Follow The Leader: Episode 21: Dreaded Departure of a Creative Team!
Martinex1: Follow the Leader - do what he says! Whoever kicks off the comments first sets the tone and topic for the day. Anything related to the Bronze Age is fair game. Take us somewhere we've not been before! Cheers all!
What was the most disappointed you ever were by the departure of a creative team from a certain title?
By disappointed I mean that your enjoyment of the book was greatly diminished or perhaps you actually quit reading it all together.
For me the worst was when Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz left Amazing Spider-Man. Even though I kept reading the book for many years, I never really enjoyed it as much after 1986 (the last year that DeFalco and Frenz were on the title).
Another was when John Byrne left the X-Men. I only lasted about 2 issues past that before I quit reading the book. I didn't come back until Paul Smith started drawing it
I was such a completist, I don't know that I ever dropped a book as you suggest. Should I have -- without doubt. Part of my sickness, I guess, that I didn't.
But disappointed? I would point to story arcs that were finished by an art team other than the one that began. Two that immediately leap to mind featured the work of George Perez: the Korvac Saga in Avengers and the mini-series The Infinity Gauntlet.
Perhaps a slightly periphery discussion would be same writer, same penciler, but different inker. I've remarked on Twitter that when reading a run of 10 or so issues from the Bronze Age, it can be jarring to see John Buscema's Thor (for example) inked by Joe Sinnott, Sam Grainger, Sal Buscema, and Vince Colletta. Go further just a bit, and you hit Tony DeZuniga. All fine in their own right, but when seen in quick succession, it does change the experience.
For me it would have to be the end of the Steve Englehart-Sal Buscema run on Captain America & the Falcon in the mid 70s, which I thoroughly enjoyed (except maybe the part near the end when it was revealed that the Falcon was under the control of the Red Skull all along. Not so sure about that development).
First came Frank Robbins on the art (ugh), then a few months later the return of King Kirby. I still bought it all during the Kirby run (I guess I was a completist then too, Doug) but darn if I remember very much about those issues other than thinking "Are these even the same characters???"
George Perez and Marv Wolfman leaving New Teen Titans, that's for starters.., too easy.
For these others, it wasn't perhaps the editor or writer, but more the artist, and even then, I stayed on for a few more issues but it was (for all practical purposes) the death knell.
Sal Buscema leaving CA&F and Avengers, Romita,Sr. leaving ASM, Big John Buscema leaving FF, Donny Heck as new artist on Batman Family and Teen Titans.., the list goes on.
I thought that I wasn't going to like the Micronauts when Michael Golden left the book but I felt that Pat Broderick did a great job and fit the title well. Golden continued to do some covers and that helped. But when Broderick left and Gil Kane took over - I really did not like Kane's work on the team. I had just signed up for a subscription and was disappointed tremendously. Bill Mantlo of course stayed on but it was interesting how the art affected the story perception. Ditko also handled the annuals and he was past his prime.
Somebody mentioned it recently, Byrne's departure from Alpha Flight was like a fall off of a cliff - it just was not the same.
Some of the books mentioned above were start-ups (Alpha Flight, Micronauts, New Teen Titans)... Was it worse when someone new came onto a book that had "belonged" to a particular creator, as opposed to established books where creator runs tended to last a couple of years at most?
Until the mid-80s, I was more character-loyal than creator-loyal, so even with my favourite comics it didn't occur to me to stop reading or be disappointed. Even if I noticed a difference in tone or style, I was perfectly happy with Dave Cockrum's post-Byrne X-Men run, and Denny O'Neil writing Daredevil after Frank Miller left.
Got more discerning later, so that while I hung on for Mantlo on Alpha Flight post-Byrne, and Nocenti Daredevil after "Born Again", I had to eventually admit I wasn't enjoying the comics as much and drop the series.
Related-topic: anyone pleasantly surprised by a creator who managed to decently follow a legendary run? I'd say Denny O'Neil's Daredevil still holds up. Also Rick Veitch may not have been Alan Moore, but was still entertaining on Swamp Thing. And Peter Milligan spun a pretty good Animal Man tale after Grant Morrison left.
