Thread 149992502

How did John Byrne rise to power in the comics industry if everyone hated him? I’ve never seen anyone shit or Bendis or Johns despite their crappy comics but you had Alan Moore, Frank Millar, and Jack Kirby all using their own comics as rebuttals to his Superman while he was still very much active.

>>149992502 (OP)
I don’t think everyone hated him at least at first, but in any case the answer is talent and productivity. In the 70s it quickly became clear he was one of the best superhero storytellers, but unlike other great young artists he also hardly ever missed a deadline. He had a modern style that appealed to 70s/80s kids, but also worked as fast as the older artists.

Around 1979-80 he was regular artist on X-Men and Avengers at the same time, with no fill-ins. That’s much harder to find than even a great writer.

He sold comics and was incredibly fast. Guy could pull off 2 issues a month, maybe more in his peak. That’s very rare at his level of quality as a solo act.

>>149992502 (OP)
He was the best, and most prolific artist working

>>149992502 (OP)
Readers liked his art and the companies like that he was an enormous boot licker as long as his autism wasn't set off.

>>149992995
Readers didn't turn against Byrne until his Spider-Man reboot came out

>>149992924
>the best
No.

He was fast and fairly good as a writer and artist, and did a lot of experimental stuff, unironically a talented guy head and shoulders above his peers, and probably with an ego to match. But kids in the eighties were not privy to office politics so we didn't care

He was the main artist on X-men and the title sold a ton. That led DC to give him the Superman titles to reboot. The blowback came later.

>>149993307
Yes, His art is so good it tricks you into thinking She-Hulk is good character.

>>149992502 (OP)
>fast
>good
>not an asshole
Two out of three make you employable. Byrne had 1 and 2.

>>149992502 (OP)
His art on X-Men made him popular.
He was also fast, as everyone pointed out and not only could draw but also write (and for long periods of time), which also boosted his exposure and popularity.

To get an idea of what a different time it was, when he was doing Alpha Flight, it outsold all DC books. His run on Alpha Flight was from #1-28 before he jumped over to working on Hulk, so you can see by this chart here that even the later part of his run was outperforming all DC titles.

> but you had Alan Moore, Frank Millar, and Jack Kirby all using their own comics as rebuttals to his Superman while he was still very much active.

>Kirby
Kirby and Gerber took a jab at Byrne because Byrne was talking about how he was a happy cog in the Marvel Machine in a rebuttal to Kirby and Gerber's issues with Marvel.

>Miller
Which comic are you talking about? Morons are claiming Dark Knight Returns was a rebuttal to Man of Steel even though Miller was working on DKR not just long before Man of Steel, but long enough before that Byrne said in an interview he was going to hint at the Batman and Superman animosity in DKR, in Man of Steel. So I hope you weren't referring to DKR.

Besides, Byrne is friends with Miller and still is.

>Moore
Which book? Supreme? That was Moore objecting to what DC in general was doing with Superman.

>>149994868
>That was Moore objecting to what DC in general was doing with Superman.
I never read supreme, is it good?

>>149994930
Yeah it's pretty good. The art is inconsistent sometimes because of the 90s styles and changes but still worth reading through

>>149994868
Yeah idk what anon thinks the beef between Byrne and miller, they literally launched legend together at dark horse.

>>149992888
>Guy could pull off 2 issues a month, maybe more in his peak
He was doing Fantastic Four (story, pencils, ink), Alpha Flight (story, pencils and ink) and The Thing (story) all at the same time at his peak

>>149992888
>>149995384
>TFW i barely can draw anymoee yet this byrne guy was churning out three comics single handily back in the 70s
I feel even more like a useless piece of shit then ive ever had before this moment

>>149995384
yeah and later he was working on iron man,both avengers,she hulk and namor at the same time

>Draws an awesome cover for Wizard.
>They never use it.
>They give Dan Slott's She-Hulk "the Book of the Month".
Those dirty cocksuckers.

>>149992502 (OP)
He was a corporate boot licker.

>>149996245
Only way to solve that is to get good

>>149996245
Three? Bro there are months in his career he did 4 or 5. I know for a fact he drew 4 and wrote a 5th multiple times in the 80s. He was a fucking machine.

Even in 92 when he came back to she-hulk he had that, which some months he wrote, penciled AND inked, as well as Namor, next men and writing duties on I want to say iron man.

>>149992502 (OP)
>How did John Byrne rise to power in the comics industry if everyone hated him?
Have you never worked somewhere, OP? Do you like all your co workers? Yeah there was bullpen drama and editorial but a lot of the time people just cracked on with work, which is why the anecdotes and stories about the big things are so remembered. He was a solid artist and liked by fans and has some good runs under his belt but ultimately he had a personality that clashed with some people and was a boot licker at time.

>I’ve never seen anyone shit or Bendis or Johns
People shit on those guys all the time. With Bendis at least he is quite a nice man in real life and treats people quite well from what I have heard by creators, so there is that, but people have rebuked "Bendis speak" before.

>>149997322
Forgot pic.

>>149997149
In trying to pump myself up for it but its hard to motivate/do anything because of depression lately
>>149997249
How did he have that all in him? Bloody hell was he doing coke or something?

>>149997322
>>149997010
>b-b-bootlicker!
Kill yourself

>>149996732
Wizard was always a rag.

>>149996732
>>149997519
When did wizard get discontinued?

>>149997444
He opposed a bunch of royalties and a bunch of other shit. I know you're a classic /co/ntrarian who has to knee jerk react to such sentiment but it is true.

>>149997590
March 2011

>>149997650
>2011
THAT long ago? Jesus christ im getting old

>>149997601
He really had it in for Shooter.

>>149997444
He was defending Marvel when they weren't giving Jack Kirby his original art back, the co-creator of the entire goddamn Marvel Universe and a huge chunk of the reason Byrne was even making a living from Marvel in the first place.

>>149997696
Literally every issue was more and more about movies and the MCU than comics. Comics were maybe 25% of the magazine by the end.

>>149992502 (OP)
he was only hated because he was republican and leftists communists to this day run back rooms to cancel and harass anyone right of stalin. byrnes talent made it impossible to cancel him.

>>149997952
He wasn't really though, Byrne pushed for Northstar to be openly gay in Alpha Flight (which Jim Shooter objected to).

>>149997952
I want to see him fight Mark Waid

>>149992502 (OP)
1) It was a different time. People actually gave a shit back then, so no wonder creators like Byrne and Kirby would have petty squabbles. But modern Big Two are two much of a nepobaby haven for stuff like this to occur. There are little to no dedicated industry autists who would reee at Bendis at this point.
2) Byrne is an efficient artist. That was far more important in the industry than him being an autist.

>>149997966
People think Shooter was homophobic because he was almost raped by two men at a YMCA (which inspired a Hulk story) but the truth is retailers would have boycotted the whole X-Men line if they had a gay character on Alpha Flight.

>>149997915
>the co-creator of the entire goddamn Marvel Universe
That's not quite true, but hold your seething, I don't mean it the way you think. I mean that besides Kirby and Ditko, there was a bunch of other artists drawing for Lee in the 60s. People like Dick Ayers, Don Heck, Bill Everett, Wally Wood, Paul Reinman, they might've not been as prolific or talented, but they could all be considered co-creators in the same light,. Ironically they all get even less recognition than Kirby and Ditko in the long run.

>>149998155
It sounds bad now especially out of context but Shooter was making decisions when they mattered the most. And at the time it just wouldn't have sold.

>>149998089
>There are little to no dedicated industry autists who would reee at Bendis at this point.
Why is that anyhow? Bendis is such a hack im shocked no one internally afaik ever called him out on it
>People think Shooter was homophobic because he was almost raped by two men at a YMCA (which inspired a Hulk story
Imagine almost getting gangraped by the village people lmfao

>>149998285
Also meant for >>149998155

>>149997952
He's Canadian

>>149997937
Yeah I think this trend in Wizard was starting around the early 00s
Then around like 2006 or 2007 they fired longtime guys like Pat McCallum in favor of changing Wizard to be more like Maxim and it looked boring after

>>149998671
He and Claremont were both born in Britain and emigrated as kids.

>>149997399
I think he just had a work ethic and autistic fixation on Marvel and DC stuff. He also had some short-cuts to getting stuff done faster

>>149998155
>People think Shooter was homophobic because he was almost raped by two men at a YMCA (which inspired a Hulk story) but the truth is retailers would have boycotted the whole X-Men line if they had a gay character on Alpha Flight.

Peter David said that came close to happening when Northstar came out, a toy retailer threatened to stop carrying the X-Men toyline when news about Northstar got to them, and this was Early 90s! If it was that way in the early 90s it would've been worse in the 80s.

>>149998859
>Peter David said that came close to happening when Northstar came out, a toy retailer threatened to stop carrying the X-Men toyline when news about Northstar got to them, and this was Early 90s! If it was that way in the early 90s it would've been worse in the 80s.
Which retailer?

>>149998729
Look how pathetic their last issue was, kind of says it all, really.

