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Mark Haslett
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 19 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 6277
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 12:41am | IP Logged | 1
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Well, full disclosure, I never (until this thread) realized how similar the impact of the Death of Gwen Stacy and the Death of Jean Grey was. Yet I can't find an atom in my being that doesn't love the Claremont/Byrne Phoenix story.
Good comics are always possible and can draw from any kind of influence. So I guess "literally changing the genre" is a category and anything that does so belongs in that category by definition.
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James Woodcock
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 7699
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 1:21am | IP Logged | 2
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I would say that Secret Wars and Crisis on Infinite Earths also had a lasting impact as being the first two major company wide crossover events. These, to me, were the dominoes that led to annual company crossovers that torpedoed ongoing plots, leading to the current state of events where 'everything is connected'
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Raj Dhami
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 07 March 2008
Posts: 232
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 2:44am | IP Logged | 3
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I would throw Miller's Daredevil into the mix too.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132644
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 6:30am | IP Logged | 4
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Well, full disclosure, I never (until this thread) realized how similar the impact of the Death of Gwen Stacy and the Death of Jean Grey was. Yet I can't find an atom in my being that doesn't love the Claremont/Byrne Phoenix story. •• Both were stories that should never have been done, that's for sure! The Death of Phoenix "feels" different from the death of Gwen Stacy most likely because it is bigger, more "cosmic." But just as damaging -- especially since Chris would not let go. When Dark Phoenix showed up as the Marvel villain in the X/Titans book, I said it was official, Phoenix was the least dead dead character Marvel had. But I look back now, as I have said before, and I realize that when Chris called to say Shooter was not happy with the end of 137, and he wanted Phoenix taken to a "prison asteroid" to be "horribly tortured for all eternity" I should have said "Okay." After all, there were a thousand ways we could have worked our way around that one. (Just waiting for the focus of the Whim of Iron to drift elsewhere would probably have been enough.) Alas, I reacted more strongly, and spoke the words that will live in infamy, "F*ck that! I'd rather kill her!" Mea culpa, mea culpa!
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12558
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 7:01am | IP Logged | 5
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Gwen's Death, in my reading, was something like an evil seed that took many, many years to sprout into an awful weed. It didn't destroy Spider-Man right away, and it ultimately but again many years later affected all comicbooks broadly and not simply The Amazing Spider-Man alone, but as a kind of persistent low-level sickness. Not fatal, but no cure. However, Jean's Death had terrible effects almost immediately thereafter, and, to me, it helped destroy the X-Men, the team and the comicbook, pretty quickly.
Thing is, at the time, in that situation, as a matter of being confronted with an editorial fiat that would be anathema to anybody that loved the character of Jean Grey, the turn to killing her was understandably the better alternative -- and, as a matter of writing, it certainly made for a far superior climax than effectively damning Jean to a kind of "hell." So, it doesn't seem to me to be any doubt that you had the best intentions, JB, both regarding the character and as a writer. Could you really have predicted where this would lead?
(Of course, the road to... paved with...!)
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Steven Myers
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 June 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 5646
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 7:45am | IP Logged | 6
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When I started reading comics, the death of Gwen Stacey was already legendary. When I finally got to read the story, I was unimpressed. It hardly seemed necessary and important for her to die. Pete and Gwen did not have that close a relationship that she could not have been written out in many other ways.
It did seem that, by the '80s, every male character had a dead girlfriend. It isn't dramatic by then, it's rather trite instead.
Edited by Steven Myers on 04 July 2016 at 7:46am
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Ted Downum
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 April 2004
Location: United States
Posts: 2374
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 8:57am | IP Logged | 7
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James Woodcock wrote: ...Secret Wars and Crisis on Infinite Earths...to me, were the dominoes that led to annual company crossovers that torpedoed ongoing plots, leading to the current state of events where 'everything is connected'
***** Absolutely right. The grim-and-gritty trend did a lot to wreck superhero comics as we knew them, but the "big crossover" phenomenon did more than its share of damage, too.
I can recall looking at a big rack full of DC titles at my LCS in the mid-to-late eighties--I'm not sure which gigantic world-shaking crossover was in effect at the time; either MILLENNIUM or ZERO HOUR--and seeing all the little crossover logos in the corner of every single cover. Those little logos made me sorry for the kids coming along behind me as regular readers...to get the "whole story," such as it was, they'd have had to buy what seemed like fifty books a month for however long the "event" went on. I couldn't afford that many comics, and I had a job!
No doubt it occurred to somebody that the crossovers would hook in fans' completist/collector tendencies, and get them to buy as many books as they could afford. I don't know if it worked, but the major crossover event obviously became The Standard for the big two, which is regrettable for all kinds of reasons.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 132644
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 9:30am | IP Logged | 8
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How many of you are aware that SECRET WARS was originally intended to be nothing more than a promo for a new line of action figures?
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Trevor Smith
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 21 September 2006
Location: Canada
Posts: 3529
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 9:57am | IP Logged | 9
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"How many of you are aware that SECRET WARS was
originally intended to be nothing more than a promo
for a new line of action figures?"
**
Definitely not at the time, but it does seem rather
obvious in hindsight, doesn't it? I mean what IS
Secret Wars, other than one ginormous "let's throw all
my action figures together and make them fight"
setpiece? On top of that you've got a fairly blatant
"make two versions of the company's flagship
character" ploy too.
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Trevor Thompson
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Joined: 13 June 2015
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 11:23am | IP Logged | 10
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No matter whether people in the industry or fans thought / think Secret Wars was terrible I'll be eternally grateful for the book in terms of introducing me to so many characters I'd never heard of before I read the book. It wasn't the greatest story and now looking back some of the characters seemed dumbed down for the many kids reading it but it was one hell of a ride for a 7 year old like me to read.
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Robbie Parry
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 June 2007
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 12186
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 11:24am | IP Logged | 11
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How many of you are aware that SECRET WARS was originally intended to be nothing more than a promo for a new line of action figures?
***
I didn't know at the time.
It was all odd, anyway. Some of the SECRET WARS toys, like Daredevil and Hobgoblin, weren't even part of the comic series.
The SUPER POWERS mini-series, which I'm sure was also there to sell a toyline of the same name, felt more organic and less like what Trevor described for SECRET WARS.
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Eric Ladd
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 16 August 2004
Location: Canada
Posts: 4506
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| Posted: 04 July 2016 at 11:45am | IP Logged | 12
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I didn't know that little tidbit about Secret Wars until now!
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