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Post by berkley on Jun 19, 2022 0:45:10 GMT -5
Forgot to answer the thread question: I'll probably think of others later on, but the first one that comes to mind is Steve Englehart leaving Doctor Strange. It killed the series for me, though I tried to give the new creative team(s) a chance, and now and then there would be an individual issue that was OK but most of them never reached even that modest level of creative success and certainly couldn't compare with the magic of Englehart's run. I'm tempted to add Englehart's departure from the Avengers because with hindsight it was almost as much of a death knell for that series as it was for Doctor Strange, as far as my personal taste goes. But that's in hindsight: at the time, I quite enjoyed the first few issues of the Shooter/Perez run, so it didn't feel as devastating as the sudden end of his Doctor Strange run.
Also, at least Englehart had just finished a big multi-issue story in the Avengers and left before starting a new one, whereas in Doctor Strange he had just begun what seemed to be intended as a major new storyline.
Here's one that I only experienced after the fact, reading the back issues: what about Jim Starlin leaving Captain Marvel? I've always assumed this was by his own choice, since he went on to write Warlock and what became his pet character, Thanos, but from the perspective of the CM series itself it seems like a pretty serious blow: I don't think it recovered until the Moench/Broderick run several years later, and even then only partially. I wonder how readers felt about it at the time?
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Post by berkley on Jun 19, 2022 1:00:57 GMT -5
I gather this happened in the early 1990s? If it had happened in the early 1980s perhaps Claremont would have moved to DC, as top rank Marvel creators like Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, and Doug Moench did at the time. It's fun to speculate about what might have come up with: another X-Men style team book? But Wolfman was doing that, kind of, with the Teen Titans. Maybe there was a particular DC star character he'd always wanted to write. Has anyone ever asked him a question along these lines, I wonder? I think I remember the Buck Shelford controversy. Rugby has never been greatly popular in Canada but I'd been curious about it for a long time and by the early 1990s we were just beginning to get a little coverage on Canadian tv. I was even playing a bit myself (more or less ineptly, it must be said) and was watching everything I could find. Was it Zinzan Brook who was selected over Shelford? I thought he was the better player, to be honest, but of course I didn't have any of the emotional connection with Shelford as an inspirational leader tht people in NZ who had grown up watching rugby like we watch hockey in Canada would have had. BTW, I haven't seen the Blues-Crusaders final yet, so don't spoil the result for me! Claremont left Marvel in 1991 and returned in '98. I didn't know we had another rugby fan on this site! Buck was replaced by Zinzan Brooke, who, as you said, was arguably a better player, but it was really Buck being replaced as captain that upset people. There was a feeling at the time that All Blacks were being white-anted by the dominant Auckland province that Brooke played for domestically. Buck had been undefeated as All Blacks captain, so when the All Blacks began losing tests without him, the knives were out for a lot of the Auckland players. As a kid, New Zealand losing to Australia in the 1991 Rugby World Cup semi was just as shocking as Claremont leaving the X-Men. I only just clicked that they happened in the same year. An annus horribilis for little commond.
I'm pretty sure there is a handful of rugby fans around here besides you and me. I tend to avoid talking about it because I'm usually watching the games a few days late, so I'm afraid of hearing spoilers. But maybe I should start bringing it up in the sports thread because I do like talking about it. I've seen all the World Cups, even the first one in 1987, so I remember the 1991 loss. NZ haven't really won as often as they should have, sadly, but that's sports. I have more to say (and ask) on the subject, including the Shelford vs Brooke question, but obviously this isn't the thread for it!
Back to the subject at hand, another one I thought of: Gulacy leaving MoKF: this one didn't actually affect me as devastatingly as it might have, because I'd come very late to MoKF and had read only the last two or three issues of the Moench/Gulacy run. But those few issues were so powerful, especially #49, that I was already in love with the series and was very disappointed when I realised that Gulacy wasn't going to be around any more. However, I kept reading, and the next run with artist Jim Craig, while by no means a highlight of the series in objective terms, is an important one to me personally since it was my first complete MoKF storyline where I was on board from the beginning.
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Post by Cei-U! on Jun 19, 2022 4:11:01 GMT -5
In approximately chronological order: * Ditko leaving Spider-Man and Dr. Strange * Wood leaving Daredevil and, much later, All-Star Comics * Kirby leaving FF and Thor
* Wrightson leaving Swamp Thing * Byrne leaving X-Men and, later, Alpha Flight * Gerber leaving Defenders and Howard the Duck * Andru leaving Spider-Man * Wolfman and Colan leaving Dracula * Thomas leaving the three Conan titles * DeMatteis and Zeck leaving Captain America * Ordway leaving Infinity Inc. * Stern leaving Dr. Strange and Avengers * Perez leaving New Teen Titans and, later, Avengers * Tony Harris leaving Starman * Busiek leaving Avengers I'm sure I could think of others but these guys are who immediately came to mind when I saw the thread topic. Cei-U! I summon the ends of several eras!
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Post by EdoBosnar on Jun 19, 2022 5:13:05 GMT -5
Oh, man. When I saw the thread topic, I thought it was about creators passing away...
Anyway, the one the immediately comes to mind, the one that almost felt like a physical gut-punch when I saw it announced, was the departure of Byrne and Austin from X-men. I was so, so deeply into X-men at the time (no other title came even close to how much I loved it at the time) and a big part of that was the artwork. I was just the right age (early teens) for it to be completely devastating at the time, and it didn't help that Cockrum's art seemed to lackluster in comparison.
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Post by adamwarlock2099 on Jun 19, 2022 5:59:38 GMT -5
Kurt Busiek leaving Avengers probably... with Ron Marz/Daryl Banks leaving GL a close 2nd. Marz/Banks is the only GL that has ever kept my attention. Very underrated team. My other would probably be Ron Lim leaving Silver Surfer. He was such a perfect pick for that book that I had a hard time enjoying after even if the writing was good. At least he stuck on X-Men 2099 until the end.