>>149998285
>Why is that anyhow? Bendis is such a hack im shocked no one internally afaik ever called him out on it

The difference is that Bendis as far as I can tell doesn't do major social gaffes. Does he write some bad stories or do changes that frustrate other writers? Sure, but as far as I can tell he doesn't go into angry rants online like Byrne or run a cult/have affairs like Warren Ellis

>>149998893
PAD never said, in the column I read. But I wouldn't be surprised if it got reported back in the early 90s in Comics Buyer's Guide or something.

>>149998912
They didnt even make their last issue special or have anything indicating it would be their last?
>that tiny bit in the bottom right corner saying its a comic magazine when its mostly movies or doctor who on the cover
Sad!
>>149998916
>or run a cult/have affairs like Warren Ellis
Whats this about ellis having a cult? I knew he was a womanizer tho

Shooter won, I don't care.

>>149998964
He used to run the Warren Ellis Forum
In a way it was kinda cult-like

>>149998976
>Shooter won, I don't care.
How did Shooter "win"? He got fired

>>149999035
Still won

>>149999008
>>149998964
Warren Ellis didn't have a cult, he ran a forum and had a bunch of consensual relationships. There is NO allegations of illegality but this was turned into a #metoo like situation. Basically he had a load of concurrent relationships at the same time, so was cheating on all these women, they eventually all found out and began talking about how he used all the same tactics on them. They all admit he did nothing illegal it was just dodgy behaviour.

Unfortunately the comics twitter brigade treat all bad behaviour as the same and literally compare prosecuted sex offenders to people who cheated.

>>149999264
Looks pretty mild compared to a certain other asshole.

>>149999442
Gaiman did nothing wrong

>>149998912
They really went full TV/Movie retard towards the end. Shame.

>>149999472
Go to bed, Neil.

>>149999264
>and had a bunch of consensual relationships.

Yes, he had affairs. I never said they weren't consensual. Where that is a problem is only because of the number of people he pissed off and it bit him on the ass so they were able to manipulate public opinion severely against him.

>>149992502 (OP)
>How did John Byrne rise to power in the comics industry if everyone hated him?
Because not everyone hated him. Like others have said, he rose up in the 70s as a star artist on both the quality of his work, and the sheer quantity he was able to produce per month, and became an artist who'd boost sales significantly by moving to a book, as in tens of thousands of readers following him. That he fell out with some other people in the industry was just something worth putting up with if you were an editor at Marvel or DC and had the chance to put him on a book. A lot of the tard wrangling Jim Shooter had to do in running 1980s Marvel seems to have involved the bickering between Byrne and Claremont, but both men got a lot of free reign creatively even then, because their work sold. Back then the industry wasn't a place where you could try and get someone fired and their career ended because you fell out with them and they had the wrong opinions on any particular subject.

By the late 80s and early 90s, some of Byrne's writing work on books like Superman, Avengers and Wonder Woman was turning off longtime fans with the things he was doing to characters, but he was still a big star artist with a big fandom following him around, so he still got to do whatever he wanted on a lot of books.

Fandom didn't really fall out of love with Byrne until the mid to late 1990s, he was one of the first industry pros to be terminally online and giving his hot takes and opinions on all manner of subjects, comics-related and not, and this led to the general perception of him that's endured ever since, while as he got older, his art just wasn't as strong as it had been in the 70s and 80s. By the time Marvel brought him back in 1998 for a Spider-Man relaunch, it was the 90s equivalent of Bendis going to DC to relaunch Superman; a former star that the fandom had turned against, a guy nobody wanted on the book, and everything he did was poorly received.

>>149999888
Continued as too long for one post. In the 2000s, he managed to burn bridges with both Marvel and DC, but in both cases, it was his choice to walk away from them, both would probably work with him again if he wanted to.

>>149998964
It wasn't a cult itself, more of a weird groupie thing with the Holy Slut Army.

>>149999888
I miss the days before social media where your favorite creators and celebrities might as well have lived on the moon. They could be the best or worst people and you'd be no wiser either way and nobody cared to. Now everyone is running their mouths constantly and everything is everyone's business. Nobody can just enjoy the work itself.

>>150000579
It's funny cause back in the 00s it was Byrne getting all the flack because back then creators either had their own message boards or hung out on other people's message boards. People were complaining about some creators then but I think social media just blew everything out in the open to the point where Byrne looks more sane for staying on his forum instead of engaging on Twitter

>>149999634
Calling something "cult or cult like" comes with certain imagery. I never claimed you said any of that stuff, I was just talking describing the situation.

>>149999442
>Looks pretty mild compared to a certain other asshole.
There has been a concerted effort over the years by certain people on social media (such as Alex de Campi and other Whisper Group members) to create a narrative of "scumbags in the industry" by comparing social faux pas and poor behaviour with actual crimes.

One comics creator asked a woman out at a bar after a convention. Another comics creator slept with trans women and supported them and then was called a trans chaser. Another creator was friends with a trans person and accused of lovebombing (showering someone with affection to manipulate them). Another comics creator posted something late because he was on vacation and was accused of being a scumbag.

And all these minor things get compared to Gerard Jones who was arrested and charged for posession of CP.

>>150000884
The moral of all the #MehTurd fiasco is modern women are all mentally ill feminist dykes who hate men

>>149997601
Based, comic cucks don't deserve it.

>>149999472
He was a male feminist, so he deserves everything he got and more!

>>149997952
>>>/pol/

>>149998912
>Green Lantern even killed Wizard

>>150000801
DC really approved of depicting their characters this way?

>>150001342
Per >>149994868 , I guess Byrne was big enough to get away with whatever he wanted. I don't have the page where Superman kissed teenage Lana Lang.

>>149994609
He was one of the best ones but he had people like Pérez, Gibbons, Simonson and Sienkiewicz to compete with.

Probably the most popular one though, and top 3 in quality.

>>150001342
It was the mid-80s, edge was in. Frank Miller turned Catwoman into a prostitute.

>>149999472
he has very strong accusations of rape, which is something that not even Ellis had

>>149992502 (OP)
Sheer competence in an industry where everyone else is varying levels of incompetent?

>>150002009
Nevermind the rape allegations, there worst allegations is that he was exposing his "roleplay" and the woman to his kid. He even encouraged the child to call her a slave.

>>149992502 (OP)
There was a decade or more where John Byrne's name was a license to print money in the comic book industry. He may have been the most bankable comics artist/writer of all time. THAT'S why he was a big deal.

>>150001342
you are retarded

that's pretty PG-13

>>149994868
you're seeing things that aren't there

>>150003186
Even if they're not showing it on panel, even implying that villains have mind controlled a DC heroine and are using her to make porn videos that they're selling really is a moment where you have to wonder how DC ever approved this, no matter how big a star Byrne was.

It's even worse when the heroine in question was based on Kirby's wife, and this was all part of a feud between artists.

>>150000884
>Calling something "cult or cult like" comes with certain imagery.

Now, sure
But even back in the 00s people from the Ellis forum were calling the Byrne forum a cult, which is kind of hilarious in its own way

>>150003203
You mean OP's seeing things that aren't there

>>149996245
>>149995384
You got a remeber that internet, 4chan, Twitter, and chronic masturbation didn't exist back then.

>>150003580
>chronic masturbation didn't exist back then.
Now I'm wondering if Byrne drew his own secret stash of Marvel and DC heroine lewds. There's a few out in the wild that he did as commissions or convention sketches.

>>150000884
Ellis, Eddie P, and Brandon Graham are innocent.

>>150003440
>It's even worse when the heroine in question was based on Kirby's wife
That is not true. The inspiration for Barda came from a singer.
>how DC ever approved this
80's comics were pretty edgy. People call out the 90's as the edge age, but it came from way before.

>>150004449
>People call out the 90's as the edge age, but it came from way before
The 80s big two still had design sensibilities from prior decades. I think people associate it with the 90s because the art got less "house style" for the first time. Also, I'd argue the 2000s were far edgier than the 90s.

>>150003580
This is completely wrong, the internet had existed for decades at that point and chronic masturbation is older than humanity itself

>>150004501
>Also, I'd argue the 2000s were far edgier than the 90s.

In retrospect I think this is correct. We just don't see an equivalent of Wizard or other magazines authoritatively calling out the 00s for being edgier than the 90s, but also probably because some people's reputations are still on the line

>>150003580
>>150005468
Yeah at a minimum by the 80s some comic nerds who could afford a computer were already using newsgroups

90s was when internet usage got way more mainstream and Byrne was using the internet at least around the early/mid 90s

>>150005468
It existed but it wasn't as prevalent by a long shot. Even into the very early 2000s it wouldn't be weird for someone to just NOT have it and websites were small corners.

>>150006021
I first went online in 2003 :D

>>149992502 (OP)
Why he write?

>>149997010
Opposite of reality. He ragequit literally EVERY project he EVER worked on. Dude was infamous for being difficult.

>>149999888
>it was the 90s equivalent of Bendis going to DC to relaunch Superman
That is a visceral comparison.

>>149999888
>By the time Marvel brought him back in 1998 for a Spider-Man relaunch, it was the 90s equivalent of Bendis going to DC to relaunch Superman; a former star that the fandom had turned against, a guy nobody wanted on the book, and everything he did was poorly received.
It sucks because Byrne's occasional fill-in on a Spidey book or Marvel Team-Up in the 70's and 80's were great, he just wasn't "that guy" anymore by the late 90's.

