Another day, another drama involving Marvel Comics. Legendary comics creator Jim Starlin has (very publicly) cut ties with Marvel Comics over what he perceives to be shoddy treatment by editors at the Disney-owned comics publisher.
According to a Facebook post by Starlin, Marvel editor Tom Brevoort greenlit a Thanos series with a plot near identical to a graphic novel that Starlin (the creator of Thanos) was currently working on, making him look like an also-ran. Starlin also lobbied heavily to be involved in the Avengers movie tie-in comics and the ongoing Thanos series — something you would think would be a no-brainer, given that he created the character in the first place — but was denied by Marvel editorial.
Here’s the post…
“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.”
The announcement comes hot on the heels of major shake-ups at Marvel Comics. C.B. Cebulski has been brought in as editor-in-chief of the beleaguered comics publisher, and almost immediately Marvel cancelled many of its lower-selling titles.
Here’s hoping they can right the ship soon, as the publisher’s very public fiascos are in stark contrast with the stellar box office and positive word of mouth the Marvel Studios movies are generating.
Jim Starlin’s creation Thanos (played by Josh Brolin) will be front and center as the main villain in the hot-anticipated Avengers: Infinity War, which hits theaters on May 4, 2018.
[Source: Newsarama]
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