I would like to know if fans in the very early Bronze Age were aware that Roy Thomas had replaced Stan Lee on FF and/or Gerry Conway had replaced Stan on ASM. Both moves seem pretty important from a historical point of view. Just wondering what it would have been like at the time.
The end of Master of Kung Fu's creative team(s) made it obvious that the end of the book was soon to occur. Doug Moench ended his run with 120 (with a file fill-in issue for 122) and the book folded with 125. I don't know if anyone besides Doug Moench has ever done a good job of writing Shang Chi. Artist wise, things held together okay, but the death of Gene Day hit me hard with this book.
I was 9 when Byrne & Austin quit Uncanny X-men. Even though I occasionally read the letters page, I never thought much about the creative teams until then. Cockrum's art has grown on me, but the difference in the art at the time was quite a shock. I continued to collect the book anyways.
Byrne's departure from Fantastic Four was also a blow. The first 2 post-Byrne issues featured art by Jerry Ordway inked by Al Gordon. Not a bad team, but very different than Byrne. The were followed by John Buscema inked by brother Sal. While I generally love their pencils, I thought Sal was a poor choice to ink Big John. Their art also looked a lot more "old school" than Byrne's and not in a good way.
Early issues of The New Mutants featured pencils by Bob McLeod, who was succeeded by Sal B. Both delivered solid Marvel house style art. Then suddenly, Sal was gone replaced by the much more abstract (for mainstream comics) art of Bill Sienkiewicz. At the time I hated that change, but now I find those issues fascinating. I was young and didn't appreciate Sienkiewicz's work, while I like it now, I still prefer his "fake Neal Adams" phase.
Addendum: Byrne's last penciling job on FF was #293, I knew he was quitting Marvel and heading to DC to reinvent Superman, so the change in artists wasn't exactly a shock. But I remember being very upset that Byrne wouldn't be writing or drawing FF #296, the 25th anniversary issue of the Marvel Universe, or issue #300.
As mentioned by others, Byrne's departure from FF and Miller's departure from Daredevil were big blows to me as well. I didn't stick around too long on either title after that. Even though I loved the characters. The change in tone and style were just too jarring for me. Especially DD.
I was also bummed when Byrne and Stern left Captain America. It was especially sad when I heard they had planned a 3-part return of the Red Skull story for their next arc.
My first thought echoed William: Defalco and Frenz leaving ASM. Also when Roger Stern and Marshall Rogers finished their run on Dr. Strange- the book was still good, just not AS good.
As to Doug's follow up on teams that pleasantly surprised: I was grieved when Frank Brunner left Dr. Strange. At that early stage in my comic fandom I was unfamiliar with Gene Colan. Needless to say, my disappointment was short lived.
Retrospectively, I guess the split of Lee and Kirby is the most important, but if you read the last three years of FF, Kirby especially was totally mailing it in.
The breakup of the Claremont/Byrne team on X-Men was close to the end of my collecting days. I hung on maybe another year or so, but the departure from the quality story/art combination of those two, followed by what seemed to be an arthritic-handed Cockrum (who I loved on FF and his earlier stint on X-Men)and an occult-obsessed Claremont really pushed that book into the toilet for me. Plus, to be fair: how do you ever dream to top the three-year Phoenix arc?
I wept when Roth (?) and Heck took over for Gene Colan around Captain Mar-vell 5 (?)
I gnashed my teeth when Heck took over for Colan on Daredevil around issue 100.
I beat my breasts and wailed aloud when Kaluta stopped drawing The Shadow. (Ok – he only drew the first couple issues. But he set the standard!)
The only thing left was harikari, and I was always told to not play with knives, so I pretty much stopped reading comics after Conway killed Gwenn and had Sue filed divorce papers on Reed.
Alas, I cannot really reference any writer / artists teams since 95% of my reading years, it was Lee or Thomas doing the writing, or Kirby / Buscema / Romita / Colan doing the drawing it seemed like.
Hmmm, interesting question. Like Doug, I tend to be a completist, so I usually keep reading no matter what (especially if it's a character I really like).
A couple of titles do come to mind, though. I liked New Warriors when Fabian Nicieza wrote it, but after he left it went downhill fast; I can't even remember who the next writer was ... Evan Skolnick, maybe?