Byrne was the Johns/Bendis of his time, with the added advantage of being a great artist. I think Byrne was a good middle ground between the old school like Claremont and new blood like Miller. His stories have aged better than most of his contemporaries, but the problem is that he competes with people like Miller, UK Invaders, and other US artists. People don't hold up to him as much because he was an active figure on the internet and people have beef with him because he wasn't what they imagined him to be, and also because Byrne never had anything like TDKR or Watchmen. Best example of a middle ground comic book figure.

>>150007527
>also because Byrne never had anything like TDKR or Watchmen
Through that lens, his bibliography reads like a tragedy. There's a lot of impact, some good runs, marks left in the mythology, but there's no giant footprint you can point to and say "this is his legacy".

>>150007698
And his reputation was tainted by fan interaction. Look at how people shit on his Superman despite him being responsible for creating a coherent Superman lore, something that these same haters take for granted.

>>150007698
The problem is Byrne was and is a "jobber", content to draw and write monthly books to fill a quota. He never had the impetus to pitch Marvel or DC on some great one-off, self-contained story like Miller with DKR or Moore with Watchmen, Byrne was just happy to keep doing monthly funny books and get paid for them. DESU that was kind of Marvel in-general. Notice that the great standalone works of superhero comics were mostly published by DC. Marvel did do some graphic novels in the 80's under their Epic imprint, but they haven't kept them in print or pushed them the way DC consistently has.

>>149999888
>By the late 80s and early 90s, some of Byrne's writing work on books like Superman, Avengers and Wonder Woman was turning off longtime fans
On Wonder Woman? Sure. On Avengers? Not especially. On Superman? Fuck outta here. His Supes sold absolute gangbusters. When Byrne was on the then-three Superman titles two of them were in the top 10 and ALL three were in the top 20. The hate toward that run is revisionist bullshit perpetuated by reddit/4chan (same difference at this point).
>as he got older, his art just wasn't as strong as it had been in the 70s and 80s
That has more to do with him inking his own work in a fucking sharpie.
>a former star that the fandom had turned against, a guy nobody wanted on the book
He was still a star. The bigger issue was that NO ONE wanted a Spider-Man reboot, regardless of who it was from.

>>150007527
>the old school like Claremont

This is a weird opinion to see expressed. Claremont was REVOLUTIONARY for his time. Calling him "old school" is baffling. Byrne on the other hand openly admits that he never really moved past 1975.

>>150007745
The hate came because Byrne fans were butthurt that Byrne was mean to them. This dates back to early discussions on imageboards and forums since the late 90s.

>>150007527
>Byrne never had anything like TDKR or Watchmen
The Dark Phoenix Saga
>middle ground
Byrne is STILL legendary and STILL revered.

>>150007698
>there's no giant footprint you can point to and say "this is his legacy"

X-Men

>>150007741
>Byrne was and is a "jobber"

Single stupidest post in /co/ history.

>>150007776
Not really. TDK and Watchmen were successful outside of comic books, but Dark Phoenix is kind of a deep cut. People know the saga, but they haven't read it.

>>150007741
You're looking for "worker" Byrne was a worker.
Dan Slott now that's a jobber.

>>150007745
>The bigger issue was that NO ONE wanted a Spider-Man reboot, regardless of who it was from.
Until two years later, with Ultimate Spider-Man?
>>150007776
>The Dark Phoenix Saga
The problem with that is that it's an asterisk, following the word "Claremont". You can attribute it to him the same way you can attribute the telephone to people not named "Alexander Graham Bell". When Claremont dies, the news reports will say he wrote The Dark Phoenix Saga. When Byrne dies, they'll say, at best, "co-wrote The Dark Phoenix Saga".

>>150007857
>Until two years later, with Ultimate Spider-Man?
Ultimate was never intended to supplant the original Lee/Ditko run. Byrne's Chapter One was publicized as being the "new" Spider-Man origin until Marvel backpedaled.

>>150007891
>Byrne's Chapter One was publicized as being the "new" Spider-Man origin until Marvel backpedaled.
How was byrnes origin for spidey any different

>>150007698
His legacy is basically making Wolverine popular

>>150007806
This is delusional. You have no idea how well Byrne's comics sold. FAR better than Moore or Miller were selling.

>>149992502 (OP)
And Byrne sadly "inspired" Penders

>>150007857
>Ultimate Spider-Man

That wasn't a reboot, you retard.

>>150007968
>How was byrnes origin for spidey any different
Why don't you read it and find out?

>>150007977
Selling well is insignificant. V sold like hotcakes and is a cultural symbol, while Dark Phoenix is only remembered as something that happened in X-Men. Casual fans don't know what Dark Phoenix and the Shiar Empire are, but they know very well who Rosharch and TDK Batman are.

>>150008111
>V sold like hotcakes and is a cultural symbol

V For Vendetta? No it didn't and no it isn't. You need to get off 4chan.

>>150008143
V is a cultural symbol and no one knows who Jean Gray is, but the other redhead, Mary Jane, is a euphemism for marijuana. The only relevant thing about X-Men is Wolverine and maybe Magneto, Xavier, and Cyclops if you're older.

>>150007527
>UK Invaders
Byrne is part of the UK invaders.

>>150008171
You are beyond delusional. 4chan has rotted your brain.

>>150008186
Not really.

>>150008340
No, you're an X-Men fanboy. Normies don't give a shit about X-Men except for Wolverine. V has cultural significance, unlike X-Men.

>>150007984
Seriously?!

>>150007891
See, that's the thing, though. The distinction between "supplant the original" and "create a new universe" is like the difference between a parralel universe and an alternate timeline. Yes, technically, there is a distinction, but effectively, they're just different words for "setting where things are different". Both Chapter One and Ultimate had the same goal: make the character accessible to readers who don't want to go through the mess of a backstory. That one is supposed to be 616 and another 1610 is immaterial. Bendis did it; Byrne couldn't.
That's the tragedy. Byrne did a lot of heavy lifting, sold a lot of books, affected continuity in many ways, but there's no big success to frame and point to. Whether it's because of a lack of ambition or just because of a technicality, the most he has are these "well, actuallies".
>Well, actually, he was responsible for The Dark Phoenix Saga (which is regarded as Claremont's)
>Well, actually, he made Wolverine popular (but didn't create the character or have a famous story with him)
>Well, actually, it was an impossible task (though somebody else effectively did it soon after)

>>150000801
the 80-90s were the real thing.

>>150008412
go outside, dude

>>150005800
Marvel and DC both dropped the CCA in the 2000s, Marvel under Quesada also loosened editorial restrictions and any real considerations about it being part of editorial's job to 'protect' the characters for the long term. Writers quickly went stupidly edgy just because they could, and there was nothing to stop them.

As much as people bitched about the CCA, or about editorial restricting 'creative freedom', the 2000s proved beyond a doubt that the types of people who worked as writers for Marvel and DC absolutely needed to be working under restrictions that would have stopped them from doing anything stupid that could permanently wreck characters.

>>150007857
>When Claremont dies, the news reports will say he wrote The Dark Phoenix Saga. When Byrne dies, they'll say, at best, "co-wrote The Dark Phoenix Saga".
With the tragedy being that the only reason that story is remembered as much as it is being because Byrne went off-script and added things Claremont had nothing to do with. A good deal of Claremont's career afterwards was all built on Phoenix dying at the end of the story, which again, wasn't his idea or decision.

>>150008807
People only know the names of four X-Men; the other popular ones are unknown.

>>150008186
The "British Invasion" writers is a term that refers to a specific group of writers that started work in the UK comics industry, mostly on 2000AD or British indy books, and got hired in the 80s or 90s to work in the US, frequently doing edgy or deconstructionist "comics not just for kids" takes on characters. Outside of Ellis, most of them were brought in by DC. It's not a term that refers to people like Byrne or Claremont who were born in England but grew up in Canada and the US respectively, and started out in the US comics industry, and it also doesn't apply to other British writers who broke into the US industry like Abnett or Furman, or later ones like Ewing and Gillen.

>>150009280
>Remove CCA
>Ban smoking
Quesada things.

>>150009381
How are they popular if they are also unknown?

>>150009439
Wait did he really ban smoking at the time shit like ultimatum cane out? How is seeing a character smoke worse then the "taste like chicken" panel?

>>150007745
>On Avengers? Not especially. On Superman? Fuck outta here.
Those books sold, and nobody's saying they didn't sell, but pretending everyone loved everything about them just isn't true. There were a number of things about the Superman reboot that longtime fans weren't happy with (some of it wasn't really Byrne's fault, some ideas were Wolfman's, some were editorial edicts), but the Big Barda story and the execution of the Phantom Zone criminals seemed to be particularly controversial. And there's a clear divide in Avengers fandom between people who were fans from before Byrne's run and people who came in because of Byrne, that era is perceived very differently by the two groups.

>The bigger issue was that NO ONE wanted a Spider-Man reboot, regardless of who it was from.
It wasn't just the origin reboot, people didn't seem to want him specifically on Spider-Man at all, and a lot of his ideas for stories set in the present day proved as unpopular as the origin reboot. Byrne's idea that Sandman never truly reformed and was still evil being particularly badly received.

