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Post by Icctrombone on May 3, 2022 17:48:49 GMT -5
I find it amusing that Shooter proposed to kill off the entire Line and replace them. The characters and comic company were the top selling books at the time. I don't think there was anyway the suits upstairs would have allowed it. But didn't Jack Kirby propose killing off all the asgardians ( Thor included) to replace them with what would eventually became the New Gods? Moench didn't want to accept that MOKF was slated to be canceled. He thought the book was doing fine.
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,709
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Post by shaxper on May 3, 2022 19:40:56 GMT -5
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. The grey Hulk didn't go missing for 6 months after #324. The two Hulks fought in #326, and the grey Hulk starred in Peter David's debut fill-in in #328. Perhaps they wanted to test whether one or other Hulk or both together would sell the best. In the actual comics, we barely see the Gray Hulk after his big debut, Milgrom choosing to focus on the Rick Jones Hulk instead. At one point, Banner even mentions that he has learned how to suppress his Hulk as a throw-away line. Grey Hulk does come back briefly to fight the Rick Jones Hulk, but even then, the stories center on Rick Jones and folks are referring to him when they say "The Hulk". The Grey Hulk does not get central focus in the magazine until the very issue after Milgrom leaves (that Peter David fill-in aside).
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Post by codystarbuck on May 3, 2022 22:36:08 GMT -5
I find it amusing that Shooter proposed to kill off the entire Line and replace them. The characters and comic company were the top selling books at the time. I don't think there was anyway the suits upstairs would have allowed it. But didn't Jack Kirby propose killing off all the asgardians ( Thor included) to replace them with what would eventually became the New Gods? Moench didn't want to accept that MOKF was slated to be canceled. He thought the book was doing fine. Monech has contended that John Verpoorten (I believe) told him that MOKF had the highest sell-through (copies sold as a percentage of total printed) of any Marvel title and Moench asked why they didn't print more. He alleged that Shooter overheard them and said it would never happen while he was in charge. By keeping the print run artificially low, Shooter kept the sales from potentially increasing above a certain level, making the lower sales a self-fulfilling prophecy. Now, without those actual figures to back up that premise, you can't really say. Shooter claims he never said any such thing and you are left with deciding who you want to believe. I tend to believe that Shooter might have decided it wasn't worth increasing the print run and Moench is speaking metaphorically or that was just Moench's belief, based on butting heads with Shooter. There are stories of capricious behavior from Shooter; so, I don't think it is out of the realm of possibility that he wasn't open to increasing MOKF's print run, even as an experiment. That would seem silly; but, politics have often factored into why one low selling titles continues to be published and another is axed. Now, based on the material and the profile, I do tend to believe that the sales dropped in later days, especially after Gene Day died. He was the last of the popular artists on the book. My suspicion is that if Verpoorten actually did come to Moench and say the book had the best sell-through, it was more likely earlier in his run, when Gulacy was killing it, rather than later (though, I have no evidence to support that supposition). Shooter didn't take over as EIC until issue #65, during the China Seas storyline. Verpoorten died in 1977, before Shooter was EIC. Now, I might be misremembering who told him about the sales or he might have. Suffice to say, sales were likely lower, during Shooter's reign, since the best storylines, from a fan perspective, were behind, until Gene Day became the penciller and that was a brief return trip to a lot of the Gulacy era stories and characters (Carlton Velcro, Shen Kui, etc). He might have meant when Shooter was Archie's assistant. Or, he might have just conflated a story. Re: Kirby, the origin of the idea for the New Gods was that Asgard would be destroyed in the real Ragnarok and Apokolips and New Genesis would be formed from the remains and the new series would follow from that. Kirby withheld the ideas when he started getting sideways with Martin Goodman. Issue #5 of The Forever People has a back-up story about Lonar, one of the younger New Gods, who is exploring the ruins of the old civilization, on New Genesis (the New Gods live in a floating city above the surface of the planet, Supertown, and the planet is the domain of the Bugs and other creatures). He looks through very Asgardian relics... He also finds the horse, Thunderer, who is from that old civilization.
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Post by Dizzy D on May 4, 2022 2:21:01 GMT -5
I've never read the comics, myself, but I always assumed this was Galvatron: [snip image for readability] I don't know how involved Marvel was in the planning of the film, but they certainly played a key role in the development of the original series and were still officially associated with the film. And whereas every Transformer who appeared prior to the film was an existing toy or unproduced toy design from Japan, everyone introduced in the film other than Ultra Magnus was an entirely new creation, and we know for a fact that at least some of those characters were designed for the film before they were designed as toys (Unicron being the most well-known example, which worked very well in animation but proved utterly underwhelming when translated into a toy, and so the toy was scrapped). I'm not sure which Transformer that supposed to be on the cover since it's doesn't look particularly similar to any character in the story, but Galvatron doesn't appear in Transformers #22. The story takes place in the present and Megatron appears in the story.
