It's been a while since I last did one of these, but I didn't want to let this occasion pass without acknowledging November 1999. Because that was the month where my office set a personal record for the most books edited and released in a given month. Now, since then, I've topped this amount handily a number of times-and once you factor in the titles I currently oversee as well as those I directly edit, I demolish it at this point. Still, fifteen releases in a single month is still a pretty strong showing-especially during a period when the average editorial office was producing in the neighborhood of six.
So let's see what was going on back then, and if any of it was any good.
AVENGERS #24 marked the two-year point in the Kurt Busiek/George Perez award-winning run (as was commemorated on the cover here.) This was the follow-up to the "Eighth Day" storyline that played out through a number of books the preceding month or two, and which introduced a family of characters centered around the Juggernaut, the Exemplars. Unfortunately, while there were some cool designs generated by Jose Ladronn for those characters, they never quite caught on. I think the idea was too cerebral-it's easy to understand that the Juggernaut is a guy who can't be stopped, but the other Exemplars all had attributes that weren't as straightforward. And they couldn't help but come across as merely just another super-team.
THOR #19 continued the Dan Jurgens/John Romita Jr/Klaus Janson era on the series. I don't remember all that much about this particular issue-other than that I think it was around this time that my assistant, Gregg Schigiel, wrapped up his running "Saga of Thor's Lost Helmet", which ran through the letters page for around six months.
THUNDERBOLTS #34 was the first issue of the series written by Fabian Nicieza-which means that a decade has now gone by since originator Kurt Busiek was regularly on the title. I can't remember offhand if the first hints were dropped here, but Fabian brought some fresh attention to the series by introducing a new incarnation of the mysterious Scourge. Strangely enough, the current version of Scourge is leading the T-Bolts today.
AVENGERS: DOMINATION FACTOR and FANTASTIC FOUR: DOMINATION FACTOR went through a strange birthing process. At the time, AVENGERS FOREVER was just wrapping up, and had been received well. Speaking with then-EIC Bob Harras, Dan Jurgens mentioned how he'd love to do a sort of "Fantastic Four Forever" in the same vein-and Bob, not realizing that Dan and I had never spoken about this, immediately approved the project. After some tossing around of ideas and concepts, we wrangled in Jerry Ordway, who had been helping out on the main AVENGERS series, and made this a larger tale that bounced back and forth between the two limited series. But I was too smart by half when I proposed the odd numbering system, in which the first digit denoted the issue of the particular limited series, and the second the chapter of the overall story. All this did was confuse almost everybody.
The real reason that this month was so heavy with books from my office is that I released a "fifth week event" this month-a series of seven connected specials revisiting some of the leftover concepts and characters from the successful-yet-critically-panned Heroes Reborn era.
HEROES REBORN: DOOMSDAY kicked off the event, with a time-displaced Doom (who hadn't returned to the main marvel Universe along with the rest of the displaced heroes) crashing back down onto the now-decimated heroes Reborn Earth and deciding to claim it for his own. Writer Chris Claremont was on staff at this point, and was writing FANTASTIC FOUR, so it made sense to me to have him develop the spine of this story, around which the other one-shots would revolve. Mike McKone turned in some excellent artwork.
The following week saw the release of five one-shots, some of which were troubled in their birthing, many of which changed from their initial conception.
HEROES REBORN: YOUNG ALLIES was originally conceived as a buddy book starring the HR-Earth Bucky and Falcon, along the lines of the Star-Spangled Kid and Stripesy where the teenager was the lead character. But this all had to be reworked when I discovered that the HR Falcon was the actual Falcon, and had returned to the MU along with everybody else. Instead, Fabian Nicieza pitched the idea of a new Young Allies team, with a cool new Toro, and interesting approach to a character called Kid Colt, and a few other new characters. These guys were among the very few of these concepts to be used later, as the team showed up again in THUNDERBOLTS a few years later.
HEROES REBORN: ASHEMA continued the spine story, written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by Michael Ryan. The title character was a Celestial who'd fallen from grace, and who was attempting to save the HR Earth that the others of her kind intended to destroy, most notably the Dreaming Celestial. Not much to say here, the least interesting entry in teh lot, despite nice Michael Ryan artwork.
HEROES REBORN: REBEL went through changes similar to those of YOUNG ALLIES. Initially, it was to star the guy who wore the prototype of Tony Stark's HR armor, his best friend. But when we realized that the character had been killed during the HEROES REBORN IRON MAN run, we switched gears. Joe Kelly did an excellent job conceptualizing this as a post-apocalyptic western in a Midwest irradiated by gamma fallout. And the artwork by Matt Haley was lovely-what there was of it. When I was forced to call in Mark Bagley to complete the job over a weekend in order to meet our strict street date, in a fit of pique I credited him as "Matt Haley Bail-Out Brigade." Matt eventually forgave me for this, I think.
