Yes. I stood at his table at a convention for 3 hours talking to him, and that was the 2nd time I met him. Would have stayed longer if I didn't have to go to an anniversary party
Eleven hours of Shooter in two days. Possibly the greatest depth I've ever seen in these career retro's and Big Jim is an absolute legend. The quality of Marvel books of his era is unsurpassed by anything since his departure. Thank you for this fantastic content CBH...I need part III :D
Fantastic. Shooter is such a fascinating guy. And his stories are consistent. Different perceptions have different "truths," but Jim's recollections here match what he said in 1978, 1984, 1996, etc. in interviews. So... I dunno... I've never understood the hate for the guy.
I really like this guy, now. Only knew of him vaguely at first at the guy behind my most active time collecting comics then as the guy people hated. I far from hate him. He seems sincere and focused on doing his best job. Glad he gets a chance these days to tell his story. Also love that he speaks so highly of Stan Lee. His defense of him is logical and clearly stated. Nuff Said.
I was always fascinated by Shooter. I first became aware of him while reading the legion books ( with Grell) and fell in love with the stories. When he became EIC I was blown away. Damn, EIC of friggin Marvel at 27!!! That era of Marvel was a golden age. Whatever they may say about Shooter, he must have done something right. That era of Marvel was a zenith of creativity. What modern comics need is either Shooter, or someone like him to right the ship. He was a wunderkind of the highest order. To me… Shooter equates with excellence! Please Jim, come back and save this dying industry. It needs you now more than ever..::
@@ComicBookHistorians Jim Shooter gave me the assignment. I named 24 of the initial 26 Transformers, and a couple hundred after that. The other 2 initial names were created by Denny O'Neil, which included Optimus Prime.
Hi Bob, when I was a kid, the Transformers comics blew my mind. Great stories and characters. After that I watch the show and was highly disappointed for their silliness. For me, the real Transformers story were in the comics. Thank you for that.
Thanks for another great interview Alex. There is so much about Jim Shooter's career I didn't realize. Shooter's comments about his experiences with the legends in the comics industry is fascinating. As you have helped to show, Jim Shooter has become a legend as well.
Don't forget Sienkiewicz doing Moon Knight. It really was Marvel's peak era. I really liked Classic X-Men as a title, I never realized it was a desperation move. It was really welcome.
Alex 😃 Thank you for conducting this extremely informative and engaging interview with Jim Shooter!💪 He is an impressive individual that both shaped and witnessed a lot of comic book history!👍
History lesson! More shooter please! I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, how does Jim remember all these great details? Jim, please write an autobiography!
The reason the Superman film didn't give DC a bump the way Star Wars gave Marvel a bump is because Star Wars was a brand new entity and therefore, younger people could feel it belonged to them. There was more of a palpable excitement, whereas Superman could be equated to your parent's generation as Superman was forty years old by that point.
I think the bigger reason is that the Star Wars comics were much better than the Superman comics at the time. I don't think anyone would argue that the late 70s/early 80s was a creative high point for Superman.
Watched Part I and now Part II. Kudos to you for letting Shooter tell his side of the story for posterity. For the most part, he comes off as knowledgeable (of both the business and creative sides), credible, and even a bit admirable. However, he did misspeak on one factual issue that, for me, really undermined his memories/veracity in the rest of the interview. He asserts that Michael Fleisher won his lawsuit against the Comics Journal but was awarded little money because he was shown to not have suffered any loss in income from the Harlan TCJ interview. This did not jibe with my recollection and I double-checked reports and articles online-unless I'm missing something, Fleisher absolutely lost that lawsuit, so I don't know what's going on there with Shooter. TCJ's oral history, I Told You So, covers the trial as well and even includes interviews with some of the jurors after the fact. Aside from the fact that they felt the case never should have gone to trial and most of it was tedious, they had little sympathy for Fleisher (even partly blaming him for forcing them to sit through that trial). A lot of people felt Fleisher was simply egged on by people who wanted to bury TCJ, rather than having any real interest in Fleisher's well being or best interest. Don't know if you weren't aware of it or simply decided not to call him on it, but that seems a fairly egregious and misleading misstatement on Shooter's part-though I guess it's possible that he's just misremembered the actual outcome for some reason, though such an oversight in view of his other detailed recollections seems odd.