>>150009497
not him but it was weird as hell seeing people like Logan, Ben and Bruce saying that they gave it up for health reasons when they're all functionally immortal with high regenerative abilities

>>150009524
>Logan, Ben and Bruce
>Bruce
I don't remember the Hulk being a big smoker, Nick Fury, Kingpin and Red Skull were the other guys who were affected, IIRC.

>>150009524
>>150009610
Why even make such a retarded move to ban smoking when ultra violence and other nastiness was in an uptick in comics? Was it to virute signal? I know alot of health freak activist shit was going on around that time with michelle obama ruining school lunches and that sort of thing, was that related to it?

>>150009610
Bruce used a smoking pipe but you didn't see it come up much as he was on the run a lot while Ross was into cigars. Ross would share some of his cigars with Bruce in rare times of peace while Bruce would buy imported stuff for Ross.
I think Betty was into cigarettes for a while but stopped.

>>150009678
If i was bruce banner and had to deal with hulk shenanigans id smoke heavily too

>>150005468
>chronic masturbation is older than humanity itself
It's not tho? The word "gooner" didn't mean what it means now, and the word "coomer" didn't even exist, barely 10 years ago.

>>150009497
A relative of his died of cancer which gave him a hatred of tobacco, he wasn't going to have it in his comics.

>>150010255
>WAGHHHU MY UNCLE DIED OF TOBACCY IM GONNA SHIT MYSELF
What a fucking crybaby moralfaggot

>>150010255
that the same relative that gave him the story idea for selling Peter's marriage to satan to get Aunt May back?

>>149997823
It's a shame based Big Jim never bashed his skull in

>>149999035
>won in the height department
>won in the Chad department
>won in the making Byrne seethe like the fat faggot he is department

>>149998976
>>149999035
>>149999103
>>150010728
If byrne was such a corpo bootlicker and shooter was known as being a massively business oriented task master, then why did they hate each other? Shouldnt byrne by all logic suck up to shooter for being higher on the totem pole?

>>150003631
'fraid so

>>150010811
Byrne is incredibly autistic, anon.

>>150003631
I really wish Eddie hadn't an-hero'ed. Brandon Graham mentioned in a diary comic that he had talked to Ed before he'd done it, and Ed asked how long it would take to get back, Brandon said about five-six years, I guess eternity was preferable to Ed than five years...

>>150011011
Ed put up a tough front but he was just some shy nerd and the shame isn't something you can shake off easily. That whole situation was retarded and depressing and I miss CK more than I care to admit.

>>150010811
Byrne is loyal to "the company" as a concept, not individuals.

>>150008111
The problem with this argument is this is primarily the result of DC actually giving a shit to keep their best stuff in print, giving a shit about how to advertise it to a wider audience outside the comic shop, while Marvel didn't for a long time.

If DC had handled those three books like Marvel does their books they'd have been less remembered in the same way you believe Dark Phoenix isn't remembered. Hell, forget Marvel, if Eclipse Comics had Watchmen and V For Vendetta they might've ended up back in Moore's hands but end up regarded the same way as Moore's Miracleman, where not many people know about it because it was out of the discussion for a long time despite how it was vastly better than a lot of 80s comics.

>>150010811
Byrne was initially okay with Shooter in the early 80s and dismissed the complaints of people who left at the time. But gradually Byrne was getting annoyed by changes/demands that Shooter was asking of his work.

>>150011142
Was it Shooter demanding the ending to Dark Phoenix be changed, or was it something else?

>>150011179
It was him.

>>150011142
>Byrne was initially okay with Shooter in the early 80s and dismissed the complaints of people who left at the time. But gradually Byrne was getting annoyed by changes/demands that Shooter was asking of his work.
Oh so its okay when the company fucks over other artists and writers but not him then? Rules for thee not for me thinking. Byrnes a bitch

>>150011254
Always has been. Always will be. His style is overrated boring trash too.

>>150011179
He did. It was because Byrne put in a panel of the homeworld of the aliens from Avengers #4 getting destroyed by Dark Phoenix

Shooter believed that Jean shouldn't get off the hook for killing billions and needed to be punished some way, like tortured for eternity on a prison planet or something. Byrne and Claremont felt they'd rather kill her off than do that.

>>150011254
That’s the classic conservative company man for you.

>>150008517
To some extent it's true that Bendis' origin rewrite would've still been better received than Byrne's origin rewrite, but had Bendis USM been made 616, people would've been just as livid at that time.

Most of the complaining about Chapter One at the time was it basically altering continuity. Once it was removed people didn't talk about it. Even so it doesn't hold up as well if you go back and read the Lee/Ditko run; there's nuances in there that seem to be missing from Byrne's remake.

>>150011467
>Shooter believed that Jean shouldn't get off the hook for killing billions and needed to be punished some way, like tortured for eternity on a prison planet or something. Byrne and Claremont felt they'd rather kill her off than do that
It is surprising how sociopathic comic writers can be, being punished for committing genocide by losing telepathy would have soured the readers.

>>150011677
Writers tend to fall in love with their characters. Look at Wolfman going out of his way to rehabilitate Deathstroke extensively

>>149992502 (OP)
He was very talented and people usually don't hate someone when they first meet them. It took a while for people to realize what an insufferable sperg he was

>>150009323
>Byrne went off-script and added things Claremont had nothing to do with
What else besides Phoenix dying? I'm not familiar with the behind the scenes history.

>>150011677
Ive never read dark phoenix saga but wasnt jean gray possessed by some alien when she killed all those planets? Why should jean grey be tortured on space hell according to shooter if she didnt do any of those things and was forced to do them?

>>150011739
Because you need to understand that it wasn't until years later that they came up with the idea that it was the Phoenix entity that killed that planet

As far as they were concerned in the early 80s, it was Jean becoming Dark Phoenix, going evil and destroying that planet

>>150011677
No one cares that Vegeta took part in eradicating countless planets, and he was in his right mind when he did. Jean didn’t need to be punished for the actions of the Phoenix.

>>149994868
>Blue Devil, Vigilante and Hawkman.
Surprised by those

Byrne in his early Marvel days

>>150011780
>As far as they were concerned in the early 80s, it was Jean becoming Dark Phoenix, going evil and destroying that planet
Thats fucking stupid. How did jean grey become so psychotically evil all of a sudden before the retcon took place?

>>150011786
Jean was the Phoenix back then

>>150011860
Well
>>150011739
>Ive never read dark phoenix saga
Maybe that's the problem with your question

>>150001342
Wait until you see what they do to wonder woman in the regular

>>150009323
>A good deal of Claremont's career afterwards was all built on Phoenix dying at the end of the story, which again, wasn't his idea or decision.

You're getting it wrong.
>Neither Claremont or Byrne (especially Byrne) intended to kill off Jean.
>They originally wanted Phoenix to become X-Men's Doctor Doom (Shooter's words)
>Then they settled on Jean getting mind-wiped and everything would go back to status quo.
>When Shooter saw that she destroyed an inhabited planet, he wanted to make sure she didn't get off scot free.
>Shooter suggested that she be permanently jailed in an interstellar prison.
>Claremont rejected the imprisonment ending because he thought that the X-Men would just keep trying to rescue her.
>Claremont then bluffed and suggested they kill her off. Shooter called the bluff and insisted on it.
>Claremont told Byrne and Byrne was pissed. He called Shooter and chewed him out and asked if he was insane.

>Shooter made reviving Jean off limits unless they could absolve her of culpability.
>Kurt Busiek and a few of his friends came up with idea of Jean being cocooned at the bottom of the bay
>This idea was then passed to Roger Stern who then passed it to John Byrne.
>With Shooter's blessing, Byrne, Stern, and Bob Layton resurrected Jean in a crossover.
>Byrne even goes as far as writing and drawing his own fan comic series called "X-Men: Elsewhen" in 2018 which starts with Jean not dying at the end of Dark Phoenix.

>>149998282
Yeah, people think that Shooter was just a creative type but he was the liason between the creaties and the suits and so was as much involved in the actual business side as he was the creative side. Whatever he personally felt about it creatively, he wasn't going to risk fucking up the company's cash cow financially by sticking their neck out on something that would have gotten a ton of backlash.

>>149999888
Can't argue with those digits.

>>150012129
It was his idea in the sense that it was forced upon him. He really wanted that original ending. He was so upset over this that Byrne claims he stopped plotting the title and he had to come up with the stories for the Wendigo, Days of Future Past, and the Alien knock-off issues by himself before he got fed up and left.

>>150008186
He only lived in the UK when he was a little kid. Byrne was already Canadian when he first started working in the comics industry.

>>150011651
This the problem with Chapter One was it happening in ongoing the Spider-Man books and it completely tanked the best Spider-Man book of the 90's the Untold Tales of Spider-Man that was doing something similar but for $1 as part of Marvel's awesome budget books.

>>150013179
Yeah when Byrne announced that his new origin revamp was gonna have to remove Untold Tales I think it got some people wary months before Chapter One was released

>>150012203
He wanted to replace 616 with the New Universe

>>150007527
>and also because Byrne never had anything like TDKR or Watchmen. Best example of a middle ground comic book figure.