Warlord lost something after Mike Grell (and his wife Sharon, who was doing the writing at the time) left. I had a hard time getting into Cary Burkett's run, though Fleisher's (later) run was better.
I haven't gotten that far in my reading yet, but by most accounts Conan really took a drop after Roy Thomas left.
Perez leaving Avengers after 202 I think, I kept buying but didn't read after a few. The Gerber run on Defenders was good, after that I tuned out.
As Tom mentioned, the Frank Robbins run was the end for me and Cap. It wasn't until I got back into comics in 2013 that I really got into Kirby's last run on the title. I recall as a kid referring to Robbins as "bendy" and Kirby as "blocky". My brother and I would take the Cap comic of the rack that had different cover artist, only to be horrified by the hideousness that is Robbins "art". Back they went! I imagine this will upset some, but I stopped reading DD because of Frank Miller. Never liked his pencils or stories, both seemed hackish to me, lazy even. Perhaps its that comics seemed best when you were 9-12 years old, just fun romps.
You pose an interesting question since I started reading at the tail end of the Silver Age and only read in to the first years of the bronze age, around 1974 ish.
Disclaimer: I'm not a comic historian and am trying to recall what I thought 40 years ago.
The change from Lee to Thomas never really impressed me one way or the other; the quality seemed consistent. I had the impression that Stan sprinkled Holy Water on everything, since he was always listed in the credits one way or another, and this led to an overall consistency. It really wasn't until Marvel started having multiple Spidey Comics (ASM, Marvel Team UP, Spectacular SM, Marvel Tales…), combined with an explosion of other titles, that I felt a huge shift in the Marvel Universe and an inconsistency / degradation of editing / writing / art… that a brave, new world Marvel Comics was being ushered in. (Just my opinion from living through that transition.)
With DC, on the other hand, it seems like there were pockets of improvement with Neal Adams, Jim Aparo… Can’t recall who the editor / writers were, though. I just know that their art got me to buy Batman, Brave and Bold, Adventure...
Luther, totally agreed with you on Miller's DD. I continued reading DD after Gerber left, but Gerber made DD quite interesting and fun. I didn't like the route DD took with Miller at all.
Same with me for CA&F with the Robbins interiors as well. I distinctly remember seeing new issues, and peeking inside.....
I wonder what Captain Marvel would have looked like if Starlin had stuck around for a while after the Thanos saga. There was that issue with Nitro that was pretty wild, but it's hard to imagine a Starlin comic in the '70's without Thanos creeping around, like he was in Warlock. I guess he did some random stuff here and there that wasn't bad.
I'll throw in three DC features into this discussion:
Denny O'Neil's run on Superman, #233-242, art by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson. That was a great run, where O'Neil set-up a less omnipotent Superman, reducing his powers by a significant portion, in order to allow for greater dramatic conflict with the character. As soon as his run ended, Cary Bates took over and completely ignored everything O'Neil had set-up over the previous year. The writing immediately reverted to that awful Silver Age nonsense of the 1960s....
Ernie Chan/Chua took over as the main Batman artist after several great years of Irv Novick and Bob Brown. Although Frank Robbins was still writing for awhile, the Bat books really dropped in quality with the arrival of Ernie (although I really liked his inking on Conan).
Mike Sekowsky's run on Wonder Woman, without powers, doing the Mrs. Peel schtick, was probably the only run of that title that mattered since the 1940s. Suddenly, Robert Kanigher was back, with Don Heck doing the art, and Kanigher immediately killed off I-Ching and restored Wonder Woman to the stale, trite stories he'd been doing for nearly 18 years before Sekowsky came along. It seemed almost mean-spirited the way the transition happened.
I dropped all three titles shortly afterwards, and DC comics as a whole really fell in quality to the point where I was barely buying any of the superhero titles.
Like Charlie Horse 47 I really started reading Marvel during the last phase of the Silver Age, but there was, for me at least, a subtle change in what I would call the tonality of the writing after Lee left both books.