A great interview. Some comments on specific points: The specific Hulk story that plagiarized Ellison was Incredible Hulk #286 Hero of the Day. Since there was a bit of uncertainty in the interview, I can confirm that Shooter is remembering correctly that the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends dog was Ms. Lion. In the episode 7 Little Superheroes, a fun homage to Ten Little Indians/And Then There Were None, Ms. Lion prevented Spider-Man, Iceman, Firestar, Sub-Mariner, Captain America, Shanna, and Dr. Strange from being killed by... the Chameleon. You have to look the other way and pretend that Shanna, the weakest of the seven, couldn't defeat the Chameleon on her own. Crystar was lumped in with the licensed characters. Crystar is actually an interesting case. I am the current Admin for a forum called Who Watches the Watchers discussing the various Marvel Handbooks, and modern era writers participate in the forums (I don't want there to be any spam filter issues, but Google "who watches the watchers ohotmu" to find us). When Marvel Legacy: the 1980s Handbook came out, and Crystar had a profile, one of the writers explained that Crystar had a profile because he was *not* a licensed character. What happened was that Marvel was getting the licenses to the various toy lines and putting out comics and decided they wanted to tap into the toy line market directly, in this instance not with their usual characters but with characters created specifically to sell toys. So while neither the Crystar toys nor the comics did very well, if tomorrow they wanted to greenlight a 120 page Crystar graphic novel, they could do it without contacting any toy company. It would probably be a very bad idea, but they own the character and can do what they want with him.
Enjoyed both interviews. Thanks! I assume the reason the Star Wars comic “saved” Marvel was because it was new money. It didn’t comp the previous years books. If Uncanny X-Men started selling better in the late 1970s it still was a small percentage increase over the previous year, not all new. Star Wars, and all it’s many reprint comics, was a new infusion of $$ that had no comp to 1976. It brought in new readers. Any business that can open a new revenue stream (and Star Wars was a big revenue stream) that doesn’t comp to the previous year is much more impactful to the top and bottom lines.
Jim Shooter did something amazing… like a great band he created tension in the organization that produced great creative work. Out of that he is vilified like Paul McCartney and Roger Waters are.
This interview answered a question that has been bugging me for a long time - The Generic Comic Book. Came out the same month as the fumetti book. One of the "junk books" to raise the money.
Very rarely mentioned Marvel UK in either interview. What was Jim's side of the Alan Moore meeting and the delay of the Captain Britain reprint of Moore's and Alan Davis work.
VERY interesting to hear that back in mid 1972, Lee nearly left marvel to go to dc. It may have been a good thing for dc, but it would have been a absolutely disaster for marvel to have had chip Goodman in charge of the company.
Jim Shooter on Sol Brodsky: "he BUILT that place!" Jim Shooter on Jack Kirby: "he was confused, he needed to be reigned in..." wow, you can't make this stuff up.
His statements on Brodsky actually vary as he implies that Brodsky got the second job there being Stan’s pal. Also he said that Kirby was the most creative creator in comics. All statements probably true in specific situations.
@@edfurnez6134 Brodsky deserves all sorts of credit. My point is that Marvel would have sunk without Kirby; Brodsky's position would have been invalidated when and if that happened. It's just that ANYTHING he says about Kirby is backhanded and begrudging.
Here is his response: Paladin. I like to create new characters, especially villains, though in Paladin's case, he's more of an opponent than a villain. I remember the ancient days when Stan and company had new villains appearing all the time -- nine in the first ten issues of Spider-Man, counting the Enforcers as one. My Paladin was obviously influenced by the Have Gun Will Travel TV character, but wild, edgy, funny, and as ruthless as you'd have to be taking on hardcase criminals and sometimes nasty people with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.
if only you could have asked him about byrne leaving ff and hulk in 86, did byrne quit or was shooter unhappy with his work, would have been good to hear his side of that. Also about frank miller going to dc to do year one and dark knight returns, did miller leave on his own?
I am and will always be a huge fan of Jim Shooter. I loved his EIC run at Marvel. He kept continuity and canon accurate and consistent throughout all the titles. I am glad I was able to read Marvel during his run there. I wish to God that Marvel would go back to that kind of non SJW political comics.
