Jim Shooter's Marvel tenure involved a "No gays in the Marvel Universe" policy, confirmed by several creators.
A controversial Rampaging Hulk story depicted gay stereotypes, sparking backlash from LGBTQ advocates.
Andy Mangels and others recount Shooter’s defensiveness and a legacy marked by exclusion of queer creators.
Despite industry progress since, Jim Shooter's impact on comics in this regard remains widely debated today.

This week saw the passing of Jim Shooter, writer, artist, editor, publisher and Editor-In-Chief at Marvel, Valiant, Defiant and Broadway Comics. Among all the tributes made to the man and his impact on the comic book industry, caused it, as Bleeding Cool described it, to "grow up", there are plenty of anecdotes that swing all over the place regarding the man. And more often than not, as well as discussion about his rules, there using the word, "complicated". Former Marvel/DC writer, editor and gay activist, founder of the Gays In Comics panel at San Diego Comic-Con, and for years the most prominent out creator in mainstream comics, Andy Mangels picked up on that yesterday, posting to Facebook an article he wrote for Amazing Heroes about gay culture in comics back in the nineties, and then posting further;

"REGARDING JIM SHOOTER'S DEATH …
I'm seeing a lot of tributes, and a lot of them using the word "complicated." Well, I'll add one more word: Homophobic In Rampaging Hulk magazine in 1980, Shooter wrote a damning story about Bruce Banner almost being raped at the YMCA by two lisping, mincing, queens. So horrific was it that it made newspaper and magazine stories at the time (Advocate, Village Voice, and Omni among them). I later wrote about in Amazing Heroes #143-144 and again in The Advocate. Throughout the years, Shooter was alternately defensive, angry, and defensively angry about people's reactions to the blatantly awful story. On his blog (especially in the comments), he defended it, even against the words of gay ex-Marvel editor Roger Klorese."

In the comments on his blog back in 2011, he was asked by a reader called Larry,

"I would love to know more about was your involvement in The Hulk magazine #23, the story where Bruce Banner is nearly raped in a YMCA shower. From memory, the story was quite controversial and resulted in an outpouring of mostly negative letters that were published in the letters column for two issues. I would love to know what your inspiration to write the story was and the fallout that occurred afterwards."

>>149270376 (OP)
>im Shooter's Marvel tenure involved a "No gays in the Marvel Universe"
Okay this is based

>>149270376 (OP)
Rest in peace King.

>>149270376 (OP)
I wonder what will happen to his official website now that he's gone. Better start archiving it, folks. I already did that.

>>149270376 (OP)
>>149270388
Can we not let this man's entire legacy be defined by butthurt gays and their inability to stop trying to make everything about themselves?

>>149270376 (OP)
Rest in peace, asshole.

>>149270735
>Jim Shooter did good things and also bad things
>NOOOOOOOOOOO YOU DARE YOU INSULT THE LEGACY OF MY FAVORITE CELEBRITY GO FUCKING KILL YOURSELF AHHHHHHHHHH I'M GOING INSANE

>>149270735
No because this fucking site been compromised by idiots who think we need to look at everything with a political lense & fake outrage.

>>149270735
What world are you living in? Did you just awake from a coma?
Anyways it doesn't matter, culture is swinging back and they're losing their power.

>>149270794
>Jim Shooter did good things and also bad things.
>NOOOOOOOOOO YOU DARE YOU BRING UP ANYTHING REMOTELY POSITIVE ABOUT SOMEONE WHO DID SOMETHING I DIDNT LIKE DECADES AGO AND NOW I THINK ITS THE ONLY THING HE SHOULD BE REMEMBERED FOR GO FUCKING KILL YOURSELF AHHHHHHHHH I’M GOING INSANE

>>149270735
>"He was involved in bringing Marvel wide acclaim that eventually led it to being one of the most recognizable IP's in the world."
>*Doesn't like poopoo on the peepee.
>"So he leads a complicated legacy. I feel unseen and can't keep quiet about it now that he's dead."
You don't hate faggots enough. Civilized society needs to revert to the doctrine of don't ask, don't tell.

