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July 30, 2025 • 23 mins

The passing of Jim Shooter marks the end of a contentious yet undeniably influential chapter in comic book history. From teenage prodigy to Marvel's commanding editor-in-chief, Shooter's nine-year reign from 1978 to 1987 fundamentally transformed how superhero stories are told and sold.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Gentlemen, let's broaden, our minds.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Are they in the proper approach pattern for
today?
Negative.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
All weapons Now Charge the lightning field Hot
off the wire.
We have a recent passing in theworld of comic books Jim

(00:36):
Shooter.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
We are dealing with the passing away of a
controversial icon in Jimimshooter pew pew.
It's a weird thing to, becauseusually when you do that you're
like you're celebrating.
I don't know, it's just well, Imean some people are
celebrating, I mean uhcelebrating his life.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Sure, this doesn't need to be a secret war.
We can.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
We can celebrate the life in legion you know jim
shooter for people who don'tknow was the editor-in-chief for
marvel for a good long whileactually it was a good long
while and I think he'd said anine years from 78 it was like
78 to like86, yeah, 87 he was there for a

(01:21):
minute and also during one ofthe most tumultuous epic marvel
stories and story arcs that haveever been, not even tackling

(01:49):
the dc stuff that you wrote,which actually was pretty
awesome.
He wrote, for instance, secretwars, which I don't know like
you and I are probably like ohgreat, he wrote secret wars the
most commercial tie-in bullshitof all time.
This is during the era in whichMarvel was just doing
commercial tie-ins.

Speaker 1 (02:08):
Yeah, but he was the guy that introduced crossover
event miniseries, yep, beginningwith Contest of Champions,
which he did, and then SecretWars, which has kind of become
the go-to since.
Yeah, is that good, it wasreinvented.
Well, is Spielberg and Lucasmaking Jaws and Star Wars?
Is that good, reinvented large?
Well, is spielberg and lucasmaking jaws and star wars.
Is that good for cinema?

Speaker 2 (02:29):
well, I mean, that's a good debate too, because like
they defined it in the modernsense but then also commodified
it trademarked you, packaged,you, slapped under plastic
lunchbox.
That, that is those two guys.
Is that good for movies?

Speaker 1 (02:44):
I don't I I mean they want, but I mean, would movies
still be around?

Speaker 2 (02:49):
oh yeah, 100 movies would still be around, but I
mean they it definitely wouldlook the same.

Speaker 1 (02:53):
The same way, I don't know if you'd have the
proliferation of multiplexes ifyou didn't have blockbuster
culture.
I mean that drove business.
I mean it's driven business tothe same with, you know, big
crossover events and comic books.
Yeah, I mean that that drovebusiness.
I mean it's driven business tothis day, same with, you know,
big crossover events and comicbooks.
Yeah, I mean that is whatbrings people.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
Jaws was the first big summer blockbuster and then
Star Wars was the big repeatviewing blockbuster, yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:17):
It was over in theaters over a year.
Yeah, it was crazy.

Speaker 2 (03:21):
My parents went to see it.
My dad likes to say 77, 77times my mother's like oh no, it
was way more than that, becausewe went with friends, we did
group dates and all that thing.
She says it was over 120 in1977 alone, but it created the
culture we have now, where it'sdying.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Yes, but it's it's.
It's like saying the internetis a bad thing.
It's like has the internet is abad thing?
It's like has the internet ledto a lot of awful things for
humanity?
Yes, 100%.
But has it also offered amultitude of great things that
could never been accomplishedbefore?

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Also yes, that's a different debate and a different
topic We've referenced DasKapital more than we have so far
, jim Shooter.
But the reason we did so isbecause jim shooter yeah, you're
right is the originator, thegoddamn paterfamilias, of the
big company crossover, the bigevent crossover, which is kind
of important if you look at dc,for example and he did work at

(04:17):
dc for a long time too we hadtalked about before, about how
crisis on infinite earths is oneof the most important
company-wide multi-title eventin comic book history, because
it encompassed every title.
It pared down the entireuniverse into one cohesive
narrative, which was maybe themost epic undertaking of all

(04:37):
time.
Because back then, you know,you had old dc writers, writers
writing Superman stories thatthey had written since the
fucking 50s, and then new DCwriters were writing different
Superman stories that were kindof independent from that and
were more modern and they wereincongruous and they kind of
clashed with each otherconstantly, and so you needed

(04:59):
something to sort of pare itdown.
So that event led to the ideaof because, quite frankly, it
was extremely successful.
It was like the us mobilizingfor world war ii.
Somehow we made this mess andit fucking worked and we nailed
it, you know, and then foreverything after that it was oh,
that's our model now.
Now we have to do this.