I know the Peter Ledger story at Marvel... look his name up... he was the artist/airbrusher around EPIC times, he drew the EPIC logo and more... then... the theft
Actually it wasn't wein who gave him the message. But later Steve asked Wein about it. Wein said with Shooter once you do "the thing", he got rid of you. No one knew what that was. Steve didn't badmouth Jim or Neal Adams and Adams was a renowned jerk with an inflated opinion of himself. He said both of them had these kind of egos where they wanted it to be about them foremost. Iron man was doing well by O'Neil McDonnell & Mitchell and Shooter simply threw a monkey wrench into the works because he wasn't directly involved in its success. I knkw he was EIC but call it a character flaw.
It never stops with a certain generation of comic professionals to "mention" these apparent Kirby stories of him seeming confused, lost, forgetting things. I wonder if Shooter realizes he has more in common with Roy Thomas and Tony Isabella than they realize? "It was Stan"... wow. Then why didn't Stan create anything before or after Kirby? Alex, you're very good at this and very respectful but I wish you'd follow up and challenge these statements sometimes.
Actually I think the opposite. Alex got great info that goes against the Stan did all narrative. Stan didn’t generate plots for his own newspaper strip and the animation people didn’t respect him. Even the part with having an honorary title as publisher but not publishing anything is all here. Alex was able to get that info without shutting down the guest. Bravo
Stan Lee's Spiderman run with Romita Sr was extraordinary and no Kirby or Ditko were involved. Also about Kirby, Shooter clearly stated that when it came to comics Kirby was always sharp even in his later years, but had cognitive problems in everyday life. Nothing outrageous, in my opinion. But you are free to bend his statements the way you prefer, of course.
@@vaderetro264 Wasn't bent at all. Stan Lee claimed his entire CAREER he had a "bad memory" so its curious how y'all pick and choose who you wanna prop up. But don't worry, we gonna work on educating more fans about how Kirby got cheated
@@rakeemwatkins9440 The curious thing is how people like you decide to hate on somebody ignoring facts - though I have an idea of why that happens... Anyway, your time your life, keep on hating if that helps you going on.
@@vaderetro264 Hate is a powerful term, Vade. Thank you for designating me as a simple hater and suggesting I "hate" people just because I've read evidence by Doc V about business schemes at Atlas/Marvel ppl rarely gonna discuss. Thank you for your condescending advice and passive aggressive comments, bruh.
I think the Shooter approach would solve a lot of modern comics issues.
After the first 8 hours, do I really want to listen to another 3 hours of Jim Shooter?
YES
I do.
Yes. I stood at his table at a convention for 3 hours talking to him, and that was the 2nd time I met him. Would have stayed longer if I didn't have to go to an anniversary party
Jim Shooter should be in charge of the whole comic book industry!!
Period!!! Case closed!!!!
He knows what he's doing & he's not a greedy asshole!!!!!
Trust me, there wouldn't be all these variant covers and useless events and lateness!
@@shaunbowman872 I know. Things would be great like they used to be not crappy like it is now.
Glad to see Shooter getting his say. The guy was unfairly maligned for decades.
Right out of the gate, this interview is performing even greater than my expectations. I’m here for any Jim Shooter conversations 💥💥💥💥
Eleven hours of Shooter in two days. Possibly the greatest depth I've ever seen in these career retro's and Big Jim is an absolute legend. The quality of Marvel books of his era is unsurpassed by anything since his departure. Thank you for this fantastic content CBH...I need part III :D
Fantastic. Shooter is such a fascinating guy. And his stories are consistent. Different perceptions have different "truths," but Jim's recollections here match what he said in 1978, 1984, 1996, etc. in interviews. So... I dunno... I've never understood the hate for the guy.
Because fanboys got their information 2nd by disgruntled former Marvel employees like John Byrne
I really like this guy, now. Only knew of him vaguely at first at the guy behind my most active time collecting comics then as the guy people hated. I far from hate him. He seems sincere and focused on doing his best job. Glad he gets a chance these days to tell his story.
Also love that he speaks so highly of Stan Lee. His defense of him is logical and clearly stated. Nuff Said.
I love Shooter and what he's done for comics. He seemed to make all decisions based on what was best for the company, and less for politics.