I find I've come to really appreciate creators who aren't just famous for one story more and more. Roger Stern was VERY by the numbers and I'd still call him one of the best in the industry just because he actually GOT IT. He knew what the comics and characters were and were more interested in just writing good adventures with them. Hobgoblin was a pretty big deal but even that wasn't some reinvention or whatever. It was just a strong mystery with Spider-man.

>>149999035
He got a good job over at Valiant. Meanwhile Marvel lost a boss who, while strict, actually gave a crap about their rights and well being all because they were a bunch of babies.

>>150013364
Long term storytelling in floppies is a lost art form nowadays with comics being written for TPB or having to spend 1/4 of the year tying in to crappy yearly events. It isn't surprising that people don't value long running series as much as tight visual novels.

>>150013620
Writing for the trade ruined all organic pacing in comics. Thanks Quesada.

>>150013461
He got fired from Valiant

>>150013364
It was a good beginning of a mystery, too bad he couldn't actually finish it because Fingeroth made him mad enough to quit. Though I can't blame him considering the damage Fingeroth did on his second run as editor.

>>150011786
>No one cares that Vegeta took part in eradicating countless planets,
That's just how the Japanese are, you can't compare them to the average human.

>>150010403
Yup. Quesada couldn't get over the fact that people die and that there is nothing you can do to stop aging so he took out all of his childish frustrations out on Spider-Man.

>>150013461
It never fails to amuse me that Vince Colletta wrote this as an artist who took shortcuts and sometimes made Kirby's art worse. The type of guy with work that Marvel instills in others as taking shortcuts and not caring about the quality as much, which is now their ethos. But Vince I think from what I remember was actually pretty alright for his work and him championing Shooter who wanted artists to get paid more, got fired. Vince is kinda based.

>>150003630
>Now I'm wondering if Byrne drew his own secret stash of Marvel and DC heroine lewds.
He 100% has. There are probably all kinds of Kitty lewds. 13-year-old neophyte Kitty lewds.

>>150013364
Stern also wrote the single greatest Hank Pym story ever which was immediately coming off of The Slap and finishing up Shooter's own story of Hank's self-destruction. Which is another problem: every writer treats their run like a sandbox.

As if the MoS thread wasn't enough. Ugh.

>>149992924
I've never liked Byrne's faces. Good grief they're hideous.

>>150013790
>>150013620
It doesn't help when any book is in constant danger of being renumbered within a year or two. There's no long term contracts for comic writers anymore. We don't really have Claremonts or Grunewalds who are THE GUY for their brand and can actually think long term.

>>150016850
>We don't really have Claremonts or Grunewalds who are THE GUY for their brand and can actually think long term.
That's a huge part of the problem: A company like Marvel doesn't WANT somebody to be "THE GUY" for their brand, they WANT short-term talent on their ongoing books, because they don't want another situation like with Claremont or the Image guys where the talent is seen as more important than the brand itself (even though "the brand" wouldn't have existed without the talent in the first place).

>>150016796
>I've never liked Byrne's faces.
Most of his faces are modelled on real people, though. Usually actors and actresses, and the occasional model.

>>150016850
Nobody can think long term on a book because, like you say yourself, nobody knows if they're even going to be on the book long term. I can remember seeing complaints about the current Wolverine book reading like a book where the writer doesn't know if he'll still be there in six months, and that's not a book in any danger of cancellation. Most of the lower-tier books, everyone working on them knows the book probably won't even last a year.

>>150016850
>We don't really have Claremonts or Grunewalds who are THE GUY for their brand and can actually think long term.
This was Slott for Spider-Man unfortunately.

>>150016850
Another problem is rebooting the a book with the same team, I'm looking at you Rainbow Rowell on She-Hulk & Ryan North on Fantastic Four.

>>150016909
It really is a short sighted mistake. Having an artist or writer on a book you can trust really makes it more reliable. Now it's a complete crap shoot as to what the next team is going to be like. You can't trust mainstream books. Even if there's a title you do enjoy by some miracle there's that sneaking suspicion that you know it won't last. Either it will cancelled, everyone will get reshuffled or an event will fuck it all up.

I also feel there's a bigger issue where the marvel and DC universes don't.... well they don't really feel like universes anymore. Continuity has gotten inconsistent at all, each new relaunch will make every book feel completely different. And nothing feels like it matters or will last.

>>150016991
For a long time in the 00s people insisted that continuity didn't matter, which seemed ok at first up until you realize the people saying it didn't care about character consistency or story consistency, much less continuity. This kind of thinking is why things feel floaty, feels ephemeral and inconsequential after the last two decades. There's little to no care about whether something is wrong, and anyone who dared speak up gets gaslit by Quesada or Slott or Brevoort or others

Byrne is the opposite extreme in that he cared about things too much that he makes some bad decisions (like the reason he decided to have Sandman be a villain again just because Sandman was on the FBI's most wanted list in the Ditko era). But the thing was he at least seemed to care about some kind of internal consistency, even if there were times he could be hypocritical about something.

>>150016991
Years back some creators discussed this and said the issue is that long runs started dropping in sales. The people who buy the most comics don't want them, they get bored.

>>149998196
That’s because none of their contributions were really that important in comparison. Everett and Wood were both prolific in their own right, but for other things and not in a “created the Marvel universe” way. Everett’s Golden Age Namor is fantastic, but Silver Age he did the first issue of Daredevil and a handful of post-Ditko Dr. Strange. Wood fixed Daredevil’s costume.

In comparison, Kirby’s run on Fantastic Four and Thor gave birth to so many universe-wide characters and concepts. Ditko did Marvel’s number one character with Spider-Man, as well as virtually all his most prominent villains to this day. He also fixed Iron Man’s suit, as well as made Bruce Banner change into the Hulk when angry. No two artists deserve the credit more.

>>150016991
>I also feel there's a bigger issue where the marvel and DC universes don't.... well they don't really feel like universes anymore. Continuity has gotten inconsistent at all, each new relaunch will make every book feel completely different. And nothing feels like it matters or will last.
Multiplication effect. Each writer has their stamp on the book, so changes a bunch of shit and no writer can follow it or make sense of it. People liked Ewing Immortal Hulk but how do you follow that? Or people introduce a cast of side characters and the next person wants to just off them because they don't care. Someone killed off a whole town JMS created for Thor just because.

If I was honest though I would say this fuckery has been around for far longer than people think and that inconsistency has always somewhat exist, particularly B, C or D listers getting fucked. Every creator is essentially a change. The problem is just whether you justify it or not.

>>150016909
To be fair, despite the veritable cult of personality X-Men fandom built up around Claremont, and despite what huge stars the Image artists were, the brand kept going without them, and early Image #1s aside, generally outsold everything they did after leaving X-Men. Even the oldfags who insist everything after Claremont was terrible still kept buying it.

>>150016958
There's two different ways this happens. One is like with the current FF, Thor and Moon Knight runs, where they're using specific storylines as 'justification' to relaunch, when we all know it's just to do a new #1 and hope for a sales spike from it, and then there's other books that just kept relaunching every year with the same writer, maybe even the same artist, and there's no real story reason for it. At best they're pretending the comic is a TV show and the relaunches are meant to be 'seasons', but it just ends up looking like they have a book that isn't working but they're too stupid to replace the creative team and have someone else try a different approach.

>>150017145
When did they say this? Because it feels more like their attempt to keep things 10 issues or less is making more uninterested readers

>>150017132
Continuity can be a strange thing. It shouldn't be a noose around the necks of creatives but at the same time it does need to be there and respected to at least some degree. Things need to matter again. So much is just handwaved or ignored these days that it feels like things have no impact at all. Character death has become a joke but the problem wasn't finding ways to bring them back it was killing them off to flippantly because you know someone will just bring them back. People say that nothing ever happened in comics but we've seen huge changes to the status quo. Certain marriages be key among them. It went from us feel like watching the opera of characters lives to it just being a constantly reset cartoon. And nobody cares. Everyone is so busy trying to make their own mark that nothing feels like the universe anymore.

>>150017222
>Even the oldfags who insist everything after Claremont was terrible still kept buying it.
For all the moaning people do about creators, the audience is just kind of retarded. We wouldn't be in this mess if the audience didn't constantly jump at gimmicks and absolute shit rather than actually supporting the good books or attempts at doing something different. Fuck even now Marvel and DC can slap together Ultimates and Absolute stuff and we go round the merry go round again.

>>150017228
Probably 10 years ago at this point. The single arc runs are for when the initial sales don't justify doing anything longer. They're always going to keep dropping.

>>150017309
I liked Lobdell. to a point. And Nicieza is typically a competent guy. Lobdell can get pretty retarded but they're both solid status quo coasters which is something I think we really need more of. No more rushing to events. Not everything being an overlong saga. More time for smaller shit and codas.

>>150017309
I don't know if it's exactly that. The thing is, around 2019 there did feel like a slowdown happening in comics. 2020/COVID just accelerated a decline and things were getting really bad around 2021-2023 before Energon Universe launched, because retailers were reporting serious slowdowns on Marvel and DC sales.