(05:20):
Then you get marvel's secretwars, which was sort of based on
that financial model but at thesame time wasn't necessary for
their continuity.
Marvel didn't need that.
They had their shifting 15-yearAge of Heroes thing.
Instead, they had been going onthese ventures with Hasbro.
They helped create GI Joe andTransformer in 83 and 84.

(05:44):
And so they do Secret Wars Wars.
But the entire premise is theirsame model from those other
commercial tie-ins.
Dc was like we got a cleanhouse and figure our shit out.
They were like no, we have tofigure this out because none of
it makes sense and nobody'sgoing to read it anymore.
Marvel was like hey, thatworked for them, let's do our
thing.
They do secret wars where theyhad action figures and the

(06:07):
action figures featured ash cancomics.
Sometimes it was kind of crazy.
Those action figures were sofucking ubiquitous.
I remember seeing those actionfigures in stores like 10 years
later.
I remember seeing like a kangthe conqueror, secret wars
action figure on the shelf like10 years after it happened.

(06:27):
I think they overreached but itwas definitely successful.
So that was Jim Shooter's ideaand you're right, he had come
from another previous or sort ofcross company crossover before
that.
But I think before we hadtalked about the a couple of
times, the DC Marvel crossovers,shooter wrote several of those
Mm-hmm.
He wrote theSuperman-Spider-Man crossover.

Speaker 1 (06:48):
He did one of the Superman-Spider-Man ones.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
yeah, In 81.
So I guess he was kind ofprimed for that right.
He was the 2006 JJ Abrams ofMarvel comic books, right.

Speaker 1 (07:01):
Well, I don't know if JJ was making films at age 13,
but books, right.
Well, I don't know if JJ wasmaking films at age 13, but I
mean Jim Shooter was writing anddrawing stories that he sent to
DC and then got picked up andwas hired.
That's true, he was hired at 14years old.
Yeah, I mean he created KarateKid and Farrow Lad and Princess
Projecta and a lot of Legion ofSuperhero stuff which are all

(07:22):
great Along with greatcharacters Parasite and he wrote
A lot of Legion of Superheroesstuff which are all great Along
with great characters.
He wrote the first race betweenSuperman and Flash.
That's cool.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
He was a fanboy.

Speaker 1 (07:30):
Yeah, as many of the best comic writers are.
Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Karate Kid.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
I don't know.
This is a larger Legion thing,that.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
I.
What year did Karate Kid comeout as a character?
Because it's either like areference to the movie Karate
Kid or it's a response toShang-Chi, or, at the time,
shang-chi Right, 1966.
Oh, wow, so before that.
Okay, way before, wow.
So that's like right as BruceLee is coming to fame.
That was actually ahead of thegame.

Speaker 1 (08:01):
Shang-Chi, December 1973.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
Well after that was in the main.
If he created karate kid inwhat?
66?

Speaker 1 (08:09):
I mean, I think that would have been before bruce lee
was big and that his moviesdidn't come out to the 70s.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
It's true karate wasn't even like in the cultural
zeitgeist at that point no, Imean really, if you think about
it, it might be you might havereally one of the broken that
open well, no, that can't, thenhe couldn't have.

Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, it says 66, so interesting, that is an
interesting possible domino.
But again, how many people onewere reading adventure comics,
number 346 or legion ofsuperheroes, I don't know how
much of that led to enoughpeople.
Enough to what?

Speaker 2 (08:48):
kept rising up the ranks and people enough people
thought his stuff was great thathe ascended from dc to marvel,
where he eventually becameeditor in chief.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
Yeah, and he was very influential.
He was one of the guys whoinsisted gene gray died during
the dark phoenix saga.
That was a big one.
It's a big time.
He also had a lot of a lot ofnegatives during his tenure.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
Oh, boy, did he?
So I actually met Jim Shooterwhen I was a kid and I went to a
panel at Kansas City Comic Conwhere he did a whole like
treatise on his philosophy ofcomic books and some of it I was
like you know what?
I totally agree with you.
But then some of the stuff thathe started presenting was like
basically, like artists aredirty, they were like second

(09:36):
class citizens to him and Ithink that is his kind of
enduring legacy.
When we talk about how JackKirby got screwed, initially it
was by Stan Lee.
Of course we all kind of knowthat now Buscema and Kirby and
Bill Finger and guys like thatall got fucked.
A lot of those guys got fuckedby Stan Lee, not Jim Lee.
It was continued.