This was great Alex. I don't agree with everything Shooter said or did but I have mad respect for the man's work ethic.
I see Jim Shooter interview, I watch it. Thank you for making these.
I was always fascinated by Shooter. I first became aware of him while reading the legion books ( with Grell) and fell in love with the stories. When he became EIC I was blown away. Damn, EIC of friggin Marvel at 27!!! That era of Marvel was a golden age. Whatever they may say about Shooter, he must have done something right. That era of Marvel was a zenith of creativity. What modern comics need is either Shooter, or someone like him to right the ship. He was a wunderkind of the highest order. To me… Shooter equates with excellence! Please Jim, come back and save this dying industry. It needs you now more than ever..::
Marvel Comics was at its height when Jim Shooter was in charge.
Alex, I created the name Megatron for Transformers in November 1983. If Shogun Warriors or anyone else used the name before that, I was unaware of it.
Thanks so much for weighing in Bob, that’s awesome!
@@ComicBookHistorians Jim Shooter gave me the assignment. I named 24 of the initial 26 Transformers, and a couple hundred after that. The other 2 initial names were created by Denny O'Neil, which included Optimus Prime.
Bob, this is wonderful clarification. What was the other name that Denny came up with?
@@ComicBookHistorians Prowl.
Hi Bob, when I was a kid, the Transformers comics blew my mind. Great stories and characters. After that I watch the show and was highly disappointed for their silliness. For me, the real Transformers story were in the comics. Thank you for that.
Thanks for another great interview Alex. There is so much about Jim Shooter's career I didn't realize. Shooter's comments about his experiences with the legends in the comics industry is fascinating. As you have helped to show, Jim Shooter has become a legend as well.
Don't forget Sienkiewicz doing Moon Knight. It really was Marvel's peak era. I really liked Classic X-Men as a title, I never realized it was a desperation move. It was really welcome.
I'd say Jim lumped Shogun Warriors and Godzilla together because Godzilla was part of Mattel's Shogun Warriors line of toys at the time.
I dig it
The best era in comics, and I loved the New Universe too. Thanks, Jim!
Another genius interview, incredible!
This is the longest video interview, quite possibly the longest video Ricky Todd has ever seen.❤ it.😄
I wish Jim Shooter was the editor of Marvel or DC Comics now. He would turn either one around. Best series I ever read was Secret Wars by Jim Shooter
Secret Wars was shit.
Shooter is a master of the back-handed compliment. I understand his situation but wow.
Yup.
Great interview comic book historians! Well done sirs!
Alex 😃 Thank you for conducting this extremely informative and engaging interview with Jim Shooter!💪 He is an impressive individual that both shaped and witnessed a lot of comic book history!👍
Glad you enjoyed it!
Just finished the first 7 hours last night and am about halfway through this one. THIS IS AMAZING!!!!!
hard to believe this is 2 years old already. time for another 10 hours. yes please.
History lesson! More shooter please! I can't remember what I had for lunch yesterday, how does Jim remember all these great details? Jim, please write an autobiography!
Love these shooter interviews. He’s a great storyteller.
Oh wow, i'd never seen a jim shooter intervirw before. This is awesome.
Thanks! Try to check out the other one here as well!
I have LOVED these interviews - thank you CBH & Mr. Shooter! PS: I’m hoping there will be a third.😉
Wonderful, informative, detailed interview! Superb.
The reason the Superman film didn't give DC a bump the way Star Wars gave Marvel a bump is because Star Wars was a brand new entity and therefore, younger people could feel it belonged to them. There was more of a palpable excitement, whereas Superman could be equated to your parent's generation as Superman was forty years old by that point.
I think the bigger reason is that the Star Wars comics were much better than the Superman comics at the time. I don't think anyone would argue that the late 70s/early 80s was a creative high point for Superman.
