harcourt

So I am, I hope, a big enough person to admit that I was wrong.

As might have been obvious, I have been concerned at seeing Cypher, one of my favourite characters ever, who was defined by the low key nature of his powers, get chosen to be the Heir of Apocalypse.

But if Jed Mackay and Netho Diaz X-Men #19 is any indication of where we're going though, I'm not just interested, I'm invested...

( Yes, but get to the important stuff!! )

It has been confirmed that industry giant Jim Shooter has died, at the age of 73, from esophageal cancer.

A comic fan since childhood, he proved this more than most ever could, by becoming a professional writer at age 13, when his first story for the Legion of Super-Heroes was published in 1966, where he actually managed to make teenagers sound rather more like teenagers than previous writers, and created the Fatal Five (as one commenter put it in the past "Two-Face as a cyborg, a 50 foot tall monster, an executioner, a creepy guy with a destructive hand and a woman accompanied by a two foot cosmic eyeball... ONLY a teenager could have come up with that)

Literally entire books have been written about his tenure at Marvel from 1976 to 1987, as he rose to the position of Editor-in-Chief by 1978.

He was dynamic, disciplined and ruthless, a polarizing figure at the best of times, with many staff fiercly loyal to him as he did have his creators backs, but also many chafing under the rules he insisted on as editor, infamously insisting that Phoenix had to die at the end of the Dark Phoenix Saga (due to her having killed billions of beings) rather than being reset to an amnesiac Jean Grey as Claremont and Byrne originally planned.

He oversaw the expansion of many titles, a more interlinked Marvel Universe and moved Marvel into new areas including Graphic Novels, and more commercial tie-ins like licensed comics: Star Wars being the best known, as well as many toy-related cross marketed titles some of which transcended their apparent limitations to be genuine classics: Micronauts and ROM being two. An approach culminating in of course, Secret Wars (and Secret Wars II).

A number of professionals have, naturally, spoken of their experiences with him for Bleeding Cool, and it's an interesting read, especially the number of times the word "complex" crops up.

His outright refusal to include any overt LGBTQIA+ characters or representation in comics through the 80's is something which should not be ignored or forgotten, regardless of how clever creators could be with subtext and inference. It would be inexcusable to not note this on this comunity more than most.

His passing will be marked by much discussion from those better versed in such things, so we will mark it by offering our sincerest condolences to his family and friends on their loss.