>>149270983
Why do we need this political obsession?

Uh huh, right.

>>149271018
Assfucking isn't politics. People aren't falling for it anymore.
Seethe faggot.

>>149271028
>I reserve the right to make anyone a hero or a villain
>exclusively makes gays rapists
>orders everyone to not make gay heroes
>I-I'm not prejudiced

>>149271028
Based Shooter, making kiddy-diddling homos seethe.

>>149271066
Shooter did have a "no bigotry"policy.

>>149271066
Maybe he understood that floodgates would be opened and we’d end up with a lot of unsellable comics that are nothing but “relatable” queer people cracking wise and eating.

>nobody talks about how the same story has the Hulk take on domestic abuse, and Bruce reads a woman's suicide note at the end
>the other story in that issue has Bruce wake up in Iowa and he has to deal with the mundane issues of getting new clothes
And there was another thing that didn't involve the Hulk at all, but I think it did involve milk. And spies.
Definitely had spies, I think it also had milk.

>>149271066
>exclusively makes gays rapists
Just like it happened to him and his friend, strange coincidence

>>149270469
If only that rule still applied we would have less dead weight in the marvel comic industry

>>149271121
>I should have said "I don't agree with Byrne's stupid prejudice if, indeed, he has any"

>>149270376 (OP)
>>149270746
>>149270794
>>149271066

>>149270376 (OP)
Its interesting how he was only homophobic but not racist

>>149270376 (OP)
Shooter undoubtedly had issues with gay people, but given everything everyone knows about how the guy operated - and the fact that gay characters still existed in Marvel comics under his tenure, which can't have escaped his notice given how hands-on he was with the books - and the general attitude of the time period, I'd say it's pretty obvious the "don't confirm any character is gay" diktat wasn't coming from a place of prejudice, but from not wanting to court controversy for the company.

>>149271147
You fuckers are enabling Indian values because they're considered "macho" and " funny" in your own groups

>>149270376 (OP)
>>149270388
Jim Shooter was a great man because, not in spite of, his contempt for fags

Based Jim.

>>149271018
Gays and all related stuff, they were our only defense against poos
You thought the poos smelled like freshly baked cinnamon rolls, and couldn't resist the idea that the taste was as good as the smell

>>149271312
And when they had Northstar come out of the closet in the 90s, a major retailer told Marvel they were no longer going to sell their mutant toys and it caused a brief wave of editorial conservatism in reaction.

>>149271028
Honestly they should just make Kingsley gay

>>149271225

>>149270794
What bad things did he do?

>>149271482
His policies became a model for the modern editorial mandates

>>149271419
What? Nah man I'm talking about some of the guys inside the comic industry. People like Gabby Rivera that crazy ass woman used her sexuality as a deflectionfrom her shitty comic and was just openly racist towards white people.

>>149271468
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4etdXW--30

Fags are disgusting.

>>149271496
Someone worse will always replace them. You can't expect every modern conservative writer to be the next Robert Eggers

>>149271515
Das rite, fellow black man!

>>149271590
The rap industry revealed that all blacks are fags.
Prison doesn't turn people gay, blacks were already fags, which is also why they all have STDs.

>>149271614
Would you rather they be assets of Nation Of Islam?

>>149271644
I would rather they be sent to Israel to give them all AIDS.

>>149270376 (OP)
>>149270388
>Dumb faggot has dumb faggot opinions
This is a non-thread.

>>149271515
This is a good example of the kind of disinfo firehouse tactics used by foreign troll farms and their unsuspecting prey. The graphics use that bright corporate memphis style and big text to be social media friendly. I guess to subvert their wide use? And yet the "sources" listed are hard to make out from the low res and small font. The only ones that are legible are to a site that screenshots webpages rather than a direct link or clear source. Statistics also tend to look more authoritative at a glance since people usually associate numbers with scientific research but anyone can pull up numbers out of their ass.

Reminder that this sort of stuff is intended to overwhelm people into negativity and inaction with a flood of shit that no one can reasonably dig through on their own.

