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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 23 December 2020 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | 1 post reply

I wasn't buying comics much if at all during the years Mr. DeFalco was editor-in-chief. Having recently enjoyed his work circa 1998-2001 on the M2 sub-line of Marvel comics (Spider-Girl etc.) I got curious about what Marvels were like when he was in charge. I'd heard Thor had a 'fun' run for awhile then and knew of John Byrne's Namor, She-Hulk and Avengers West Coast among other various work from the period. So far I've dipped my toes in a bit deeper and been reading Captain America (Mark Gruenwald writer), three Avengers titles, Iron Man (Michelinie followed by Byrne as writer), one issue of Namor, an Invaders and Black Knight mini series, and Thor. I have some Fantastic Four and Spider-Man on the way.

I think the comics I've seen could be said to reflect a DeFalco standard of entertaining storytelling which I do like, even the cross-overs seem more in line with come along if you like but it's not absolutely necessary to follow anything or a particular issue. What I do notice is that 1988-1993 the letters pages are extremely erratic in appearing at all! The later MC2 lettercols seem to be much better organized and regular. Also the Bullpen Bulletins pages give over a lot of space to some very very boring Q&A items about one single minor staff member at a time, and so far all minor 'names' at best, few of which were heard of before or since I don't think. This seems very amateur and fannish. Sadly most of the people are just not interesting at all. At the expense of the checklist of what else was out that week/month it's sort of an unforced error for Marvel, like those super wordy explanation pages Jeannette Kahn use to publish in the '70s DCs... and who enjoyed many of those?

I do like the less sterile looking Marvel Comics corner box logo which started sometime in late 1989-90, but the general line wide housekeeping of letter pages for reader involvement, and Bullpen Bulletins being useful and not just someone minor being given a supposed moment of glory, might've done a lot more toward whatever they thought they were doing with the Wild Agents Of Marvel club 'thing. I take it that didn't last long?

So as for not being hugely muscled darkly brooding psychos and/or inflated fantasy guns and boobs time, I am pretty happy with what I've seen and read of the DeFalco Marvel... there are some things I just know to stay away from (probably all the X books). There looks like a lot of solid two and three base hits if few home runs at this time. The production department work and house ads in particular, seems oddly basic and utilitarian at times, special lettering almost seeming like the old rub-on Letraset stuff. That doesn't help with the weakened identity from missing letter pages and large parts of the Bulletins page being of dubious interest to anyone outside the bullpen.

What do others think of the DeFalco as Editor-In-Chief period of Marvel? Highlights?
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Shawn Kane
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Posted: 24 December 2020 at 7:03am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

I really enjoyed DeFalco as a writer but I felt that the quality of books dropped during his tenure as Editor-in-Chief. I'm not necessarily putting the blame on him but many of the books I enjoyed around the time didn't seem as fun or exciting. 

There were exceptions but my personal favorites had been the X-Men, G.I. Joe, The Fantastic Four, and the Avengers and those books just weren't as good as they had previously been. I did like Iron Man, the Hulk and Amazing Spider-Man though. 

I also noticed the prominence of the violent "hero" with more emphasis on Wolverine and the Punisher. Captain America was hit and miss with Steve Rogers quitting and becoming the Captain dragging on too long. 

From an art standpoint, I wasn't a big fan of the guys who ended up starting Image. I liked some of their art but I always felt much of it was too scratchy. On the bright side, JB returned during his tenure.
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John Byrne
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Posted: 24 December 2020 at 7:22am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

On the bright side, JB returned during his tenure.

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Unconnected.

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Peter Martin
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Posted: 24 December 2020 at 7:50am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

I really enjoyed DeFalco as a writer but I felt that the quality of books dropped during his tenure as Editor-in-Chief.
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This just about sums it up for me.
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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 24 December 2020 at 1:21pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

I'll start off by saying Tom DeFalco can be an enjoyable writer, but generally only when he inherits a title with an established supporting cast, rogues gallery, and mythos. He needs the toys already in the sandbox. He needs to know what already works. So he does well with Spider-Man and Thor. That said, he really came unstuck with the Fantastic Four.

On to his EiC role. After the final years of Shooter at Marvel, I think DeFalco was what the books and the creative staff needed. He seemed to allow the creative teams to have more of a vision, but ensured quality and the story's final outcome was reached.

He did (to varying and critical degrees) encourage new talent (and I know they are not to everyone's tastes) like Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Rob Liefeld and Marc Silvestri. What made those artists work initially was tying them to established writing talent. 