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 19, 2022 7:02:17 GMT -5
Romita (and Kane) no longer illustrating The Amazing Spider-Man, only to be replaced by Andru. Rarely have I witnessed such a rapid free-fall of quality as in that case, particularly with Romita, who defined the Spider-Man character like no other, along with co-plotting many of the title's equally defining arcs. Where art was concerned, the one silver lining of the Andru years were a number of incredible Romita covers. I am with you on that tark. Andru has his fans, but I never saw his Spider-Man issues as anything more that journeyman. His Spider-Man often looked awkward to me. And after those Romita and Kane issues, such a let down.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on Jun 19, 2022 7:24:02 GMT -5
I can't say that any departure really bothered me that much and certainly didn't "hurt", as I tend to just think that creators leaving and changing on a series is all part of the ebb and flow of any comic book title.
That said, I was always saddened that J. Micheal Straczynski was pretty much forced off of Amazing Spider-Man by Marvel's then Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada. I know that his run was controversial with some, but personally I loved his tenure on the book and welcomed the bold things he did with sacred cows such as Aunt May or Gwen Stacey. I always felt it was a shame that his plans of where to take Peter Parker post-Civil War unmasking were binned by Quesada in favour of the clusterf**k reboot that was One More Day/Brand New Day. Though I must stress that this is not something that really upsets me or that I lose sleep over or anything, but yeah...I always felt that Straczynski was treated badly by Marvel and as a result we got a dire ending to an otherwise great run.
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Post by kirby101 on Jun 19, 2022 7:29:42 GMT -5
I was sad when Brunner's run on Dr. Strange ended.
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Confessor
CCF Mod Squad
Not Bucky O'Hare!
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Post by Confessor on Jun 19, 2022 7:35:34 GMT -5
Romita (and Kane) no longer illustrating The Amazing Spider-Man, only to be replaced by Andru. Rarely have I witnessed such a rapid free-fall of quality as in that case, particularly with Romita, who defined the Spider-Man character like no other, along with co-plotting many of the title's equally defining arcs. Where art was concerned, the one silver lining of the Andru years were a number of incredible Romita covers. I am with you on that tark. Andru has his fans, but I never saw his Spider-Man issues as anything more that journeyman. His Spider-Man often looked awkward to me. And after those Romita and Kane issues, such a let down. It's all down to personal tastes, of course, and I do agree that Ross Andru was a step down artistically from Ditko and Romita (Kane, not quite so much), but he was no slouch either. I always really enjoyed his art on Amazing Spider-Man, and I thought he did a reasonable job of keeping the look of the artwork somewhat pseudo-Romita. In particular, I loved Andru's meticulously detailed and architecturally authentic street scenes, and the way he captured the precarious, vertigo-inducing nature of Spidey's rooftop webspinning. Andru always made Spidey's skyscraper-top exploits look much more dangerous than other artists. When Andru drew Spidey high above the streets of New York City, he really captured the danger of that situation and just how high above the pavement he was. So yeah, I'm a fan and I think Andru's work on ASM is underrated.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2022 7:52:37 GMT -5
I was disappointed when Byrne left The Incredible Hulk. I was intrigued by some of his ideas, such as separating Banner and Hogan, so I definitely would have liked to have seen where he would have taken the book. It did feel like he was trying to do new things with the Hulk, Banner, his supporting cast, etc. Just seems a short run, which it was.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2022 8:09:47 GMT -5
Spider-Man was never the same after Ditko left. Not a big fan of the Romita Sr. years, big drop in exciting new rogues and the "cool Peter" left me cold. I'm a bigger Ross Andru fan actually, he really did make New York come alive like nobody else and felt like a more well-rounded artist to me. Romita was a better Romance artist who happened to make good looking characters in a superhero comic book.
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Post by Calidore on Jun 19, 2022 8:45:03 GMT -5
I can't say that any departure really bothered me that much and certainly didn't "hurt", as I tend to just think that creators leaving and changing on a series is all part of the ebb and flow of any comic book title.
This is where I tend to be as well for the most part. One change that really did sadden me was Mike Grell leaving Green Arrow, and the character and the book going full DC universe super-hero again.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2022 8:46:56 GMT -5
Spider-Man was never the same after Ditko left. Not a big fan of the Romita Sr. years, big drop in exciting new rogues and the "cool Peter" left me cold. I'm a bigger Ross Andru fan actually, he really did make New York come alive like nobody else and felt like a more well-rounded artist to me. Romita was a better Romance artist who happened to make good looking characters in a superhero comic book. They be fighting words, my friend! *Cleans boxing gloves*
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Post by commond on Jun 19, 2022 8:50:43 GMT -5
Spider-Man was never the same after Ditko left. Not a big fan of the Romita Sr. years, big drop in exciting new rogues and the "cool Peter" left me cold. I'm a bigger Ross Andru fan actually, he really did make New York come alive like nobody else and felt like a more well-rounded artist to me. Romita was a better Romance artist who happened to make good looking characters in a superhero comic book. I was okay with "cool Peter" as it seemed like a natural progression in the character's life. For the most part, Peter aged in real time throughout the 60s. The trouble is that it wasn't sustainable. Pretty soon he would have wound up being a middle-aged Spider-Man.
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Post by commond on Jun 19, 2022 8:57:22 GMT -5
I can't say that any departure really bothered me that much and certainly didn't "hurt", as I tend to just think that creators leaving and changing on a series is all part of the ebb and flow of any comic book title. I can understand that as an adult, but I couldn't understand it as a kid.
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