Stan Lee was an optimist and I got the general impression that he truly believed that when push can to shove the average person would behave with a certain degree of human decency. Conway, and to a lesser extent, Thomas seemed to have a more pessimistic outlook that I felt was reflected in their work. If the common folk were not throwing something at a hero they could always be counted on for a rousing rendition of "Die Mutie, Die!"
As for the artwork, well, Spiderman was never the most consistent of titles, when I started picking up the book the primary artist were either Romita, Heck over Romitas' layouts or John Buscema. What held the artistic continuity together was the brush of inker Jim Mooney. And due to spotty distribution I never saw enough of the Fantastic Four to be able to perceive any decline in Kirby's contributions.
Now back to the original question as posed by William, I'm going to have to go with the departure of the Claremont/Byrne team from Marvel Team-Up that put the brakes on my buying that particular title. I should state that Claremont did stay with the book for a while longer than the Canadian, but something was missing.
When I was in my late teens in the late 70's/early 80's, I managed to save up enough money from my odd jobs to subscribe to several DC and Marvel comics.....six or eight from each line. The creative teams changed on probably 80% of them within six months of me subscribing. Many of them have been mentioned above already, so I won't rehash. The ones that didn't have creative changes downsized from 50 centers and Dollar Comics to regular size and one got cancelled about five issues in.
Byrne/Austin actually changed before I even got an issue of X-Men, but I liked Cockrum, so that wasn't too bad. Kerry Gammill leaveing PM/IF was a tough one, and Gene Day (MOKF) and Dick Dillin (JLA) were tough, too, though George Perez made that one not so bad for a while. ALso, the Stern/Byrne combo on Capt. America left a mark when they departed, too.
Yeah, I'm with JA Morris on this one - when Byrne left the X-men that was the beginning of the end of my interest in that book for me. Heck, Claremont's writing seemed to suffer in the wake of Byrne's departure as well, taking on a melancholy tone that made reading this series almost a depressing chore.
- Mike 'smiley face emoticon' from Trinidad & Tobago.
Like Doug, I'm such a completist that I'd keep with a title even if I was disappointed by the departure of a creative team, but Byrne leaving the X-Men and Perez leaving the Teen Titans would rank up there for my biggest disappointments. Also, to Doug's question, I didn't really start collecting comics until about 1976 or 77, so I came along to late to be able to answer that question.
28 comments:
What was the most disappointed you ever were by the departure of a creative team from a certain title?
By disappointed I mean that your enjoyment of the book was greatly diminished or perhaps you actually quit reading it all together.
For me the worst was when Tom DeFalco and Ron Frenz left Amazing Spider-Man. Even though I kept reading the book for many years, I never really enjoyed it as much after 1986 (the last year that DeFalco and Frenz were on the title).
Another was when John Byrne left the X-Men. I only lasted about 2 issues past that before I quit reading the book. I didn't come back until Paul Smith started drawing it
I was such a completist, I don't know that I ever dropped a book as you suggest. Should I have -- without doubt. Part of my sickness, I guess, that I didn't.
But disappointed? I would point to story arcs that were finished by an art team other than the one that began. Two that immediately leap to mind featured the work of George Perez: the Korvac Saga in Avengers and the mini-series The Infinity Gauntlet.
Perhaps a slightly periphery discussion would be same writer, same penciler, but different inker. I've remarked on Twitter that when reading a run of 10 or so issues from the Bronze Age, it can be jarring to see John Buscema's Thor (for example) inked by Joe Sinnott, Sam Grainger, Sal Buscema, and Vince Colletta. Go further just a bit, and you hit Tony DeZuniga. All fine in their own right, but when seen in quick succession, it does change the experience.
Doug
For me it would have to be the end of the Steve Englehart-Sal Buscema run on Captain America & the Falcon in the mid 70s, which I thoroughly enjoyed (except maybe the part near the end when it was revealed that the Falcon was under the control of the Red Skull all along. Not so sure about that development).
First came Frank Robbins on the art (ugh), then a few months later the return of King Kirby. I still bought it all during the Kirby run (I guess I was a completist then too, Doug) but darn if I remember very much about those issues other than thinking "Are these even the same characters???"
Tom
George Perez and Marv Wolfman leaving New Teen Titans, that's for starters.., too easy.