>>149271706
have you ever heard of this cool word called 'irony'

>>149271706
Actually hating faggots comes naturally, we evolved a disgust instinct towards them because they're diseased child predators who are a threat to the tribe's children.

>>149271066
>>exclusively makes gays rapists
Did that fag from X-0 Manowar raped somebody?

>>149271783
You cant make this argument and post on /co/, the loli board where wanting to rape lolis is half the threads right now

>>149271515
>80 partners
>1000 lifetime.
Source?

>>149270735
He made it about the gays not the other way around, you insufferable faggot.

>>149271851
This is the tranny board, so it checks out.

>>149271783
I don’t get it, I don’t get a boner from seeing guys kiss.

I rather that then what we get now. Were everyone an everything was some flavor of LGBT but we never knew.

>>149271060
it's literally, not figuratively, politics when there are laws that explicitly mention homosexuality, and the existence of such laws predates you

>>149271853
The guy who directed Batman Forever and Batman and Robin was pretty honest.

Rip

>>149271851
Huh? I just checked the catalog and there are almost no loli rape threads.

>>149271979
>10 or 20k
If we meet at the middle and say 15k, that would mean he has fucked a new person every single day for 41 years "straight".

>>149271663
Then you can fill it with H1B workers

>>149271430
>>149270735
>>149270469
>mommy mommy, this black tranny is beating me up, mommy
>mommy, make it stop, mommy

>>149272074
why are shitskins and trannies so violent?

>>149270376 (OP)
No wonder it sold like shit and it was so boring.

>>149271060
>He says on a Mongolian Basket Site

>>149271888
>>149271851
But this isn't /v/

>>149271888
Kek
also, >888
checked.

>>149271121
Shooter's stance was ultimately that having gay characters in a story was a bad business decision because the climate of the time was against it and ultimately, as the guy dealing with the suits at a time when Marvel was becoming more corporate, he had to go with what worked for business. When Northstar came out in the '90s, multiple large stores threatened to pull ALL X-Men books because of it. Even in the 2000s, having a gay character was still seen as something radical although not quite the sales poison it would have been in DeFalco's or Shooter's eras.

>>149270376 (OP)
i miss sensibility like this.
dude even looks like Christopher Reeve. what a mensch.
>>149270388
funny how they like attention being brought to real victims except when it goes against their thing. The 21st century rebrand from promiscuity to committed monogamy was a hilarious thing to watch, but it stopped being funny when people started unironically insisting it had always been that way.

anyway comics are better without that nonsense. Disabled people don't want to see disabled people in comics, why would these.

>>149271663
literally the people who invented being against the gay, but okay anon. maybe stick to /co/ subjects.

>>149272415
Yeah when they did that campy gay Rawhide Kid MAX book in 2003 Fox News was fuming, claiming that kids would be able to get a hold of it since they were a bunch of ignorant old people.

>>149271091
>t.k.diddy wrotes this

>mommy mommy, this black tranny is beating me up, mommy
>mommy, make it stop, mommy

>>149272820
>LESOYSOYSOYSOY
>>>/qa/

>>149270983
>Civilized society needs to revert to the doctrine of don't ask, don't tell.
Fuck that. Faggotry should be a capital crime.

>>149270735
All must kneel to sodomy culture

>>149271783
Don’t watch American Horror Story NYC.

>>149271515
>Fags are disgusting.
Go back to your Mama's house and fuck your sister, you white trash piece of shit.

>>149271515
Fairies think penis in poopyhole a whole personality trait lmfao

I'd say the faggots ITT are butthurt but that would be redundant.

>>149270376 (OP)
>>149270388
Where is the outrage when modern writers turned Iceman gay, protray him as a stereotypical gay whose only personality is that he is a stereotypical gay?

I'm so oppressed you guys

Let me wave my penis at little kids or I'll kill myself;_;

>>149270735
you're the one having a tantrum though.

