readers missed the point and villainized the writer to some degree. They loathed and hated Triumph, completely missing the point that that was exactly what they were supposed to do; he was designed specifically to be annoying, like Dr. Smith from Lost In Space. Fist's death was supposed to be shocking and senseless. It wasn't bad writing. The fact that, thirteen years after the fact, people are still annoyed about it speaks to the quality of the work, the impact of which has apparently not diminished over time. I trepidatiously add that Marvel has, of course, resurrected Iron Fist, and done not much with him. He is, once again, a reasonably generic member of the Marvel stable, the occasional guest star. Marvel revived the Power/Fist team with HEROES FOR HIRE, but the formula called for a larger group of heroes and bigger adventures and antagonists, with mixed results. The simplicity of the Cage/Fist chemistry was certainly a component of HFH, but it seemed, subjectively to me, to be lost amid the sprawling cast and plotlines. The expedient thing to say is, Iron Fist's death wasn't my idea. It was my idea in the sense of that is how I chose for him to die— brutally and senselessly. I was ordered to kill IF because the editor was deeply resentful of Marvel's decision to cancel the book, a book the editor (comics legend Denny O'Neil) invested himself in and worked _very_ hard with myself and artist MD "Doc" Bright. We were all pretty upset, but Denny was outraged. POWER MAN & IRON FIST was a critical success and was selling in excess of 100,000 copies; not a major hit in those days but the book was certainly profitable. Then the company, for no apparent reason, decided to change the publishing schedule from a monthly release to bi-monthly, which automatically depresses sales, and, once the sales projections skewed downward, that became justification enough to cancel the book to make room on the schedule for a new line of books that became the infamous and notorious "New Universe." Angered by the slight to our work on the book, in an editorial meeting Denny's assistant suggested we kill Iron Fist and cast the blame on Power Man. Doc and I really did not like the idea, but the editors were adamant, insisting if we didn't write the story he'd assign it out to someone else. I agreed to write the story on the condition that IF's death be senseless and, actually, extant to the story itself. The story and plotlines had resolved themselves by the time Iron Fist fell asleep in the hospital and was subsequently killed. It was shocking and unexpected and completely meaningless— which is how we all felt the company had treated us. I guess I can understand how he, Denny and Mark felt, but it doesn't make me like it any more, or even appreciate it. Saying it was supposed to be meaningless is kind of a lame defense. Unless the meaninglessness of it is supposed to be relevant to a future storyline (I can't imagine how) it shouldn't really be done, not to a long-running character like that.
I don't think the fact that readers are still angry years later is necessarily an indicator of quality either...
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Post by tarkintino on Apr 25, 2022 19:30:17 GMT -5
It seemed that Shooter wanted to shake up the books that weren't doing well, beginning with MoKF. The thing is, Shooter was so intensely disliked that anything he said was going to snowball, to the point where there were rumours that Shooter wanted to kill off the entire Marvel Universe. Moench leaked it to the fan press, Shooter ended up having to deny it, and Hembeck would later spoof it. I do think there's truth to the idea that Shooter wanted to make wholesale changes, however I don't think he directly ordered Moench to kill off Shang-Chi. If Shooter had been that gung-ho about killing off Shang-Chi, the next writer would have done it. There was a lot going on at the time. Moench was devastated over Gene Day's death, as we know. Ironically, DC would end up killing their entire universe and relaunching their core titles with new heroes and new origin stories, and Marvel would follow suit when DC began overtaking them in sales. And the trend only intensified as the 90s began. The irrational hatred some had for shooter was, well...irrational. By 1983, of Marvel's flagship titles, only The Amazing Spider-Man was enjoying a rebirth to creative highs the title had not seen since 1974, but others either existed because they happened to be around, or were living off of the value of their brand. Marvel needed a course correction, and while one can debate to what degree, the publisher needed something. Personally, the only Marvel title of that period (in addition to TASM) that consistently held my interest (i.e. it was a creation with purpose) was The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, and a brief, strong period for The Avengers during the John Buscema / Stern / Macchio period between '85 - '87.
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