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I Was A Teenage Moron
2008-04-25 16:32:55

For some reason, Marvel's servers seem to have eaten the last few paragraphs of the previous blog entry, which has caused a couple of people to get the wrong idea about where I was coming from. My point wasn't that the people complaining about any of these stories were wrong, but more that there are always going to be people both loving and hating anything and everything we do--and it's often impossible to tell at the moment of publication which stories are going to become classics, and which history is going to condemn.

To kind of illustrate this point, and as promised in the section of the last post that didn't make it to your screens, I went and dug up a bunch of comments about some Marvel books that I made in fanzines twenty years or so ago. I can completely relate to the irate fans (even if I don't always agree with them) because I used to be one of them. Here are a few choice selections:

1988 Tom: "One good thing about the current Marvel Ed-in-Chief--he likes the right stuff. Unfortunately, he likes it so much he's trying to imitate it. Even less fortunate is the fact that he has absolutely no one on his payroll that's fractionally as talented as Kirby, Ditko, Lee, Romita, Colan, etc. Tom DeFalco would like nothing so much as to be back in 1966 again, when Marvel was the cutting edge of mainstream comics. His THOR, for example, (done in collaboration with current Marvel house-style pretty boy Ron Frenz) reads like nothing so much as a bad parody of the Lee-Kirby run on that series. His new project SPEEDBALL is a blatant attempt to "re-create" the Spider-Man concept ("If Lee & Ditko could do it, then Ditko and I can do it again!")"

2008 Tom: This whole statement is pretty ridiculous. First I condemn Tom D for having the good taste to like the same comics that I like, and for trying to bring some of that flavor to what he was working on. Then I put on my magic mind-reading helmet and ascribe egotistical motives to everything he's working on. That off-handed cheap shot at Ron Frenz, a thorough professional and a proven talent, is especially idiotic.

1988 Tom: "Marvel's entire current output is aimed solely at the "new-kid/fan on the street", with the exception of Englehart's books. In trying for a common denominator audience, Marvel has reducd it's line to little more than formula books, with X-MEN (you just knew I was gonna pick out that one, didn't you?) being the prime example. Chris Claremont won't have to do a lick of creative work for the rest of his life. He can just run the same three stories over-and-over-ad infinitum. What's more, along with Louise Simonson, he can do it in FOUR X-TEAM books, a WOLVERINE solo book (Would you believe that this book's solicitation stressed the fact that Wolverine kills 72 people IN THE FIRST FIVE @#$%^&* PAGES?!?! That's a SELLING point, mind you.) "

2008 Tom: Boy, this one's a winner. Fist it starts out with an ovewhelming sense of entitlement ("Don't make comics for a broad mainstream audience, only make them for meeeeeee!") then rolls into some more character assassination. I still think that soliciting a book around the notion that the lead character massacres 72 people in five pages is pretty idiotic, and 1988 Tom would be aghast if he could see how many X-Titles we have these days, but everything else is just the self-importance of youth, and an attempt to sound smart by acting edgy.

It's also a bit humiliating that in each of these instances I singled out for scorn creators who are still working in the business on a regular basis today--proof of their longetivity and appeal. These guys definitely have my apologies for taking these stupid non-reviews to an ill-informed personal level.

So the point is: I get it. I understand these guys, because I was these guys. We're all the same moron, in our own individual ways. And in some cases, those opinions are going to prove to be embarasing in the years to come. Hey, it could happen--!

More later.

Tom B

Wow, you are your own iconoclast and paraclete at the same time. Good article.

I veto morons.

Posted by kyle-latino on 2008-04-25 17:36:22

Interesting stuff -- and now we finally now why Marvel's killed off Speedball. Damn you, Brevoort! : ) Though the fact we're still soliciting xbooks by promises of killing people off seems kind of sad to me.

Like I'm sure many other comics fans, I've daydreamed from time to time of applying at Marvel, and I've wondered whether some of my online rants would affect any potential opening. Or even letters that have been published, since some of them are pretty harsh (my place of honor as the writer of the first letter ever in New Avengers, ironically...). Oddly, Marvel's printed what I think were my only two really negative letters I sent in, while publishing only one of the positive ones I've sent over the years.

Posted by motteditor on 2008-04-25 18:30:08

Get 1988 Tom writing X-Men NOW.

Posted by Skippa on 2008-04-25 18:41:26

I am hoping you see this, Tom.
Brevoort, this site has been eating up some of the first few posts on both the Video game and Nicole Boose's blog. My (and everyone else's) posts keep disappearing. Will need to report this glitch to the site admins/upkeepers.