(09:58):
The abuse and treatment wascontinued by Jim Shooter and
even in the little talk that Iwatched him do, he thought that
they were lazy and didn't pulltheir weight and some people
could be like, oh well, you know, that's justified, they didn't
pull their weight and somepeople could be like, oh well,
you know, that's justified, theydidn't put in so much effort or
whatever.
Also, if you're going by theMarvel method, you gave them

(10:19):
nothing and then they have tocome up with everything, and
then they get paid minimum wageand if you don't like it,
they're just going to outsourceit to Mexico.
What good are the things thathe writes if those artists don't
prop him up right?

Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah, I mean, it wasn't the only people he was
contemptuous to.
I mean he was the biggestproponent of the no-gays in the
Marvel Universe policy.

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Oh, that's right.
Northstar must have driven himfucking crazy, Well he wasn't
allowed.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
It forced John Byrne to conceal Northstar's sexuality
initially.
Oh wow.

Speaker 2 (10:52):
You know what?
I do not blame John Byrne,because John Byrne also is an
asshole, but not that kind ofasshole.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
He's just a guy that's hard to work with, or
whatever, and not in a frank.

Speaker 2 (11:05):
More of a dick, less than an asshole.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Right, yes, exactly yes, but like you know, he's
just one of those guys that'skind of a diva shooter left
marvel and he went on to helpcreate different independent
companies like valiant, defiantand broadway comics that's funny
because, like when I went tosee the panel I'm talking about,
I went to go see jim shooter.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
It was about his launch of defiant, which
everybody remembers to this day.
They have fond memories ofwarriors of plasm yes, I'm more
of a charlemagne fan myself yeah, I dare anyone out there to
name more than two titles fromdefiant comics and if you know

(11:44):
them good on you.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
If you know them, it's because you've been, you've
had to dig through back issuesfor years and you've had, to
like, shuffle through darkdominion.

Speaker 2 (11:53):
Or you're just really helplessly antisocial and have
nothing else, because you and Iare enormous comic book geeks
and have a vast wealth ofknowledge off the dough, and if
both works in comic book storesand still were like defiant, who
gives a shit?
I don't remember that and I ownsome defiant.

(12:13):
I own warriors of plasm, issueone or whatever it was during
that defiant era to use a pun, Iguess where you know what.
That's kind of ironic, though,because that entire era of
third-party comic book companiesfinally coming into the
mainstream image dark horse,shadow line things like that jim
shooter was one of the reasonsthose guys left, and then, when

(12:36):
he was fired, he decided to justjoin the fray and do the same
thing.
Like how ironic.
I mean, he was one of those guys.
That was like if an artistcreates a character or property
or idea, even it's owned bymarvel period you don't see a
dime from that, no matter howpopular it gets, which is why

(12:56):
jim lee, todd mcfarland, marksylvestri, you know, eric larson
all those guys left to createimage so that it was creator
owned, and then, when jimshooter gets fired, he goes and
tries to do the same thing.
Do you not understand what'shappening here.
Read the room, dude.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
I mean, there's a reason he didn't say it valiant,
very long, yeah, but he didstart it.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
So there is that well , valiant was an interesting
thing because their whole thingwas old properties from gold key
that had sort of lapsed.

Speaker 1 (13:26):
Bought them up uh, they bought those licenses and
they used that as a foundation.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Jim, sure, I'm sure, was a reader of those back when
he was a kid.
My dad did.
I love gold key comics, theydid star trek comics, they did
magnus robot fighter and drsolar, and that's where you get
to rock dinosaur hunter, whichan enormous generation of people
didn't even know was a comicbook.
They just thought it was avideo game for the PS1 or

(13:52):
whatever.
And then, yeah, all Valiant didwas just take up these old
properties.