>>149270376 (OP)
Shooter had to be the most intimidating looking guy in comics

>>149270376 (OP)
So no wonder Marvel was so good back then unlike today. Same with DC.
>Making golden age Green Lantern a fag for no reason
>Making superman's son a fag for no reason
>Going all in on Poison Ivy and Harley being fags
>Hercules from Marvel supposedly a fat BECAUSE

Who am I missing?

>>149273341
i see you're volunteering to be first against the wall.

>>149271028
Holy fuck so based. He's right.

>>149273491
Because at that time nobody gave a shit about comics anymore. I think people just straight up got fed up and went to manga.

>>149273525
I was never into Marvel or DC comics. Most of all, I don't even care.

>>149273525
Iceman, starlord being bisexuality,

>>149270376 (OP)
It makes sense. Jim was a businessman--his goal was to sell books, not to progress any ideologies--and homosexuality isn't popular (and it was even less popular then).

>>149270376 (OP)
Pretty much everyone had an antigay policy in 1980
What's the big deal?

>>149270376 (OP)
Marvel was STILL working under the Comics Code for their non direct market stuff and on paper the CCA still defined homosexuality as a sexual perversion. That would have meant a book being rejected, possibly missing a printing deadline which cost thousands in penalties. If it had gone to print? It would have been pulped, redrawn/re-written and sent to print again and at that point the business guys upstairs would have called Shooter on the carpet and asked "Why did we just lose a couple of thousand dollars making an unsellable comic book about homos?"

America in the 70's to late 80's was becoming tolerant of homosexuality in certain genres of entertainment but they weren't going to accept it in what they still thought was children's entertainment in Regan's America.

Shooter was right, and any other Editor In Chief who wanted to keep his job would have had the same policy at that time. No it ain't 'right' but neither is presentism.

In my opinion homosexuality and other adult topics should be limited to mature books, you know like Marvel Max and Vertigo where the topic can be treated with the care it deserves.

>>149273634
Gays aren't interesting characters and flamboyant personalities get tiresome quick

>>149270376 (OP)
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but homosexuals as a minority group weren't liked or particularly well respected in the '80s by 90% of the population so it's a bit silly people post-2014, many of whom weren't even alive then, are now getting their knickers in a twist about media or business decisions made during this era

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

He was an asshole whose abrasive manner drove top talent to the Distinguished Competition, and there are stories about how sometimes he flexed his editor's muscles apparently just for the sake of flexing them, approving "fixed" stories that actually retained the things he'd complained about earlier. The fact that editors were apparently so bad at the time that he was seen as an improvement honestly feels more like an indictment of the industry as a whole than anything else.
We shouldn't have turned the entire industry into spandex soap operas that have to keep going and going and going, reusing the same characters nonstop.

>>149273631
LOL WHAT??
Also isn't one of the batgirls or supergirls a fag?

>>149273627
I didn't ask.

>>149273698
Superhero comics are about superheroes, relationships are just there to make the characters relatable...and chances are that you've had a girlfriend (or at least fantasized about it). But what's the probability of you having gone to a gay bar or dressed up like a woman? You can't relate to that shit. So superheroes shouldn't be gay.

So what about background characters? Well, they shouldn't have enough panel time to where their relationships matter. A subtle "sorry I'm gay" could work (but it's still not necessary), but having a man dress up like a tranny and becoming the center of attention just ruins it.

>>149273662
It's a big deal because now there's new political shitposting material and this will be spammed for a few weeks.

>>149273826
Yea.
They had a random gay character represent captain america.

Three different gay alternate spider mans

Retconing america Chavez from being bi to being a lesbian (WTF?)

DCs aqua lad being gay even though he had a relationshi with a woman before.

Even got to the point where they were planning to have a love triangle with wolverine cyclops and jean.

Honest to god man this shit needs to stop. Dont know what the fuck is going on with editors over there

>>149271515
>1 in 15 homosexuals is a pedophile

I would bet any amount of money in the world the number is much, much larger.

>>149274053
>DCs aqua lad being gay even though he had a relationshi with a woman before.
plenty of gay people have had hetero relationships. either as denial, as cover or because they just didn't know themselves yet

>>149270376 (OP)
Unfathomably based! Respect!