Posted by Aziroth on 2008-04-25 18:48:21

Claremont
1988 Tom was right about Claremont.

Posted by eldangerosso on 2008-04-26 01:23:52

I think I want a t-shirt that says, "We're all the same moron." That's a great sentiment.

As for Speedball, I've gone in the opposite direction of you. I loved it when I bought it in 1989. I thought it was great and was sad when it ended. A couple of years ago I pulled my old issues out and... ouch. They seem really bad to me now. Hair styles and clothes that were 30 years out of date, stilted dialog, it just didn't seem that good. Perhaps I'm just not the target audience anymore.

Posted by Jason M Bryant on 2008-04-26 02:14:36

no.not me.

Posted by notapotatoe on 2008-04-26 05:36:10

Brevoot's Blog
Alot of your blog material has been made as of late to rebuff fan's complaints about some of Marvel's material. How come you have to resort to this? Just because there are some complaints doesn't mean all of your stuff is bad and needs to be explained away in your blogs.

Marvel makes the occasional mistake and it doesn't turn out. It happened in Stan Lee's day, and it will happen in yours. But for the most part Marvel makes the best comics and you guys should be happy that for the most part Marvel does a good job.

I did take offense at the fan reaction comments you made, because I am a fan and I try to at least think through my opinions before they are made. You make it seem like us fans are reactionary, emotional and irrational. Though there are some like that, you have to realize that's not every single fan!

I myself at least try to come to an opinion based on discussion, reflection and fact. Me, I'm not one to argue about marketing to certain groups or whether or not Spiderman shoots webs through a shooter or an organ in his wrist, or whether or not Captain America's Steve Rogers or a wallaby from Sydney. As long as the characters uphold the ideals and follow the themes the creators intended (and make it a good story) then that is all you need. Your work will speak for itself.

But at the same time give your fans a little more credit. Not all of us ranted like your 1988 letter in a fanzine.

Posted by DRock1 on 2008-04-26 11:11:24

and I'm still a detractor
one of my post deleted, I take the opportunity about this confess of you to etablish once for all my opinion about all the gargle of certains posters about professionnal status ( Readers questions 8 ) and the hatred Underscore suffered -I know he can defend himself - to dare summon to give a chance to new-comers, not confirmed or established writers.
What these posters really know about the real walk on an editional run ?
Are they sure that someone-nobody-know didn't jump out one day with a port-folio, with a Red Hulk in it, and some one said :
-whoa, a Red Hulk, isn't it cool
-yeah, but how do we get to this ?
-waiwaiwait...
I'll say what I already said, if it's your game and the way you think it, you can count me in whenever you want.
The same about the Skrull/Captain Marvel.
You guys really like being paradoxal just for the fun being it, no ?
How far do you think you'll go with this idea ?A silly joke about Moore's run upon Swamp-Thing ? An excuse for Marvel Boy to come, making a bloodbath but surmonting his oedipian complex ?

Posted by bulgarianyogurt on 2008-04-26 16:49:18

er...
sure.

Posted by Skippa on 2008-04-26 19:45:23

I for one like comics more than I hate them

Posted by Maestro on 2008-04-26 21:11:06

I only wrote positive letters
I wrote one negative letter, but I never mailed it. I'm glad, too, because it was to Thor, and it was during the time when Walt Simonson forever won me over on Thor. That became my all time favorite run ever in comics, so if I had mailed it and it was printed, that would suck for me.

I have to agree 100% with anal fanboy Tom Brevoort's opinion about Defalco and Frenz's Thor. I loved the first year, but then the terrible aping of Lee and Kirby filtered in and ruined it for me.

IT WENT ON FOR YEARS...

I loved those guys on Spider-Man and Thor's first year. They were a top 5 creative team for me. It all went to hell on Thor, and even though Ron Frenz (who used to be one of my favorites) stopped trying to do Kirby, he's never regained the fluid line that he had in his early stuff.

I think it's funny seeing Tom Brevoort in the role of the spoiled and disrespectful paying customer!

Posted by Dusty. on 2008-04-27 01:46:44

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About this blog:
Ramblings and musings from the mind of Tom Brevoort. "It won’t be clean. It won’t be fun. It mostly won’t be coherent."

About the author:
Tom Brevoort is Executive Editor for Marvel Comics, and oversees such titles as New Avengers, Civil War, and Fantastic Four.


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