Speaker 1 (13:57):
Did you know that Valiant became a thing?

Speaker 2 (13:59):
because in 1988, Jim Shooter and Stephen J Masarkey
oh, I was hoping you were goingto say Cannell.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
And a group of investors attempted to buy
Marvel.
Oh, they submitted the secondhighest bid, so they didn't get
it.
So instead they formed aventure capital financing
triumph capital and createdValiant instead.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Is it still an imprint now I know?

Speaker 1 (14:24):
it was a few years ago.
It got sold.
I believe it's still Valiant.
It's now part of AcclaimEntertainment.
No, then acclaim went bankruptand were purchased as part of
valiant entertainment byentrepreneurs dinesh samad sani
and jason kathari in 2005.
In 2011, valiant receivedcapital infusion from private

(14:45):
investment company cuneo andcompany and a relaunch was
announced.
Blah blah, blah, blah, blah,blah blah.
It was then sold to DMGEntertainment in 2018.
And in 2023, valiant Comicsannounced a licensing
partnership with Alien Books,which took over publishing
Valiant characters.
It's a whole line thing.

(15:05):
I mean, obviously, moneyfailure, money failure, money
failure, money failure.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
That's the tech sector right now.
Please tell me Scott Rosenbergwasn't involved in any point,
right?

Speaker 1 (15:20):
Not that I initially see, but I can't be sure.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
You know, rosenberg was in there somewhere
Rosenberg-ing it up.
They were at least stillsalient, because Vin Diesel did
that Deadshot movie.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Mm-hmm, the comics are still coming out.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
It's Shane's hands a lot, A million times yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:38):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
Yeah, it was never a Goliath.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
Anyway about Jim Shooter right.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
It's shocking that it still exists, mm-hmm, somehow
it's still going.

Speaker 1 (15:47):
I mean, it's better than his other stuff.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
Yeah, def still going .
I mean it's better than hisother stuff.
Yeah, defiant disappeared sofucking fast, even more than
like what's.
It's the one that marvel boughtmalibu.
Speaking of rosenberg, somehowit stayed ninjack and all um.
I think valiant kind of workedbecause it did have some good
talent behind it.
I think shooter did know how torecruit talent.
He had bart sears, he had joecasada, he had barry wintersmith
barry wintersmith exact realtalent guys, same way that you

(16:20):
know.
I think he was kind offollowing the image template and
that kind of like gave himenough cachet to keep that going
.
I mean, technically, valiantwas before image.
Yeah, that was shooters.
Fuck you to marvel.
I guess the thing that sticksout to me about makes this kind
of tragic and sad and also, yeah, could have told you so is the

(16:40):
idea that shooter got fired forbeing an asshole, left defiantly
and then created valiant as aprotested like his.
He believed in his approach andMarvel decided they went in a
different direction and then,immediately after that, the
Image Comics guys like leftMarvel for the exact reason the

(17:03):
gym shooter.
That was his philosophy, theMarvel method, and yet both
still function today.
All three still function today.
Yeah, it's a weird, bizarrelook at how the industry somehow
survives despite all of thesedifferent philosophical
offshoots, and almost all of itis because of Jim Shooter.

(17:25):
When I saw him speak, I doagree with him he was the first
person that ever said out loudto me there are only seven
stories.
It blew my mind, but I was likeGod, you're right, that's true.
It's like what is the perfectJake?
What do you think is theperfect movie?

Speaker 1 (17:43):
Mm-hmm, scooby-doo.

Speaker 2 (17:46):
The one with Matthew Lillard specifically.
Is that the one?

Speaker 1 (17:50):
I don't know the perfect.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
What is the most impeccable narrative In our
storytelling?
I'm not talking about FrenchNew Wave or Italian neorealism
or anything.
I'm talking about Americancinema.
What is the most impeccablestory ever put out?
We've talked about it on theshow before man.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
now there's pressure.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
It's Rocky.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
Oh.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Rocky.
Oh, it's the hero's journey ina tight, compact way that ends
in the underdog wins.
It's the ultimate Americanstory.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
Yeah, the quintessential American tale.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
It really is and look back at our Rocky episodes for
figuring out how complex andweird that is.
We did five episodes of thatshit.

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Sorry when you say like what is like the American
fictional tale.
It's like I mean, are we FScott Fitzgerald?
Are we talking Mark Twain?
Are we talking Orson Welles?
Are we, you know?