HEROES REBORN: MASTERS OF EVIL by Joe Casey and Charlie Adlard was similar in spirit to Joe's recent DARK REIGN: ZODIAC limited series, though unable to push boundaries quite so far in a Comics Code world.
HEROES REBORN: REMNANTS gathered together all sorts of bits and pieces that were left over in the HR Universe in one wacky title (the HR Ant-Man design, for example, was adopted by the Avengers' accountant, who became Mant) and all built around one central joke: we revealed that the Swordsman of the HR universe, whose true name and history was hinted at but never revealed in the course of the run, was actually that world's Deadpool. Writer Joe Kelly was in fine, wacky form, but he really drew the short end of the straw on this assignment in terms of his artists, as again with REBEL, I was forced to bring in other hands to finish up this job from Ethan Van Sciver at the last minute, which gave the final product a very choppy feel.
Finally, a week later, HEROES REBORN: DOOM wrapped the whole thing up, with Doom transporting the entirety of the planet into the regular Marvel U and situating it on the far side of the sun in opposition to the Earth. As is typical of Chris, he'd had so many ideas and set up so many threads that the conclusion here feels rushed and he never quite gets back around to everything. Years later, Jeph Loeb and Rob Liefeld would revisit the HR universe in ONSLAUGHT REBORN, not realizing that this series of books had been done. Even more strangely to me, this whole event was recently collected in a Trade paperback along with the HEROES REBORN: THE RETURN limited series-proving that you can never be quite sure just what you do will eventually be reprinted
Until I looked at this cover, I'd completely forgotten that HULK #10 was a fill-in art job by Ron Frenz. HULK wasn't in a great place at this particular second, as it was transitioning from one creative team to the next. Jerry Ordway had stepped in to provide me with a three months bridging arc after the situation hadn't worked out with the previous writer. But two months later, Paul Jenkins came on board, and together with regular artist Ron Garney did some very nice work.
We also launched CAPTAIN MARVEL #1 this month, by Peter David and Chriscross, spinning out of the events of AVENGERS FOREVER to some extent. I really liked Carlos Pacheco's redesign of the classic Mar-Vell outfit, and I thought the character could probably sustain a series, at least for awhile (it wound up running for 60 issues in two iterations.) But the big news here was me convincing Peter David to come back on board a regular Marvel title-he was still smarting from being let go from HULK not that long ago, but he agreed to take Genis' series on when I told him that Rick Jones was one of the leads, and that he could bring in Rick's wife Marlo from his HULK run.
Finally, the third issue of AVENGERS: UNITED THEY STAND came out, based on the short-lived Avengers cartoon. There's probably an entire blog post to be written about my experiences working on that cartoon, which I'll have to get to at some point. A:UTS was written by Ty Templeton, who'd come to prominence on DC's adaptations of their animated shows, and who devoted an incredible amount of attention and dedication to this series-he honestly treated it as though it were the one-and-only Avengers title, and was great at being able to interface with the cartoon's writing staff and getting them to agree with whatever crazy thing he wanted to do that month. The artwork was provided by Derec Aucoin. While this series got some good critical notices, the fact that it was an adaptation of a cartoon that quickly vanished doomed it to a similar fate all too soon.
And that was everything! Looking back on it, while there was plenty of quantity, the quality was in flux, even on those long runs that are generally well-regarded today. None of these fifteen titles really stands out as something truly special-there were better issues and worse issues, but nothing that was so overwhelmingly memorable that it's stood the test of ten years of time. Some months are like that, I suppose.
One of the aspects of the comic book business that I don't think gets talked about enough is the sense of community that exists among everybody who's involved within it. Most often, you hear about the in-fighting, the back-biting, and the rumor-mongering, because that's a sexier story. But while there's the typical amount of all those things, and while not every single person gets along with everyone else, there's nevertheless a surprising unity that exists throughout the business. Comic book people are, for the most part, very willing to help one another out in a myriad of ways.
You can see it in the support people give to organizations like the Hero Initiative, or the CBLDF. Or the charitable auctions that are organized when a beloved writer has maxed out their health insurance coverage. But even more so, it exists in a million tiny ways that are never really spoken about aloud, when one person extends a helping hand to another within the industry, not because there's any particular relationship that exists between them, and not because there's anything to gain, but simply because people feel like part of the larger family.