People also forget that the 2020s Ultimate launch was not exactly hot because there were a lot of complaints about Ultimate Invasion's high cover price and how slow the book is. It wasn't till the premise of USM got revealed that there was a sudden burst of interest. I honestly think had people not gotten on board with USM the Ultimate line might not have done as well as it did

>>150017373
Agreed, for all the hate they get from a lot of people they were both solid enough meat and potatoes cape comic writers with a good handle on character work AND either writing action scenes, or trusting their artists to handle them. I'd prefer to have more guys like that at Marvel and DC and less people who want to reinvent the wheel and make their permanent mark on any character they write.

>>150017361
If it's 2015 they were definitely too confident that people would jump on board new #1s. But once Marvel did ANAD in late 2015 the #1s boost didn't work as effectively as it used to because Marvel constantly relaunched. And it was also backfiring with the new audience that they wanted; Brian Hibbs reported that Ms Marvel readers at his store just dropped the book at the end of Vol 1 when they heard about the relaunch instead of continuing on. #1s feel like they're made for more variant covers and First Issue Speculators

>>150017431
My point is more about gimmicks. Ultimate Spider-Man and Absolute Batman are both pretty much carrying the lines in terms of sales. It really just takes another elseworlds/au/what if type situation to build a little hype, word of mouth and get people back in for a while. Add in some narratives about actually giving Peter his relationship with MJ back etc.

>>150017585
>Ms Marvel readers at his store just dropped the book at the end of Vol 1
I did a deep dive into Ms Marvel once. Her trade sales on paper look very good but the issue was, her first series only the first tpb sold very well and the volume 1 tpb drop off is insane. In part it was because it was marketed in the YA book market, so people would pick it up and read the first few issues. So when you see the total trades sold for the first series, about ten or so books in total, the first tpb volume made up nearly 60% of those sales. I forget how many books sold total but it's an insane drop off.

>If it's 2015 they were definitely too confident that people would jump on board new #1s.
Just a few years later there was an incident when comic book shop owners shouted at Marvel representatives during a meeting over the massive slump in sales because so many big characters had been replaced by diverse characters and vice president of publishing, David Gabriel, basically said the feedback he was getting was about diversity not selling but later he massively backtracked those ideas.

>>150017585
The problem is that even if a new number 1 does get a quick boost the subsequent issues are all diminishing returns. Every time you reboot fewer commuted readers come back. A relaunch may be enticing for a new reader to jump on but it's the perfect excuse for a dozen others to jump off.

>>149992502 (OP)
>rise to power

You mean "rise to prominence"? Because he was never in a position of power in the industry.

>>149992995
>he was an enormous boot licker

This is the exact opposite of reality. He was one of the biggest prima donnas in comics history.

>>150017701
Yeah it's because the first run, the 2014 run of Ms Marvel, did a lot better by the standards Marvel expected it to do (The first issue went into 7 printings). Upon seeing that, Marvel did what they thought would boost the character but ended up making disastrous decision after disastrous decision

>relaunch the title after just 19 issues, because they were relaunching linewide after Secret Wars
>Put Kamala on the Avengers
(to get an idea why this is a problem, it'd be like Spider-Man being put on the Avengers 19 issues into the Ditko run or 19 issues into Bendis' USM run)
>Civil War II, which derailed a lot of things
>placed on Champions, by Mark Waid. Waid's Kamala feels different than Wilson's Kamala
And a bunch of other stuff.

So instead of having her popularity grow more organically they basically forced the character into an artificial attempt at raising popularity and it turned off everyone. There are other issues outside of Marvel's control, but there has been too many bad decisions from Marvel

>>150017728
That's right, it's been happening for a long while. Sometimes, there is interest in a new launch (Immortal Hulk, Ultimate line, Absolute line) but constant #1s are a turn-off

>>150017971
He was proud to be a company man with regard to how he felt he wasn't owned any royalties for his contributions. But when it came to creative decisions, he would flip out when things didn't go his way.

>>150018069
See, I remember the old thought pattern being that if a series had a high issue number that meant it was healthy and had sustainability and if it had that it meant it was probably good. There being an added history also meant there was more to get into if I wanted it. Now a long term character everyone knows from decades ago only as a low double digit number? That strikes me as a bit weak.

>>150018031
I'm not even talking the first run, anon, I'm talking just the first trade paperback, like the first five issues or however much it collected. Most people read that and nothing else, not even the rest of the first run. It's quite insane when you see it on paper. I forget how much the trades sold, it was in the hundreds of thousands. But literally most of these sold were only the first trade. Meaning the majority of people only ever read about 5 issues total of Ms Marvel. So all your stuff about secret wars and relaunches doesn't even matter because most people didn't go beyond 5 issues.

>>150018069
>constant #1s are a turn-off
It reeks of desperation (which it is), they could easily just advertise and put in trade announcements when a new storyarch is starting and make a point out of how it's a great jumping on point ("A New Chapter Begins Here!") But that would require them to do their fucking job.

The problem for me is the gimmicks just became the marketing. A normal person doesn't really want to read solicits but gimmicks transcends that. Comics have a perception of impenetrability that isn't really real and #1 issues sort of play into that fear and anxiety to create accessibility. But normal people still end up confused.

>>150018283
Yeah, when you promote something as a starting point you're implying you need it.

>>150018414
Unironically feels easy to get into comics now. In the past you had no collected editions. A friend would tell you to read X-Men and you'd pick it up. And while people saying old comics were easy to get into, understanding what the fuck was going on at points in Claremont's later run was something. But you'd try.

Now you get jumping on points, summaries, casts of characters pages, collected editions. And everyone whines it's hard to get into.

>>150018493
It's never been easier. Even without a new start point. You can just jump in and if something ever confuses you or if you don't know who someone is there are wikis. When I got into them not only was I starting a random ass issues in the hundreds if there was a call back or something I wanted to look up I either had to go back to the shop and if the issue was too expensive or they didn't have it at all I just never learned. But again, you shouldn't ever be that confused to start with. People just get hyper fixated on shit these days.

>>150018493
Older comics used to put more effort into "every issue could be somebody's first issue", so every issue would have a lot of exposition, sometimes heavy-handed and awkward exposition, to make it clear who all the main characters were, what they could do, and what the story so far had been. In the modern era, where everything's plotted for the trade, and you're expected to just use Wikis and other online resources to get character histories and summaries of previous storylines, you either start from the first chapter of the current story or you're lost.

Back in the days when there were no Wikis, and no 'plot for the trade' mentality, you just had to jump in with the most recent issue, and if you liked it enough to stick around, you'd just figure things out as you went, maybe you'd be able to find some recent back issues if you were lucky. There was no reasonable expectation that anyone would be able to get the whole series from an #1 that was back in the 1960s or even the 1940s.

>>150010811
This is true, but meme-addicted, reddit-posting /co/ faggots don't want to admit it.

>>150018493
Stereotypes die hard, it was absolutely that way in the 90's when I was attempting to get into comics, my mom would get me big bundles of old stock from big box stores and I'd do my best to piece together wtf was going on, quit in frustration, then saw the 10-year anniversary edition of Dark Knight Returns on the shelf at Waldenbooks or B. Dalton Booskellers, and I've been in ever since, but it took something self-contained and with the vision and drive of Dark Knight Returns to get me onboard and keep me onboard.

>>149992502 (OP)
>Frank Millar

Why is this error so common on /co/? Is it really all bots making these posts or is /co/ actually THIS fucking retarded?

>>150018619
>Older comics used to put more effort into "every issue could be somebody's first issue"
No offense anon, but I know all that. It was Jim Shooters thing of saying, everyone's first comic blah blah, you'd get powers described the same way blah blah. But I gave the Claremont example on purpose because for all that talk, there was some wacky shit going on that you'd just accept, ignore or be told about. Expectations were different. I think plenty of that run, for example, could give you a similar list theory. Now, even with a lot of runs you can still jump in at different arcs and understand it still.

>>150018695
It's auto-correction from typing in "Mark Millar" all the time.

>>150018705
>similar list theory.
Some how lost feeling autocorrected to that

>>150008423
Yeah

>>150012129
Given Shooter's micromanagement style, I'm surprised he didn't simply declare the panel in error and have it omitted in later printings.

>>150012129
>>Byrne even goes as far as writing and drawing his own fan comic series called "X-Men: Elsewhen" in 2018 which starts with Jean not dying at the end of Dark Phoenix.

Was that ever posted online anywhere? I know it's getting an official printing sometime next year but I'm pretty interested in what he cooked up.

>>150017237
Continuity is like a building foundation, it restricts the shape of the building but doesn't tell you how to decorate the rooms.

>>150019242
There's an alternate timeline where Shooter pays more attention to the book before it's printed, decides they can't turn a Lee/Kirby heroine into a genocidal villain, and what were they thinking with the BDSM club stuff, and just fires everyone involved in the book, gets that scene edited out, someone else finishes the story, and 80s Marvel ends up looking completely different.

>>150019331
>Was that ever posted online anywhere?
The penciled pages are all on his message board. I read the first couple issues, and now I'll wait for the inked and colored versions in the final books:
https://m.byrnerobotics.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=58810&PN=1&TPN=1

>>150019438
>BDSM club stuff,

Yeah that was pretty wild.