By 1990 / 1991 though the above exerted too much influence and we saw what happened by 1992, and I'd say the speculator boom along with market saturation of titles, too many crossovers and a decline in quality rounded out his tenure from 1992 - 1994.

1987 - 1990 was the best period under DeFalco as EiC in my opinion.

As a side note, I would have been interested in seeing what would have happened if Jim Shooter and Dick Giordano had swapped roles / companies in the 80s.


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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 24 December 2020 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Good observations and info! There do seem to be landmine areas in some titles like Fantastic Four where I'm not sure I would enjoy the changes made. The Thing gets really weird looking for awhile, but like the white and less human Vision change it might be interesting, if I ever look into those issues.

In the Avengers I've gotten, they have inserted a new trendy guy named 'Rage' who takes up a lot of the focus, and I'm not crazy about him... basically a supposed Bronx street muscle guy in a wrestling mask and seems not really worthy of Avengers status, visually anyway. Flashback to a line-up on Justice League with Aquaman, a gypsy and a break dancer... groan. But he's okay-ish and Hercules needs him to banter with maybe. I think Battlestar in Captain America is a more interesting new character. In a way the new characters, or newly prominent ones like Sersi of the Eternals, are as luckluster and not so visually cool as the Letraset type corporate journal graphic designs I mentioned.

Maybe Darkhawk and Sleepwalker are titles I could check into though?

It does look like there is a solid Byrne written Iron Man run later I'm excited to get through the Michelinie & Layton ones to reach.
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Greg McPhee
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Posted: 24 December 2020 at 3:03pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Rebecca,

From the DeFalco EiC period I would say to check the following:

  • New Warriors #'s 1 - 54 - the Fabian Nicieza written issues, and a title that was much better than it had a right to be. Rage was removed from the Avengers and put in to NW. It crosses over with two spin offs at points "Nova" and "Night Thrasher". I'd say issues 1 - 25 by Nicieza and Mark Bagley are the best.
  • Darkhawk - Darkhawk is on okay title. A mix of Omega the Unknown and an urban ROM, but it takes too long to breakaway from the 90's Marvel formula: Punisher and Spider-Man guest shots, and borrowing way too many of Spider-Man's villains to start with. It improves in to its second year, but is nothing spectacular.
  • Deathlok - Is an interesting revamp / revival with no ties to the original version of the character, but is worth a look.
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Jason K Fulton
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Posted: 24 December 2020 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

If I'm remembering correctly, DeFalco cost us the Byrne AWC "Kang Won" storyline.
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Shawn Kane
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Posted: 25 December 2020 at 6:37am | IP Logged | 9 post reply

I thought New Warriors was pretty good but I bowed out after the storylines with Vance's father and then Rage's grandmother. Just seemed like unnecessary angst but it was the 90's.  
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John Byrne
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Posted: 25 December 2020 at 7:14am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

If I'm remembering correctly, DeFalco cost us the Byrne AWC "Kang Won" storyline.

••

Do NOT get me started!!

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Richard Stevens
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Posted: 25 December 2020 at 7:40am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

I still have fond memories of Sleepwalker. Reminded me of reluctant Ditko Spidey a bit. I should dig those out.
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Rebecca Jansen
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Posted: 25 December 2020 at 1:05pm | IP Logged | 12 post reply

I didn't want to bring up bad memories, this is pretty much all terra incognito for me and I guess I like mining for 'nuggets' of what's good. I'm liking some of the younger artists in these I never knew of, some of whom are even gone now sadly... like Paul Ryan, Tom Lyle, and at Impact and DC Mike Parobeck. I also like that there is some Herb Trimpe and Sal Buscema in with Ron Frenz and Kieron Dwyer.

I had read one New Warriors of this time, but it was in Dutch (an issue of Marvel Super-Helden) which I'm not fluent in. I like Namorita a lot so will check out that series (I have the 2000-ish run) as well as filling in more issues of Namor. I have assembled West Coast Av's #41-52 so far and Iron Man #167-175 (writer) from 'our man' Byrne. Namor and She-Hulk on the someday list. Also ordered a short run of four Spider-Man with the Black Cat in just to get an idea what was going on with him back then.

Just finished Avengers #333-340 and it's mostly alright (can I call The Brethren 'the poo people'?) and there is some nicer art by the Steve Epting and Tom Palmer team in many. Sometimes however there are inventory or last minute fill-in issues that are very amateur looking, even a notably bad letterer... they seem like the junkiest indy comics, not Marvel quality, but given someone decided to have partly bi-weekly schedules for some titles (perhaps to compete with Action Weekly or the four Superman titles per month) maybe inevitable...
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