I think that's a pretty special thing. This past week or two, I had a number of people step up to help me out with a situation that, while in no way life-threatening, was significant. And guys with whom I've had very little contact, people for whom I've done nothing in particular other than sit here and be part of the world-space, came through in a meaningful way. It's very much appreciated, and while I don't want to embarrass anybody by naming them and putting that kind of spotlight upon them, I do want to note their efforts --especially including those folks who made efforts to help out, but weren't able to come through in the way I needed. Their efforts are no less genuine and worthy of regard than those who got the job done.
Seems like it gets harder and harder to find the time to write up new entries for this old blog. In fact, coupled with the switchover to more immediate social media such as Twitter, I'm not even 100% convinced that this blog serves a real concrete purpose anymore, as opposed to time spent on other endeavors. Still, that's a question for another time.
For now, since it's been a while since I did something like this, here's some more preview artwork to get you through the weekend.
Before I start in on today's topic, let the record show that it was Jim McCann who at the Reading Circle a week or so ago made the point about the question of the believability of magic being largely a matter of semantics, as outlined in my last blog post.
All right, so here's another larger issue conundrum to grapple with: why is it that when something hits a certain threshold of popularity, if becomes fashionable to bash it?
Certainly, there are those series or programs or entertainers or what-have-you that lose their edge once they hit the big time, where there's an obvious qualitative difference between what they did on the way up and what they're doing now that they're on top. But I don't think the situation is as simple as that-and I think it has a lot to say about our own sense of self.
Everybody loves finding that strange niche thing that really speaks to them in some personal way. This is especially true among comic book readers, contingents among which preach the gospel of Quasar, or Spider-Girl, or Black Panther, or whatever. We love to find that cool flavor that's a bit off to the side that gives us a very specific kind of a hit. This is particularly true at the point where we're becoming a little bit bored or jaded with the mainstream.
Now, typically, one of two things happens when this occurs. Most often, the title in question has a small but very devoted following, but not enough to keep the series viable over the long haul, and it goes away. And then, for years afterwards, its hardcore devotees ask for more of it, and hang on every scrap of an appearance by its leading characters. But the opposite happens as well-the series develops a broader, larger following-and then, seemingly suddenly, it isn't any good any more. It's lost that special quality that defined it for us in some almost-intangible way. And, in fact, the more popular it gets, the more embarrassed you get about admitting that you like it, or liked it, or ever liked it.
Is this all just a function of each of us wanting to feel special, like an insider that's smarter or more in-the-know than the average person? Or is there more to it than this? And why is it that the most popular things in pop culture are almost always the ones that are ridiculed and torn down by the most hardcore devotees (including those that once loved it, in many cases)? Beyond that, why does it become fashionable? Is this simply a way for those people who are more cynical and worldly and faux-sophisticated to maintain their interest and connection to a particular thing while seemingly standing in opposition to it? I don't know the answers, but it's a fascinating question.
I think there may actually be two issues here that I'm dancing back and forth around, so depending on what shape my thinking takes over the next day or two, there may be more on this matter in the days ahead.
One day every week I head up a regular Reading Circle for the members of editorial, during which we select a current issue of a given title (from either Marvel or a competitor) to read and dissect, in the hopes of figuring out how to be better at what we do. It's always an interesting discussion to be at the center of, in that, like you guys, there's nothing a group of comic book editors likes to do more than talk about comics. We're both excited by a book that's working, and hyper-critical of an issue that falls down in some way or other.
This week, though, we hit on an interesting point about the perception of the audience that I thought was worth sharing with a wider audience. To set the stage, this week's book was the first issue of DOCTOR VOODOO, AVENGER OF THE SUPERNATURAL, edited by my office's own Lauren Sankovitch (and on sale now at finer comic book emporiums everywhere.) The debut issue went over pretty well among the group, but then at one point somebody brought up the fact that they felt disoriented whenever some element of the sorcerous milieu came up-the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak, and so forth. They found these elements alienating, and felt disconnected from the story whenever they came up.
As the discussion continued, somebody (and I forget exactly who, but it wasn't me) made the point that, were this a science fiction series, and the references were to holograms rather than astral forms, or equations rather than spells, the reaction would be completely different. In each case, the underlying concept is about the same, but the instinctive response was to accept the science-based incarnation more readily, and to question or wonder about how it worked less.
Isn't that odd, the way we think? It's mostly just a matter of semantics, but it completely changed the reading experience for at least one person. And it does underline a larger essential truth about the baggage people bring with them when they crack open a comic, turn on a television or go to a movie.