For these others, it wasn't perhaps the editor or writer, but more the artist, and even then, I stayed on for a few more issues but it was (for all practical purposes) the death knell.
Sal Buscema leaving CA&F and Avengers, Romita,Sr. leaving ASM, Big John Buscema leaving FF, Donny Heck as new artist on Batman Family and Teen Titans.., the list goes on.
I thought that I wasn't going to like the Micronauts when Michael Golden left the book but I felt that Pat Broderick did a great job and fit the title well. Golden continued to do some covers and that helped. But when Broderick left and Gil Kane took over - I really did not like Kane's work on the team. I had just signed up for a subscription and was disappointed tremendously. Bill Mantlo of course stayed on but it was interesting how the art affected the story perception. Ditko also handled the annuals and he was past his prime.
Somebody mentioned it recently, Byrne's departure from Alpha Flight was like a fall off of a cliff - it just was not the same.
Some of the books mentioned above were start-ups (Alpha Flight, Micronauts, New Teen Titans)... Was it worse when someone new came onto a book that had "belonged" to a particular creator, as opposed to established books where creator runs tended to last a couple of years at most?
Doug
Until the mid-80s, I was more character-loyal than creator-loyal, so even with my favourite comics it didn't occur to me to stop reading or be disappointed. Even if I noticed a difference in tone or style, I was perfectly happy with Dave Cockrum's post-Byrne X-Men run, and Denny O'Neil writing Daredevil after Frank Miller left.
Got more discerning later, so that while I hung on for Mantlo on Alpha Flight post-Byrne, and Nocenti Daredevil after "Born Again", I had to eventually admit I wasn't enjoying the comics as much and drop the series.
Related-topic: anyone pleasantly surprised by a creator who managed to decently follow a legendary run? I'd say Denny O'Neil's Daredevil still holds up. Also Rick Veitch may not have been Alan Moore, but was still entertaining on Swamp Thing. And Peter Milligan spun a pretty good Animal Man tale after Grant Morrison left.
-david p.
I would like to know if fans in the very early Bronze Age were aware that Roy Thomas had replaced Stan Lee on FF and/or Gerry Conway had replaced Stan on ASM. Both moves seem pretty important from a historical point of view. Just wondering what it would have been like at the time.
Doug
The end of Master of Kung Fu's creative team(s) made it obvious that the end of the book was soon to occur. Doug Moench ended his run with 120 (with a file fill-in issue for 122) and the book folded with 125. I don't know if anyone besides Doug Moench has ever done a good job of writing Shang Chi. Artist wise, things held together okay, but the death of Gene Day hit me hard with this book.
I was 9 when Byrne & Austin quit Uncanny X-men. Even though I occasionally read the letters page, I never thought much about the creative teams until then. Cockrum's art has grown on me, but the difference in the art at the time was quite a shock. I continued to collect the book anyways.
Byrne's departure from Fantastic Four was also a blow. The first 2 post-Byrne issues featured art by Jerry Ordway inked by Al Gordon. Not a bad team, but very different than Byrne. The were followed by John Buscema inked by brother Sal. While I generally love their pencils, I thought Sal was a poor choice to ink Big John. Their art also looked a lot more "old school" than Byrne's and not in a good way.
Early issues of The New Mutants featured pencils by Bob McLeod, who was succeeded by Sal B. Both delivered solid Marvel house style art. Then suddenly, Sal was gone replaced by the much more abstract (for mainstream comics) art of Bill Sienkiewicz. At the time I hated that change, but now I find those issues fascinating. I was young and didn't appreciate Sienkiewicz's work, while I like it now, I still prefer his "fake Neal Adams" phase.
Addendum:
Byrne's last penciling job on FF was #293, I knew he was quitting Marvel and heading to DC to reinvent Superman, so the change in artists wasn't exactly a shock. But I remember being very upset that Byrne wouldn't be writing or drawing FF #296, the 25th anniversary issue of the Marvel Universe, or issue #300.
As mentioned by others, Byrne's departure from FF and Miller's departure from Daredevil were big blows to me as well. I didn't stick around too long on either title after that. Even though I loved the characters. The change in tone and style were just too jarring for me. Especially DD.