Speaker 2 (18:46):
No, those are actually.
There's a lot going through myhead, so I mean those are great
candidates, citizen Kane no,those are actually.
There's a lot, there's a lotgoing through my head so
obviously that's a greatcandidate, citizen kane.
Great gatsby is in there too.
Uh, ne'er-do-well rich assholegets away with murder,
essentially, yeah, okay, yeah,that sounds like an american
tale, for sure.
An american oligarch dies andthen wishes that he had more
substance to him.
Yeah, that sounds like a greatamerican tale.

(19:08):
But rocky is the, I think,ultimate and and that's what jim
shooter was talking about theonly seven stories and the
three-act structure he talkedabout.
You can't get more of a perfect, crowd-pleasing american story
than rocky.
And that was sort of hisapproach to comic books.
That made a lot of sense to meand it made a lot of sense.

(19:30):
It kind of like informed theway I watched movies and stories
and then also critiqued moviesand stories.
You know it's also kind of alimited view on it, but it makes
sense.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, this isn't something other people haven't
said.
Oh no, a million people.
This is jim shooter saying itto you anecdotally and as a
young child, kind of reallyformative in your thought
process he might have just beenstealing from roger ebert, I
don't fucking know.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
But you know what jim shooter did write a lot of good
comics, so it didn't come fromnothing.
I think he just wanted to makethe circuit to make money, since
he had gotten fired from hishigh-paying job at marvel.
Yeah, so I guess I guess theconclusion is that jim shooter
complicated person, rebel, well,establishment, well, no, okay
worked his way up from nothingat the age of fucking 14, was

(20:19):
considered a sort of arebellious, sort of
non-conventional writer, thenworked his way into marvel
editor-in-chief and then I thinkthe industry outgrew his view
on things and his methods and hefound himself outside the box
all of a sudden.
And yet when he reinventedhimself, it worked somehow, but

(20:43):
then also found himself outsidethe box on that one, and then
when he reinvented himself for athird time, it fell flat like a
lead balloon.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
So would you agree that he's like not villain nor
hero, he's just kind of a sadcharacter, or not sad, but like
a complex character he's acomplicated fixture in the
history of american comics, buthe's had a long lasting,
wide-ranging impact that canstill be felt to this day, both

(21:13):
for positive and negativedoesn't it sound like the
perfect succedent to stanley?

Speaker 2 (21:19):
in that sense, yeah, and in a lot of ways yeah like
in a literal way, but also inmetaphorically and culturally
deal to it.

Speaker 1 (21:26):
Stanley's next step does the industry always need a
stanley to be lording over it insome way?

Speaker 2 (21:33):
uh, but his influence while great and I think jim
shooter kind of has the samething he just wasn't as famous
as stanley.
Jim shooter didn't know how tomarket himself like stanley did.

Speaker 1 (21:44):
Stanley knew how to make.
It's also different time.
Yeah, it's true, you know, Imean one guy who's on the ground
floor of the true revolution ofcomic books.
I mean the first great one, youknow.

Speaker 2 (21:56):
Yeah, that really put them on the map, the real one,
that made it really into popculture was yes, yeah, which he
grew up on, and then whenshooter, you know, got fired,
comic books had a comeback.
I don't think those are related, but I think he was a perfect
stanley secedent in a time ofdecline.

(22:17):
He was like the herbert hooverof comic books, but also the
industry was dying.
So what a complicated legacy.
Very, very strange indeed.
And also he just kind of lookslike robert dobby.
I kind of want to think of himas a villain all the time
there's a lot of dobby there Ican see him like in a helicopter

(22:38):
talking about how he shotpeople with vno just saying I
was nine assholes he used tohave a ponytail too, by the by
the way.

Speaker 1 (22:48):
Well, it was the time .

Speaker 2 (22:50):
It was the 90s when Steven Seagal somehow was cool,
it's a different time.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Well to Jim Shooter.
For all the good, the bad, youmade your presence felt in
history.
Take some shooters, everybody.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
For people that call them shooters instead of shots.
I'm talking to you, canada.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
Yeah, what's your problem, canada?
Why are you doing that?
What is your problem Just ingeneral?
Yeah, cut it out.
Canada, get your shit sorted,alright.
Eh, please go away.
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