There's something pretty magical about watching somebody who's about the best there is in their chosen field of endeavor do their thing. Whether we're talking about athletics, performance, magic, painting, dance or comic book artwork, the elegance of a person working with that degree of aptitude is something extraordinary to behold. In any creative medium, there are (and I don't mean to make them sound trivial with this next bit; I well realize how much talent and dedication it takes to operate on a professional level in any of these fields) dozens of run-of-the-mill talents; guys that are extremely good, but don't reset the bar. And then, there are those rare people who take things to the next level, whose command of what they do opens up whole new avenues of possibility. People who reset the game.
For all that I like such concepts in my fiction, I'm not one to believe in predetermination, or destiny. And yet, there is that feeling that there are people who are simply supposed to be doing a specific thing, because they're so natural at it, because they excel at it. I feel like I've made the most of my meager talents, and I'm pretty good at what I do-but I don't operate at a fraction of the level that these sorts of prodigies do. It at once makes them astonishing and frustrating, since it always feels like I should be capable of better, and it should be easier. That these skills are only developed after years of dedicated practice and study doesn't change the feeling that it all looks so effortless.
And it remains a joy to see pages come in from one of those rare talents, especially in their formative stages. With the easy access of the internet and the fact that almost every book is previewed in one unfinished form or another, it's a pleasure that even folks outside the business can experience to a limited degree. And it's even more incredible to be able to stand there and watch one of these virtuoso artists draw in front of you.
No real point to this outside of these observations-just thought it was worth reiterating, because it's very easy after so many years to take these situations for granted.
Is there anything better than finding some new, special something, and then sharing it with other people who also like it?
I live for those moments, those times where I've fallen in love with some new book, or film, or comic, or television series, or whatever, and then somebody says something that makes me think they might be a receptive to that selfsame thing. I'm a pimp, really, when it comes to the stuff I like. As are we all.
Especially the sort of person who, for whatever reason, is drawn to our medium, we love to find like-minded individuals, and to share those things we love. It's why so many fans go to conventions, or spend so much time online, posting or writing blogs or review columns or digital fanzines. Sure, we like having our tastes validated, and everybody's got a certain Johnson for the spotlight to some degree. But more fundamentally than that, we like sharing the stuff we love-spreading the gospel, as it were. And we love it when we "turn" another convert.
That's where all of those urgings to "tell your friends" come from, people understanding that this very basic viral style marketing really works, especially since, when it succeeds, you almost inevitably end up with people who are more dyed-in-the-wool fanatics than they might otherwise be. There are weeks when I live and breathe a new thing, so enraptured am I by whatever goodness it's about. You need to be careful, of course-you don't want to turn into that guy who's always pushing his crap on anybody who'll listen. You need to be selective. And it's always a bit of a letdown when you pass something to what seems to be a receptive audience, and then they either don't see the appeal, or worse, don't ever quite get around to looking at it. Still, the goodness of the wins outweigh the disappointments of those connections that don't quite work out.
So be my preachers, blogees. Tell me what you love.
For whatever reason, my mind seems to be turning towards big, broad subjects when it comes time to pound out some prose for this blog of late. I'm not sure if any of these observations are useful to anyone, but hopefully they're at least universal enough to be worth talking about.
So, switching from Ego to Fear for a moment. In theory, Fear serves a useful purpose. It's your early-warning system, preventing you from doing or saying things that are likely to get you hurt or killed. At least, that's what it's supposed to be there for.
But too often, fear goes beyond its survival parameters, and expands into more mundane situations. Fear keeps people from trying things, from attempting to grow, from stretching and taking that leap into the unknown that might end badly, but through which all good things are possible.
I'm sure almost everybody has experienced that moment of self-consciousness, that worry that we're going to be mocked for our opinions, or likes, our tastes. This has always been especially potent among comic book readers in years gone by, at a less-enlightened time when reading comics was socially considered a pastime only for little children and emotional retards. And so you hide your true feelings away, for fear of being mocked or ostracized. Fear of being cut down, emotionally.
This can be paralyzing within an organization as well. A climate can be created where liking anything is seen as a sign of weakness. It takes a decent amount of personal courage to champion a story or an idea or a creator that you believe in. And even when you do, you then have to be proven right, to the degree that it's acknowledged, or the whole exercise is self-defeating. Once you've built up a certain track record, it gets easier to get people to trust you and your judgment-but getting there can be extremely difficult, and fraught with peril. It's way too easy to be pigeon-holed as the "Indy" guy, or the "Noir" guy, or the "Teen Angst" guy, both as a creator and an editor, to the point where that's looked upon as a shorthand for the only game you know how to play.