I was also bummed when Byrne and Stern left Captain America. It was especially sad when I heard they had planned a 3-part return of the Red Skull story for their next arc.
My first thought echoed William: Defalco and Frenz leaving ASM. Also when Roger Stern and Marshall Rogers finished their run on Dr. Strange- the book was still good, just not AS good.
As to Doug's follow up on teams that pleasantly surprised: I was grieved when Frank Brunner left Dr. Strange. At that early stage in my comic fandom I was unfamiliar with Gene Colan. Needless to say, my disappointment was short lived.
Redartz, in the interest of credit where credit's due, that follow-up query was posed by David P.
Doug
Retrospectively, I guess the split of Lee and Kirby is the most important, but if you read the last three years of FF, Kirby especially was totally mailing it in.
The breakup of the Claremont/Byrne team on X-Men was close to the end of my collecting days. I hung on maybe another year or so, but the departure from the quality story/art combination of those two, followed by what seemed to be an arthritic-handed Cockrum (who I loved on FF and his earlier stint on X-Men)and an occult-obsessed Claremont really pushed that book into the toilet for me. Plus, to be fair: how do you ever dream to top the three-year Phoenix arc?
Yoyo
I wept when Roth (?) and Heck took over for Gene Colan around Captain Mar-vell 5 (?)
I gnashed my teeth when Heck took over for Colan on Daredevil around issue 100.
I beat my breasts and wailed aloud when Kaluta stopped drawing The Shadow. (Ok – he only drew the first couple issues. But he set the standard!)
The only thing left was harikari, and I was always told to not play with knives, so I pretty much stopped reading comics after Conway killed Gwenn and had Sue filed divorce papers on Reed.
Alas, I cannot really reference any writer / artists teams since 95% of my reading years, it was Lee or Thomas doing the writing, or Kirby / Buscema / Romita / Colan doing the drawing it seemed like.
Yoyo --
The only artist credit I can find for Cockrum in regard to the FF is the Fantastic Four Roast. Is there something you know that we all should know??
Doug
Hmmm, interesting question. Like Doug, I tend to be a completist, so I usually keep reading no matter what (especially if it's a character I really like).
A couple of titles do come to mind, though. I liked New Warriors when Fabian Nicieza wrote it, but after he left it went downhill fast; I can't even remember who the next writer was ... Evan Skolnick, maybe?
Warlord lost something after Mike Grell (and his wife Sharon, who was doing the writing at the time) left. I had a hard time getting into Cary Burkett's run, though Fleisher's (later) run was better.
I haven't gotten that far in my reading yet, but by most accounts Conan really took a drop after Roy Thomas left.
Perez leaving Avengers after 202 I think, I kept buying but didn't read after a few. The Gerber run on Defenders was good, after that I tuned out.
As Tom mentioned, the Frank Robbins run was the end for me and Cap. It wasn't until I got back into comics in 2013 that I really got into Kirby's last run on the title. I recall as a kid referring to Robbins as "bendy" and Kirby as "blocky". My brother and I would take the Cap comic of the rack that had different cover artist, only to be horrified by the hideousness that is Robbins "art". Back they went! I imagine this will upset some, but I stopped reading DD because of Frank Miller. Never liked his pencils or stories, both seemed hackish to me, lazy even. Perhaps its that comics seemed best when you were 9-12 years old, just fun romps.
Doug -
You pose an interesting question since I started reading at the tail end of the Silver Age and only read in to the first years of the bronze age, around 1974 ish.
Disclaimer: I'm not a comic historian and am trying to recall what I thought 40 years ago.
The change from Lee to Thomas never really impressed me one way or the other; the quality seemed consistent. I had the impression that Stan sprinkled Holy Water on everything, since he was always listed in the credits one way or another, and this led to an overall consistency. It really wasn't until Marvel started having multiple Spidey Comics (ASM, Marvel Team UP, Spectacular SM, Marvel Tales…), combined with an explosion of other titles, that I felt a huge shift in the Marvel Universe and an inconsistency / degradation of editing / writing / art… that a brave, new world Marvel Comics was being ushered in. (Just my opinion from living through that transition.)