Watched Part I and now Part II. Kudos to you for letting Shooter tell his side of the story for posterity. For the most part, he comes off as knowledgeable (of both the business and creative sides), credible, and even a bit admirable. However, he did misspeak on one factual issue that, for me, really undermined his memories/veracity in the rest of the interview. He asserts that Michael Fleisher won his lawsuit against the Comics Journal but was awarded little money because he was shown to not have suffered any loss in income from the Harlan TCJ interview. This did not jibe with my recollection and I double-checked reports and articles online-unless I'm missing something, Fleisher absolutely lost that lawsuit, so I don't know what's going on there with Shooter. TCJ's oral history, I Told You So, covers the trial as well and even includes interviews with some of the jurors after the fact. Aside from the fact that they felt the case never should have gone to trial and most of it was tedious, they had little sympathy for Fleisher (even partly blaming him for forcing them to sit through that trial). A lot of people felt Fleisher was simply egged on by people who wanted to bury TCJ, rather than having any real interest in Fleisher's well being or best interest. Don't know if you weren't aware of it or simply decided not to call him on it, but that seems a fairly egregious and misleading misstatement on Shooter's part-though I guess it's possible that he's just misremembered the actual outcome for some reason, though such an oversight in view of his other detailed recollections seems odd.
Great questions, great interview!
You guys are heroes! Awesome stuff!
A great interview. Some comments on specific points:
The specific Hulk story that plagiarized Ellison was Incredible Hulk #286 Hero of the Day.
Since there was a bit of uncertainty in the interview, I can confirm that Shooter is remembering correctly that the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends dog was Ms. Lion. In the episode 7 Little Superheroes, a fun homage to Ten Little Indians/And Then There Were None, Ms. Lion prevented Spider-Man, Iceman, Firestar, Sub-Mariner, Captain America, Shanna, and Dr. Strange from being killed by... the Chameleon. You have to look the other way and pretend that Shanna, the weakest of the seven, couldn't defeat the Chameleon on her own.
Crystar was lumped in with the licensed characters. Crystar is actually an interesting case. I am the current Admin for a forum called Who Watches the Watchers discussing the various Marvel Handbooks, and modern era writers participate in the forums (I don't want there to be any spam filter issues, but Google "who watches the watchers ohotmu" to find us). When Marvel Legacy: the 1980s Handbook came out, and Crystar had a profile, one of the writers explained that Crystar had a profile because he was *not* a licensed character. What happened was that Marvel was getting the licenses to the various toy lines and putting out comics and decided they wanted to tap into the toy line market directly, in this instance not with their usual characters but with characters created specifically to sell toys. So while neither the Crystar toys nor the comics did very well, if tomorrow they wanted to greenlight a 120 page Crystar graphic novel, they could do it without contacting any toy company. It would probably be a very bad idea, but they own the character and can do what they want with him.
Enjoyed both interviews. Thanks! I assume the reason the Star Wars comic “saved” Marvel was because it was new money. It didn’t comp the previous years books. If Uncanny X-Men started selling better in the late 1970s it still was a small percentage increase over the previous year, not all new. Star Wars, and all it’s many reprint comics, was a new infusion of $$ that had no comp to 1976. It brought in new readers. Any business that can open a new revenue stream (and Star Wars was a big revenue stream) that doesn’t comp to the previous year is much more impactful to the top and bottom lines.
Put Shooter as ed in chief of DC!
Great interview btw!
Much better interview without the rage questions. 😅
Jim Shooter did something amazing… like a great band he created tension in the organization that produced great creative work. Out of that he is vilified like Paul McCartney and Roger Waters are.
Spike was the name in the cartoon, I believe Buster was the comics.
I Love Jim S. I wish he could get Valiant back and REBOOT it. The first books were fantastic!!!!! When he started Valiant comics.
that costs money though but i agree
This interview answered a question that has been bugging me for a long time - The Generic Comic Book. Came out the same month as the fumetti book. One of the "junk books" to raise the money.
Very rarely mentioned Marvel UK in either interview. What was Jim's side of the Alan Moore meeting and the delay of the Captain Britain reprint of Moore's and Alan Davis work.
VERY interesting to hear that back in mid 1972, Lee nearly left marvel to go to dc. It may have been a good thing for dc, but it would have been a absolutely disaster for marvel to have had chip Goodman in charge of the company.
Here is the first CBH interview with Jim Shooter: ua-cam.com/video/FBh709_dLNs/v-deo.html
Jim Shooter on Sol Brodsky: "he BUILT that place!" Jim Shooter on Jack Kirby: "he was confused, he needed to be reigned in..." wow, you can't make this stuff up.