We talk a lot about Fearlessness at our Retreats, whenever creators are in town, because what's gotten Marvel to this point over the last decade or so, a willingness to experiment and shake things up, and not be ruled by old demons (nor, for that matter, simply shaking things up to see them shake-there's often a reason a particular demon is standing there.) If you want to do this job, in almost any capacity, you're going to need to put your self-esteem on the line along the way, and that requires Fearlessness.
Speaking of which, I've got an AVENGERS retreat going on during the back half of this week, so I'm not sure how consistent blogging will be for the next few days. I guess we'll all find out together.
As I continue to ponder the unanswerable truths about life, business, commerce and creativity, I find myself drawn inexorably to certain basic fundamental concepts that are at the root of so many of the difficulties each one of us faces. So I thought I'd elucidate on one of those concepts.
The thing that most often screws up our decision-making processes is ego.
It's ego that makes us react to a piece of news or a piece of feedback negatively and emotionally. It's ego that makes us jockey for position and advantage against one another rather than looking at the big picture and doing what's right, both for the greater good and for ourselves.
Now, ego isn't intrinsically all bad. You need a healthy amount of ego to be effective in any creative endeavor. You need to believe that you have something to say or communicate that's worthwhile, and you need a certain amount of self-confidence to be able to bull through all of the people who'll tell you that you're no good and to give up.
But ego is also an easy thing to lose control over. You're in trouble when you start believing your own hype, or thinking that your own fecal matter doesn't stink. And it's such a seductively easy trap to fall into.
I've been making a concerted effort to expand my thinking, and not react in so knee-jerk a fashion to the contrary ideas and thoughts and approaches put in front of me by all the folks I work with, and to not make a snap-judgment based on ego. I don't always get it right, but I'm trying.
Spent a bit too much of my time today dealing with a tempest-in-a-teapot involving multiple creators all wanting to use the same characters, and the inevitable personality clashes that resulted. We like to pass the characters around relatively freely, and have them turn up in all sorts of interesting places. But that does mean that we sometimes run into conflicts, where writer A wants to use a character that writer B has just killed off, or put in the hospital, or changed into a slug. Conversely, you sometimes get one writer who wants to do a storyline revealing that character A is a hard-line right-winger, while another writer just finished up a tale in which that same character is a left-leaning lefty.
So we've got some guidelines about how this all works out. Principle among them is that each character has a home title or a home office, through which their appearances should all be coordinated, so as to minimize conflicts. At a level above that are the Executive Editors, Axel Alonso and myself, keeping a broader eye on the various goings-on in our divisions. And above that is Joe Q as EIC and Dan Buckley as Publisher. Book and office assignments can change, however, as the titles we're publishing change or the direction we're planning or hoping to take certain characters in changes. To use an example close to home, once upon a time, in order to have Wolverine guest star in AVENGERS, I would have had to run every script past the X-office. But since Wolverine is now a regular fixture in NEW AVENGERS, that criteria is lessened, provided that I'm keeping up with the major events in the X-titles as regards Wolverine, and don't do anything to massively conflict with them. And because of the success of NEW AVENGERS, it would take a larger consensus to pull him out of the series permanently-it's no longer something that the X-editor could do unilaterally. It's the same thing with the Kingpin, who started life as a Spider-Man villain, and then transitioned into being more important to Daredevil's world. (None of today's faux-drama had anything to do with these two examples, by the way.)
The writers and the editors have different responsibilities when it comes to the characters. This isn't as absolute as I'm about to make it sound, but as a broad guideline it breaks up this way: the writer's first loyalty is to the story he or she is trying to tell. It's a short-term viewpoint, even if you're talking about a writer who may remain on a given title for years. The editor's first loyalty, on the other hand, is to the book (or the property, if you choose to view it that way.) This will inevitably lead to occasions where a given creator won't be able to do precisely what they'd like to do with a character in a given situation-kill them, turn them into an axe murderer, give them a sex-change operation-regardless of how good that final story might be. On the other hand, the guidelines aren't absolute-there are times when killing a given character seems exciting, when making somebody an axe murderer opens up new storytelling possibilities, and giving somebody a sex change brings new energy or insight or attention to a moribund character. So there's never any harm in making your play and stating your case. Whenever possible, we'd rather say yes than say no. Especially since nothing kills the long-term quicker than a character or a book going stale, so there's always a need for new, fresh, exciting approaches to shake things up. We just can't always do all of them all at the same time.
More later,
Tom B
PS: on another note entirely, the first round of competition in the Make-Your-Own-Motion-Comic competition closed today over at Aniboom.com/marvel, and a bunch of the entries are really something to see. But don't take my word for it--click the link and take a look for yourself!
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