To continue this thread: Rodimus Prime never really was a thing in the Marvel Comics, he had a few one-off appearances in and most of them were in Marvel UK, which had its own storylines. Galvatron was brought into the present during the Simon Furman run years later, but even then he remained a minor character. Marvel did copy one thing from the movies, so they did have a big shake-up around the time (though it's at the end of the period you mention): the respective leaders of both parties, Optimus Prime and Megatron are killed off. But the movie killed off and replaced a lot more characters, while these two are the only ones that die around this storyline in the comics. Also their replacements are existing characters instead of the new characters from the movies: Grimlock takes over the Autobots (and is terrible at it) while Shockwave takes over the Decepticons.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 4, 2022 4:52:27 GMT -5
I find it amusing that Shooter proposed to kill off the entire Line and replace them. The characters and comic company were the top selling books at the time. I don't think there was anyway the suits upstairs would have allowed it. But didn't Jack Kirby propose killing off all the asgardians ( Thor included) to replace them with what would eventually became the New Gods? Moench didn't want to accept that MOKF was slated to be canceled. He thought the book was doing fine. Now, based on the material and the profile, I do tend to believe that the sales dropped in later days, especially after Gene Day died. He was the last of the popular artists on the book. My suspicion is that if Verpoorten actually did come to Moench and say the book had the best sell-through, it was more likely earlier in his run, when Gulacy was killing it, rather than later (though, I have no evidence to support that supposition). Shooter didn't take over as EIC until issue #65, during the China Seas storyline. Verpoorten died in 1977, before Shooter was EIC. Now, I might be misremembering who told him about the sales or he might have. Suffice to say, sales were likely lower, during Shooter's reign, since the best storylines, from a fan perspective, were behind, until Gene Day became the penciller and that was a brief return trip to a lot of the Gulacy era stories and characters (Carlton Velcro, Shen Kui, etc). He might have meant when Shooter was Archie's assistant. Or, he might have just conflated a story. Re: Kirby, the origin of the idea for the New Gods was that Asgard would be destroyed in the real Ragnarok and Apokolips and New Genesis would be formed from the remains and the new series would follow from that. Kirby withheld the ideas when he started getting sideways with Martin Goodman. Issue #5 of The Forever People has a back-up story about Lonar, one of the younger New Gods, who is exploring the ruins of the old civilization, on New Genesis (the New Gods live in a floating city above the surface of the planet, Supertown, and the planet is the domain of the Bugs and other creatures). He looks through very Asgardian relics... All a person can do, much like when a detective sifts through circumstantial evidence, is look at the events and behavior. Moench had an irrational hatred for Shooter to the point of actually blaming him for Gene Days death. There is a video on YouTube from comic book historians interviewing Shooter that is 7 hours long where he addresses his time as EIC. He says that upper management ordered him to cancel the 3 lowest selling books. Mokf was one of them ( I think Luke Cage was another of them but I might be wrong.) We are probably talking about the year before meonch left when the book was floundering. There were several books that were shaken up to improve sales, why did Moench want to continue doing what fans were no longer responding to ? The Kirby story was that he proposed the death of Asgard to Lee and he strongly rejected it.
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Post by Roquefort Raider on May 4, 2022 6:00:01 GMT -5
Sell through is also an ambiguous metric. If the print run has been lowered again and again due to poor overall sales but that a core group of devoted fans keep reading the book, you get the impression that the printed copies sell well as a percentage of what's a available... but you still have a low-selling book that would not benefit from a larger print run. You're essentially creating a com8c just for a small number of devotees.
That was the idea behind the first titles meant for direct sakes only (Moon Knight, Ka-Zar and Micronauts). I guess that by the time MoKF faced cancellation, that way of saving a low-selling book was no longer seen as an interesting option.
One thing's for sure: I can't for the life of me imagine Jim Shooter killing even a partially-successful book "just because". I suspect Moench's unhappiness at this turn of events colour his memories.
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Post by commond on May 4, 2022 6:52:16 GMT -5
The way Shooter tells the story is that prior to him coming on board as EIC, the writers were pretty much editing themselves. After Shooter arrived, he forced the writers to send him a copy of their scripts to check. He butted heads with Moench straight away because he wanted Moench to change things and Moench didn't want to change anything. Shooter claims it was because Moench was concerned with page rate, and didn't want to waste time rewriting anything. Shooter said that Moench told him to make the changes himself. Now, according to Shooter, Moench had a tendency to overwrite, and if you believe Jim, Shooter actually made changes to the scripts to edit Moench's work so there wasn't as much copy on the page. Shooter says he was under pressure to cancel the three lowest selling books. He says they were Master of Kung Fu, Ghost Rider and Dazzler. MoKF was selling about 105k, but the baseline for Marvel back then was 300k. This pressure to cancel the book started during the Gene Day run. Shooter said he faced the same pressure with Daredevil, but he fought for the book and worked with Miller to turn it around. He claims he wanted to do the same thing with MoFK because everyone in the office loved the book. Allegedly, he suggested killing Shang Chi off and replacing him with a new Master of Kung Fu who was a ninja. Moench balked at that because ninjas were Japanese not Chinese. Shooter later claimed that it was just an idea he threw out there. He also says that Moench was living outside of the New York area the time and possibly being fed rumors from Macchio or assistant editors. Shooter doesn't have very good things to say about Macchio, and actually, for some reason Macchio escapes a lot of the blame considering he was the editor on MoFK at the time that Moench left.