His statements on Brodsky actually vary as he implies that Brodsky got the second job there being Stan’s pal. Also he said that Kirby was the most creative creator in comics. All statements probably true in specific situations.
@@edfurnez6134 Brodsky deserves all sorts of credit. My point is that Marvel would have sunk without Kirby; Brodsky's position would have been invalidated when and if that happened. It's just that ANYTHING he says about Kirby is backhanded and begrudging.
I wish he would’ve talked about how to character of paladin came about, I’d really like to know about the creation of that character
Here is his response:
Paladin. I like to create new characters, especially villains, though in Paladin's case, he's more of an opponent than a villain. I remember the ancient days when Stan and company had new villains appearing all the time -- nine in the first ten issues of Spider-Man, counting the Enforcers as one.
My Paladin was obviously influenced by the Have Gun Will Travel TV character, but wild, edgy, funny, and as ruthless as you'd have to be taking on hardcase criminals and sometimes nasty people with powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men.
if only you could have asked him about byrne leaving ff and hulk in 86, did byrne quit or was shooter unhappy with his work, would have been good to hear his side of that. Also about frank miller going to dc to do year one and dark knight returns, did miller leave on his own?
I am and will always be a huge fan of Jim Shooter. I loved his EIC run at Marvel. He kept continuity and canon accurate and consistent throughout all the titles. I am glad I was able to read Marvel during his run there. I wish to God that Marvel would go back to that kind of non SJW political comics.
I know the Peter Ledger story at Marvel... look his name up... he was the artist/airbrusher around EPIC times, he drew the EPIC logo and more... then... the theft
Maybe Shooter could cure Marvel of the many shits they are now publishing...
Why did Shooter fire Steve Mitchell? He's one of the nicest guys in the industry.
All sorts of people who sucked at their job were nice guys I'm sure. Your job should be based on being competent and productive.
@@shaunbowman872 so whyd he get Wein to fire him without explanation?
Actually it wasn't wein who gave him the message. But later Steve asked Wein about it. Wein said with Shooter once you do "the thing", he got rid of you. No one knew what that was. Steve didn't badmouth Jim or Neal Adams and Adams was a renowned jerk with an inflated opinion of himself. He said both of them had these kind of egos where they wanted it to be about them foremost. Iron man was doing well by O'Neil McDonnell & Mitchell and Shooter simply threw a monkey wrench into the works because he wasn't directly involved in its success. I knkw he was EIC but call it a character flaw.
It never stops with a certain generation of comic professionals to "mention" these apparent Kirby stories of him seeming confused, lost, forgetting things. I wonder if Shooter realizes he has more in common with Roy Thomas and Tony Isabella than they realize? "It was Stan"... wow. Then why didn't Stan create anything before or after Kirby? Alex, you're very good at this and very respectful but I wish you'd follow up and challenge these statements sometimes.
Actually I think the opposite. Alex got great info that goes against the Stan did all narrative. Stan didn’t generate plots for his own newspaper strip and the animation people didn’t respect him. Even the part with having an honorary title as publisher but not publishing anything is all here. Alex was able to get that info without shutting down the guest. Bravo
Stan Lee's Spiderman run with Romita Sr was extraordinary and no Kirby or Ditko were involved. Also about Kirby, Shooter clearly stated that when it came to comics Kirby was always sharp even in his later years, but had cognitive problems in everyday life. Nothing outrageous, in my opinion. But you are free to bend his statements the way you prefer, of course.
@@vaderetro264 Wasn't bent at all. Stan Lee claimed his entire CAREER he had a "bad memory" so its curious how y'all pick and choose who you wanna prop up. But don't worry, we gonna work on educating more fans about how Kirby got cheated
@@rakeemwatkins9440 The curious thing is how people like you decide to hate on somebody ignoring facts - though I have an idea of why that happens... Anyway, your time your life, keep on hating if that helps you going on.
@@vaderetro264 Hate is a powerful term, Vade. Thank you for designating me as a simple hater and suggesting I "hate" people just because I've read evidence by Doc V about business schemes at Atlas/Marvel ppl rarely gonna discuss. Thank you for your condescending advice and passive aggressive comments, bruh.
Marvel TAILS