>>150019460
>Potato Jean
Interesting

>>150019464
>Busiek and Morrison both stopped reading X-Men at the end of Dark Phoenix Saga
Noping out of an X-Men run with no Jean is always the correct choice. If you're going to have to read all those words words words you at least want something nice to look at.

>>150019507
I assume this is where they would've gone with it if Shooter hadn't cried foul about Jean getting off scott-free for nuking planets.

>>150019526
>If you're going to have to read all those words words words you at least want something nice to look at.
Forgetting about someone...?

>>150019242
If Shooter was gonna do that he'd have done it with Hank Pym's slap panel

>>150019552
>Forgetting about someone...?
Sauron's cool and all, but it's just not the same and he doesn't show up that often anyway.

>>150019574
I think in that case, we have to assume nobody at the time even realized how big a deal that was going to end up being, that later writers and the fandom would never let it be forgotten.

>>150019632
>Sauron's cool and all, but it's just not the same and he doesn't show up that often anyway.
I fucking KNEW someone would do it, but it's the hottest Storm has ever looked so I don't care.

>>150019632
It's funny because it only became such a massive issue in the 2000s. Not that it was treated lightly when it happened it was a big deal but if you read the story and subsequent fall out they were a lot more sympathetic to Hank than you might realize.

>>150019632
Those "later writers" didn't come about until well after that particular storyline had been long resolved by the likes of Shooter, Stern, and Englehart. It only became a big blotch against his character when those hacks made it so, and a lot of non-comic readers took that at face value.
So as always, secondaries are the worst thing that can happen to comics

>>150018213
That's fairly common among all collections. Saga Volume 1 massively outsells the rest of Saga. Plenty of runs have never been fully connected because the orders aren't there for later volumes. Yes, Ms. Marvel's first volume was a massive sales outlier and had legs, but the rest of the first series was also a sales success regarding TPBs. Comichron has TPB numbers for books sold to comic shops.

>>150019700
>>150019720
Even in the mid 1990s there was an attempt to retcon it away because there were readers who'd bring it up as a reason to object to Hank and Jan being together, which was something a lot of writers wanted. Making Hank be Yellowjacket again also unnecessarily dragged up the past all over again, and unintentionally started a cycle of Hank Pym redemption arcs followed by a later writer bringing up the slap again, followed by another redemption arc, followed by a later writer bringing up the slap again...

>>150019792
Busiek was good to the Pyms

Anon came up with a popularity argument. “DP sold well, so that means Byrne's thing was popular.” But in the long run, no one remembers that. Most people know what Stairway to Heaven is, but there are people who don't even know who Archie is. My point is that Byrne didn't have anything that had a major cultural impact. Maybe he influenced comic books, but it wasn't that big of a deal. Not like Neal Adams, Shooter, Todd, Liefeld, Jim Lee, etc.

>>150018705
Every floppy has a recap page, which is a much more concise method of introducing new readers than having everyone explain to themselves what they're doing, who they are, how their powers work, and how they relate to everyone else in the room. It's the most elegant solution to the first time reader problem and I am amazed it took so long to catch on.

>>150019632
>>150019687
Sauron is a character that needs just a slight tweak to his design to make him menacing.

>>150019722
>That's fairly common among all collections.
Anon, volume 1 drop off is common but the level of drop off is not. The problem is simply that the idea that the rest of Ms Marvel was a success simply isn't there.

>>150019871
Recap pages are great, I don't know why people don't talk about them more. Even manga anthologies do them.

>>150019825
Kind of a moot point because most normies don't know artists and barely know comic writers. People might know Alan Moore, but not Dave Gibbons or David Lloyd even if Watchmen or V For Vendetta entered the mainsteam.

>>150018680
>my mom would get me big bundles of old stock from big box stores and I'd do my best to piece together wtf was going on, quit in frustration

Oh I used to love getting grab bags from flea markets and stuff. Seeing older stories completely out of the context of the era was always a blast and it just crazy to see how different things were.

>>150019993
But Anon wants to tell me that Byrne's work is known outside the comic book world. And, like, there are levels. For us, Byrne is “mainstream,” but for some guy who only knows who Robert Kirkman is, Byrne is like, a deep cut. You have to be a huge comic book nerd to know who JB is.

>>150019820
He was, but with the benefit of hindsight he'd probably have been better off not undoing the attempt to retcon away the slap, and not making Hank wear the Yellowjacket costume. It would've prevented so much that happened later.

>>150019993
>People might know Alan Moore, but not Dave Gibbons
It bums me out, Gibbons has become a capable writer in his own right and nobody talks about it. He wrote one of the best Captain America stories of all time.

>>150019820
I'm the only guy who liked Millar doubling down on Pym being a jerk in the Ultimates.

>>149997952
>he was republican

He's a far left democrat. Where the fuck did you ever hear otherwise?

>>150019876
The fourth Ms. Marvel TPB, the last of the pre-Secret Wars run, sold over 5k units the month it dropped. Excluding the first TPB as an outlier, the numbers Ms. Marvel did in TPBs are fairly good for her first run, especially considering the floppies sold in the 30k range, and their sales trajectories were fairly normal in drop off. And these are just Diamond numbers, not Bookscan.

>>149992591
Literally this. He rose up through the APA ranks rapidly when amateur press actually meant something, he learned to ink his own work like Terry Austin without it affecting his deadlines, he was a machine.
And now he has cataracts and avoids conventions where people will see he's functionally blind. You'd think a type 1 diabetic would pay more attention to his HbA1c numbers.

>>150020599
>And now he has cataracts
Depending on the type, those could easily be removed via surgery nowadays.

>>150007388
He left Superman when his contract ran out, he didn't ragequit.
He periodically lost interest in NextMen but it was his baby to do with as he pleased.
Go back to whatever MCU thread you crawled out of.

>>149997915
Read Shooter's blog about original art ownership, half the time they were giving it back to writers. It was a fucked up system and they used it against Kirby but it wasn't fair to begin with.

>>150020042
That's also part of a generational thing. Some comic celebrities are big in their era and face over time.
Normies don't really know Kirkman, either. They know "the Walking Dead guy" or "Invincible guy" or that they're one in the same. Casual comic readers may know him, but they'll also know a handful of popular comic creators of an era that others would be less likely to know. Even someone like Michael Turner or Alex Ross aren't as known to zoomer comic fans as they were in the 2000's.

>>150020667
This isn't aimed at you (and it may be because I've been drinking), but I will always take Jack Kirby's side on this shit. The man is an American hero, fought in WWII, roughly a decade older than my grandfather who also fought in World War II, men like him and my grandfather deserved the World, they saw atrocities beyond comprehension, then came back and built the America we should've had until their spoiled children took it from us. The good men who preached truth and righteousness deserved the World, and the following generation let them down.

>>149999888
Factual

>>150000721
Byrne also did the unthinkable, he required every forum user to go by their legal name and provide ID. And they STILL ragged the shit out of him on his own forums.

>>150001379
Byrne only agreed to take Superman if he could do anything without editorial veto. Clark and Barda Make a Porno and Superman killing Zod & Co were only possible this way and DC has never agreed to those terms again.

>>150021061
>Superman killing Zod & Co
This was a good thing btw, the Exile story is good.

>>150004449
>The inspiration for Barda came from a singer.
Is that what we're calling Lainie Kazan, now

>>150000721
As someone in a bunch of those message boards, I don't think twitter was worse.

>>150007806
Let people who remember the time talk about it while you sit this one out

>>150007806
>but Dark Phoenix is kind of a deep cut.
It has been adapted in the movies multiple times. And was in the cartoon. Dark Phoenix is a known story and not a deep cut, wtf

>>150021231
I read it again recently and it's really strange honestly. It's not really a proper story. At leas the way people might expect from them nowadays with how trade writing is. It was a weird cascade of separate events that escalated with Jean killing a planet and then dying. Like the X-men just woke up one day and had the shittiest week ever.

>>150021310
I think it's more appropriately the epilogue to a story about Mastermind and the Hellfire Club.

>>150020697
Alex Ross is the guy that does a bunch of those covers
t. Zoomer

>>150021310
>aaah is that a story not written for the trades, why are all these other plotlines happening, this isn't like Hush, save me Bendisman!

>>150021380
>In such a rush to act like a cock he didn't even understand what he's replying to.
You do realize that any time someone makes an observation it is not meant as a harsh criticism or any kind at all.

>>150021310
>It's not really a proper story.
It is a proper story, it is just contextually a comic book story of the time. What is not proper about it?

> It was a weird cascade of separate events that escalated with Jean killing a planet and then dying
It isn't seperate events, it is a plot and side plot from a bunch of issues. They made Phoenix and rebranded Jean Grey/Marvel Girl as Phoenix and overtime built a storyline where she would be corrupted. It happened longer than a week. It bought in the Shi'ar from earlier arcs, Hellfire club etc.

>>150019331
>it's getting an official printing sometime next year

Really?