>>149270388
What's that about the sweltering summer of 1980

>>149273802
Fuck off Groth, go suck Dan Clowes dick for the 1000th time

kill yourself Rich

>>149270376 (OP)
Fun fact: Andy Mangels had a regular column in various comic magazines where he covered TV/movie news, especially relating to super hero stuff and sci-fi/horror genre stuff. Wizard Magazine, just as it was taking off as THE comic magazine, eventually paid Andy for exclusivity for the column but fired him after a couple of installments after he got caught making up fake news about the contents of a Dark Shadows VHS release containing a reconstructed "lost episode".

Andy was blackballed from working in comics until the late 90s; and during the meantime, had to work in the porn/fetish magazine business to keep money flowing until he could get his friends to give him work again once the scandal cooled off and people could rehire him.

But in the meantime, he had to sell nearly all of his nerd swag (including some super valuable original George Perez artwork from New Teen Titans, Justice League of America, and Crisis On Infinite Earths he had gotten George to sell him, including the original artwork from Crisis #9 that had to be redone for publication) to make ends meet. But he also had to rely the income he made off of a uniform fetish magazine (complete with section showcasing screen capture photos and publicity shots of TV show actors who played cops, like Paul Gross from Due South and the guys from Adam 12 that were included without any permission from the rights holders) he published on the downlow but also sold a video of himself in various leather uniforms direct to his subscribers (never seen the video but stills in the magazine showed him in various leather garb).

>>149274839
Thanks for sharing this.

It’s very heterosexual to think about gay people and dicks in assholes all day and spend hours gathering gay pictures to re-post them online.

>>149273591
Now let’s see you post all the examples of “gays are pedos!” people who end up arrested for owning CP.

>>149273683
Okay so no death, no crime, no romance, no violence, no bad words, etc. in comics anymore. Everything has to be written for 7 year olds in mind.

>>149272525
Their bunkers are as queer and jew-friendly as Weimar Germany.

>>149270376 (OP)
I don't hate homosexuals. I don't know enough homosexuals to think about them at all. I simply hate people who aggressively promote homosexuals. And by that metric, Jim Shooter was indeed based.

>>149275090
So you hate yourself, a man who keeps whining about gays all the time?

>>149270388
>>149270376 (OP)
posting bleeding cool clicbait news here on 4chan shouldn't be allowed.

>>149270794
This is not a bad thing in the slightest. Shooter was a hero.

>>149271450
The fact of the matter is, if Shooter had suddenly said to his staff: hey, go nuts, add all the gay characters you want and make a big deal about it, Marvel management would have just removed him and replaced him with someone who would then implement the policy. It's deplorable, but it was the attitude of the time.

>>149270376 (OP)
based

>>149270487
how?

Jim Shooter drove his diesel truck up onto the Marvel offices' front lawn. "Damn I love being straight" he said, punching a protesting hippy as he climbed out. "Isn't that problematic?" said Chris Claremont. "Shut up libtard" came the reply from behind a veil of cigar smoke. "Please sir" said John Byrne, "We must represent the plights of the marginalized, Northstar will be a sure hit!"

"Sounds like WOKE NONSENSE to me" guffawed Shooter, his very presence manifesting GRIDS in the gay community as he cracked a Miller High Life. "This is MAGA country now, boy" he proclaimed before shooting a nearby transsexual couple with an unregistered AR-15. The queer interns scattered in terror, sheltering their nonbinary polycule members from the bullets and slurs that now ripped through the walls.

"Kek" said Shooter, loading another 30-round assault clip. "This is based. Wait until 4chan hears about this."

>>149275559
And that's why they call him Shooter.

>>149275559
>"This is MAGA country now, boy" he proclaimed before shooting a nearby transsexual couple with an unregistered AR-15.
Shooter helped some trans people to get gigs in comics

>>149274053
No, there's 2 different Aqualads, ones straight, the other is gay

>>149275585
Not enough, he has to fully support AIPAC as well