The Four Color Media Monitor

I don't think Starlin's assignment writing more Thanos stories came at an auspicuous time, coming in the Quesada/Alonso period as it did, but all the same, it's sad to hear that Tom Brevoort performed yet another bad deed, as Starlin himself relayed in one of the comments to this post on his Facebook page (via Cosmic Book News), where he told everybody:

Just to set the record straight, Marvel Comics didn't pull me off any books, they just made it clear they weren't interested in using me on any of the tie-in series to the movies or regular series. Even though I lobbied heavily to write the Thanos on-going that task was twice given to other writers, which is Marvel Editorial's right to do.

What I objected to and what will be keep me from doing any further work for Marvel Editorial was Tom Brevoort approving a plot for the current on-going series, which was pretty much the same as the Thanos story arc in the graphic novel trilogy Alan Davis and I have been working on for Tom for close to the past year. He had 200 pages of script and 100 pages of pencils on this project when he gave the green light to a strikingly similar plot. The on-going will be in print before the graphic novel trilogy. To avoid spoiling anyone's enjoyment of these two stories I will not be summarizing the striking similarities.

At first Tom denied giving his approval to the plot. When that turned out to be false, he switched to claiming there was nothing similar about the two plots. When that didn’t fly he changed his story to it was all an accident. These changes of excuse and other bits of procrastination ate up a month, by which time the current Thanos on-going art team was too far along for anything to be done about the situation. Too bad for me. So I am moving on.

And, yes, Marvel Entertainment has treated me very well and generously. Them I like.

It's clear that, just like Joe Quesada must go, so too must Brevoort go. The argument could be made so far that it's uncertain if C.B. Cebulski can or will make improvements for Starlin that would convince him to come back, and besides, we don't know so far if Cebulski's willing to make specific changes to bad directions Quesada first implemented when he was EIC. Within several months, however, we'll definitely be able to make a better assessment.

I wouldn't advise Starlin to move to DC, however, depending on how their own operations are being done, and besides, if Dan DiDio's still there, he's still another phony who's got to go, and there's still some bad directions they're taking as well that I'd like to see being fixed.

Labels: bad editors, good writers, marvel comics