>>150021763
https://comicbookclublive.com/2025/07/24/john-byrne-x-men-elsewhen-abrams/

>The three volumes of Elsewhen will be released as part of Abrams ComicArts’ Marvel Arts line, and run over 600 pages. Volume 1 will hit in April 2026, with Volume 2 in Fall 2026, and Volume 3 in Spring 2027. All three volumes will be released as 7.5″ x 11″ hardcovers, and feature over 200 pages of story and art each, as well as bonus materials.

>>150011467
He said she needed to die, C&B got pissy then had a Come to Jesus moment and insisted that was the way forward because they had a great send-off in mind.

>>150012129
>>Byrne even goes as far as writing and drawing his own fan comic series called "X-Men: Elsewhen" in 2018 which starts with Jean not dying at the end of Dark Phoenix.
Which went into permanent limbo when his cataracts ruined his vision.

>>150021717
>It is a proper story,

See that's just it. It's a story told in a comic book way. It has impact, it has character and it has drama. But the way it's told is fundamentally comic. So rather than being a single proper story what I really mean is it's a series of smaller proper stories building off each other. If that makes more sense.

>>150003630
It wasn't secret
He drew Storm masturbating as a commission at a convention
I mean her beaver's to the side but she's fingering herself and playing with her tits while moaning, fully nude

>>150022100
>So rather than being a single proper story what I really mean is it's a series of smaller proper stories building off each other. If that makes more sense.
Yes because it is a comic book series. What's the problem?

>>150022148
I'm just saying big events like this where handled way differently back then than how they are now.

>>150022179
Okay and? You just don't seem to have a point or any real topic for discussion?

>>150022263
No. Good Christ. It was a simple observation. Didn't expect the Spanish inquisition

>>150022363
Simple observation? More like non observation.. its a comic book series made up of smaller events and it doesn't feel like events now? Okay... It isn't the Spanish inquisition wanting a discussion on a discussion board. Bring a point next time, geez, it ain't a lot to ask.

>>150022471
>Okay... It isn't the Spanish inquisition wanting
Woosh.

>>150022532
I got the joke anon, I was being flippant so I can woosh you right back. Also that woosh shit is Reddit as fuck.

>>150022558
"Woosh" is older than the modern internet.

>>150022574
Yes but unfortunately it's become Reddit as shit. (Amazing how you offer more conversation over woosh of all things than any of your other posts kek.)

>>150011092
The flipside is that Marvel, especially over the last 10 or so years, has made much more of their catalogue available via things like Epics and Omnis whereas yeah, DC keeps Watchmen and TDKR and Year One in print... but that's all they do. They keep reprinting the same handful of shit over over and over and then anything that tries to collect something different gets cancelled before getting anywhere. Or they go back and keep reprinting golden age Superman and Batman and end it after a couple of volumes.

Even with their Finest shit, it's all Long Bow Hunters, Year One, early Silver Age GL, etc. Same old shit unless it's something like Peacemaker with a show or movie. Whereas with Epic, Marvel's generally made it a point to try and start with the stuff that isn't typically collected.

>>150017701
The retailers were having additional copies of those books they never ordered dumped on them with no ability to return them and paying the freight cost by weight. Marvel did this so they could talk about number of printed copies and pretend they were actual direct sales ordered figures. It was less "no woke legacy characters" and "stop forcing us to pay inflated freight costs on merch we can't refuse delivery of"

>>150022716
Finest is still pretty new. I'm hoping and expecting a lot of the lines to get more solid collections like Marvel Epics. Batman already has a pretty decent block but hopefully other stuff starts getting padded better too.

>>150019792
>bringing up the slap again
Look at Ultron's hand positions, the panel's not even trying to be subtle about it

>>150020615
They absolutely can and I've got this in my near future for the same reason as him, but I also have great insurance

>>150022716
That's not much of an accomplishment when even the Marvel Epic collections go out of print fast, too

>>150022744
Retailers had multiple complaints
>ANAD wasn't selling well
>some retailers were complaining that the new legacy characters weren't selling
>other retailers were complaining about having to pay shipping for overships

>>150023065
I really wish mainstream comics had an evergreen format

>>150022829
It feels like she was being bullied by the writers sometimes.

>>150023065
On the subject,
How in the fuck is Spider-Man Epic Collection Goblin's Last Stand going for $200-300? Like isn't this a book that Marvel should keep in print since it's got the Death of Gwen in it?

>>150020697
And what I said has levels to it. I noticed how annoying I am when I get into my hobbies: games, comics, and music. Because I know more than everyone else, and I only have forums, randoms, comment sections, and websites like 4chan to discuss it. No one out there will be on the level of your typical forum dweller.

>>150000721
>Byrne looks more sane for staying on his forum instead of engaging on Twitter

Only because it’s harder for you to encounter accounts of all the stupid and inane shit Byrne complains about. He had his own private forum that had ridiculous requirements to register and people who went through the trouble still couldn’t believe what a dumb petty dick Byrne could be.

>>150025036
See? One of the reasons people try to dismiss Byrne. The Forum

>>150000579
Nobody is forcing you to pay attention to that. You can just ignore and avoid gossip

>>149992502 (OP)
He may be a grumpy dickhead but he's 100% on the money occasionally.

>Over the years I have many times complained about the way fans dress at cons. A civilian walking by the dealers room of a big con will glance in and behold a churning sea of slobs. Those faded t-shirts. Those knee-length shorts. The general sense that soap is not a familiar item. As if the Comic Shop Guy on THE SIMPSONS is a fashion plate to be emulated. In other words, civilians see exactly what they EXPECT to see, and over the years I have sent out pleas to my fellow fans and pros alike that we try to present ourselves in a way that does us some credit. Don't dress like Mormons, but if you're going to a three day con, bring a change of clothes!

>>150025264
It's true, nerds and metal fans are fucking smelly. I understand that most metal fans are potheads, but nerds, what's their excuse? Even I, being a nerd myself, can recognize the stench of Cheetos from a mile away.

>>149992502 (OP)
The more I learn about Moore the more I realise he was a gigantic tryhard who was wrong about almost everything (except for Morrison being a fag, he got that one right)

>>150025280
Moore is a great writer who was a huge asshole to some people he worked with.

>>150025036
>Only because it’s harder for you to encounter accounts of all the stupid and inane shit Byrne complains about. He had his own private forum that had ridiculous requirements to register and people who went through the trouble still couldn’t believe what a dumb petty dick Byrne could be.

I was there to see it back in the 00s so you're not telling me anything new. Byrne made the smarter move staying on his forum instead of going on Twitter because it was like so many people--comic pros, celebrities, etc on Twitter went into Byrne-mode or worse.

>>149992888
This. Being punctual and having consistent output helps immensely.

>>150025328
Moore is actually a super nice guy irl, I've met him several times. He isn't really an asshole to people. The people he fell out with he mostly ghosted. But he has every reason to have fallen out with them, like when people contacted him and tried to manipulate him around the Watchmen movie, and his friend who was writing a novelisation of the movie with his blessing, had a brother who was dying and DC and these people tried to use that as leverage against him.

>>150026485
But…he said Rorschach is stinky!
And Roschachnis LITERALLY me.

>>150026511
People don't read full interviews or quotes. There is one news interview he was giving and he went with the interviewer to talk to protesters using v masks and this guy mentioned the movies. Moore didn't explode at the guy or anything. The interviewer literally said "Moore is too genuinely nice to take umbridge with that mention of the movies."

People have taken one Rorschach quote that was more about a certain type of fan to think Moore is stupid and attacking them. Fuck Moore's daughter even said the guy loves comics still. He just gives people old man quotes every so often, but wouldn't you if people bugged you all the time about the past rather than talking about your current projects.

>>150014858
>he took out all of his childish frustrations out on Spider-Man
>He wanted that to keep the childish character for childs and a vehicle for childish fantasies instead of being a medium for middle aged men to play doll's house.
Oh no, the horror!

>>150026511
I didn't mention his opinion on nerd culture. Which I largely agree with, I'm talking about him swindling writers and artists. There's a pretty convincing argument that he's not trustworthy.

>>150027900
He hasn't swindled anyone, what the fuck are you on about. If anything he's actually given more money to his collaborators on multiple occasions. You're talking shit.

>>150028131
Don Simpson has lead like a one man campaign against Moore because he never finished 1963 because the whole project became such a headache that he didn't want to do it anymore. Simpson was apparently really sore about that and blames him more than Veitch or Bissette seem to care about it

>>150018246
#1's with 30 variant covers make more money and is easier for everyone without the previous 900 issues of Spider-Man to collect.

>>150027141
>the childish character for childs
Fuck off ESL

>>150028519
>#1's with 30 variant covers make more money and is easier for everyone without the previous 900 issues of Spider-Man to collect.

....which is short-term thinking.

That's just catering to people who will abandon after either only buying #1s, variants, or key issues, or give someone another excuse to drop the book upon a relaunch

>>150027141
>Childish fantasies.
>Everything from OMD onwards has been creepy fetish shit by middle aged manchildren like Slott and Wells.
Yes, it's horrifying. Not that a porn-addled retard like you could ever understand.

>>150028453
He was involved in the Miracleman settlement.

>>150028453
After reading come of Simpson's comments, he comes off like a huge cunt.