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Post by Icctrombone on May 4, 2022 7:12:14 GMT -5
According to a few places that I read, Macchio was making fun of Kirby when he returned to Marvel. He was allegedly hanging copies of his artwork with notes on it mocking the work.
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Post by berkley on May 4, 2022 22:52:15 GMT -5
Shooter thought Moench had a tendency to over-write? I'd love to hear what he'd have said about Don McGregor if that writer had still been working for Marvel. Personally, I don't think Shooter would have been competent to oversee a book like MoKF: it just wasn't his kind of thing.
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Post by codystarbuck on May 4, 2022 23:02:52 GMT -5
Shooter thought Moench had a tendency to over-write? I'd love to hear what he'd have said about Don McGregor if that writer had still been working for Marvel. Personally, I don't think Shooter would have been competent to oversee a book like MoKF: it just wasn't his kind of thing. Shooter wasn't exactly terse in his writing. It's all relative. I agree that MOKF is not his kind of thing, based on the stuff he actually wrote, before and after. More standard superhero stuff, certainly. His Daredevil was pretty good and I liked good portions of his Avengers and the Valiant stuff. Legion of Super Heroes, before Marvel.
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Post by Cei-U! on May 5, 2022 6:00:26 GMT -5
I actually agree with Shooter that Moench's work tended to be overwritten. He needed a tough editor *but* so did every other writer working at Marvel at the time (and most of DC's too) including Stan, Roy, and Shooter himself. There, I said it (oops, wrong thread)!
Cei-U! I summon a whole box of blue pencils!
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shaxper
CCF Site Custodian
Posts: 22,709
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Post by shaxper on May 5, 2022 6:36:16 GMT -5
The way Shooter tells the story is that prior to him coming on board as EIC, the writers were pretty much editing themselves. After Shooter arrived, he forced the writers to send him a copy of their scripts to check. He butted heads with Moench straight away because he wanted Moench to change things and Moench didn't want to change anything. Shooter claims it was because Moench was concerned with page rate, and didn't want to waste time rewriting anything. I suspect that's a partial truth. Moench distinguished himself at Marvel early on less for his writing ability and more for his ability to churn out an astounding amount of work and always on time. He was producing far more than anyone else in the bullpen while never missing a deadline, so Shooter regularly requesting rewrites must have been immensely disruptive for him. It's not hard to see how a clash of personalities was inevitable.
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Post by commond on May 5, 2022 6:48:29 GMT -5
For the record, this is what Shooter said about Moench over-writing:
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Post by MWGallaher on May 5, 2022 7:16:48 GMT -5
For the record, this is what Shooter said about Moench over-writing: Shooter: Yeah. Paul’s art was gorgeous. And, I mean Doug was covering it up. He was way covering it up. The story was so good, and the writing was good too, but it was too much of it. It was so good, and I would call Doug, and I’d just get… He’d yell at me. He’d swear at me… And I finally said, “I’m not going to call you.” So, the stuff would come in, and I would have panels inked without copy, shot now, then finish the art, except for the edges, to make room for Doug’s balloon. I would carefully cut, copy here and there. Careful not to change the meaning. I was doing every trick I could. I would have the balloon go outside the panel borders. I’d do everything I could to preserve Paul’s art and preserve Doug’s story. Because I loved it. It was a good story. As an example of what Shooter was talking about, here's a page from issue 45, with word balloons extending into the gutters or into (mostly) empty space in other panels:
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Post by chaykinstevens on May 9, 2022 15:31:00 GMT -5
Shooter says he was under pressure to cancel the three lowest selling books. He says they were Master of Kung Fu, Ghost Rider and Dazzler. MoKF was selling about 105k, but the baseline for Marvel back then was 300k. Marvel cancelled Spider Woman at the same time as Ghost Rider and Master of Kung Fu. Dazzler, which had recently gone bi-monthly, was given a new writer and logo and began to feature painted covers by Bill Sienkiewicz, and somehow dodged the axe until 1986. MOKF's final statement of ownership in #110 had average sales of 121k with 47.1% sell-through, and the issue closest to filing date sold a seemingly healthy 139k with 56.3% sell-through. Perhaps the later non-Day issues tanked or Shooter is misremembering the figure - he doesn't seem very clear about some of the details in his blog comments where he cited the 105k. Why do you say 300k was the baseline? I don't think many titles would have been selling that many in 1982-3. When DC introduced royalties and Marvel copied them, these were paid for sales above 100k, suggesting series with such figures would have been profitable.
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