With DC, on the other hand, it seems like there were pockets of improvement with Neal Adams, Jim Aparo… Can’t recall who the editor / writers were, though. I just know that their art got me to buy Batman, Brave and Bold, Adventure...
CHeers!
Luther, totally agreed with you on Miller's DD. I continued reading DD after Gerber left, but Gerber made DD quite interesting and fun. I didn't like the route DD took with Miller at all.
Same with me for CA&F with the Robbins interiors as well. I distinctly remember seeing new issues, and peeking inside.....
. . .
Then putting 'em back.
I wonder what Captain Marvel would have looked like if Starlin had stuck around for a while after the Thanos saga. There was that issue with Nitro that was pretty wild, but it's hard to imagine a Starlin comic in the '70's without Thanos creeping around, like he was in Warlock.
I guess he did some random stuff here and there that wasn't bad.
M.P.
Doug:
You are right.I confused Cockrum with Buckler!
Yoyo
Terry in Virginia:
I'll throw in three DC features into this discussion:
Denny O'Neil's run on Superman, #233-242, art by Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson. That was a great run, where O'Neil set-up a less omnipotent Superman, reducing his powers by a significant portion, in order to allow for greater dramatic conflict with the character. As soon as his run ended, Cary Bates took over and completely ignored everything O'Neil had set-up over the previous year. The writing immediately reverted to that awful Silver Age nonsense of the 1960s....
Ernie Chan/Chua took over as the main Batman artist after several great years of Irv Novick and Bob Brown. Although Frank Robbins was still writing for awhile, the Bat books really dropped in quality with the arrival of Ernie (although I really liked his inking on Conan).
Mike Sekowsky's run on Wonder Woman, without powers, doing the Mrs. Peel schtick, was probably the only run of that title that mattered since the 1940s. Suddenly, Robert Kanigher was back, with Don Heck doing the art, and Kanigher immediately killed off I-Ching and restored Wonder Woman to the stale, trite stories he'd been doing for nearly 18 years before Sekowsky came along. It seemed almost mean-spirited the way the transition happened.
I dropped all three titles shortly afterwards, and DC comics as a whole really fell in quality to the point where I was barely buying any of the superhero titles.
My two cents, anyway.
Terry in Virginia
Hiya,
Hey Doug. . .
Like Charlie Horse 47 I really started reading Marvel during the last phase of the Silver Age, but there was, for me at least, a subtle change in what I would call the tonality of the writing after Lee left both books.
Stan Lee was an optimist and I got the general impression that he truly believed that when push can to shove the average person would behave with a certain degree of human decency. Conway, and to a lesser extent, Thomas seemed to have a more pessimistic outlook that I felt was reflected in their work. If the common folk were not throwing something at a hero they could always be counted on for a rousing rendition of "Die Mutie, Die!"
As for the artwork, well, Spiderman was never the most consistent of titles, when I started picking up the book the primary artist were either Romita, Heck over Romitas' layouts or John Buscema. What held the artistic continuity together was the brush of inker Jim Mooney. And due to spotty distribution I never saw enough of the Fantastic Four to be able to perceive any decline in Kirby's contributions.
Now back to the original question as posed by William, I'm going to have to go with the departure of the Claremont/Byrne team from Marvel Team-Up that put the brakes on my buying that particular title. I should state that Claremont did stay with the book for a while longer than the Canadian, but something was missing.
Seeya,
pfgavigan
When I was in my late teens in the late 70's/early 80's, I managed to save up enough money from my odd jobs to subscribe to several DC and Marvel comics.....six or eight from each line. The creative teams changed on probably 80% of them within six months of me subscribing. Many of them have been mentioned above already, so I won't rehash. The ones that didn't have creative changes downsized from 50 centers and Dollar Comics to regular size and one got cancelled about five issues in.
Byrne/Austin actually changed before I even got an issue of X-Men, but I liked Cockrum, so that wasn't too bad. Kerry Gammill leaveing PM/IF was a tough one, and Gene Day (MOKF) and Dick Dillin (JLA) were tough, too, though George Perez made that one not so bad for a while. ALso, the Stern/Byrne combo on Capt. America left a mark when they departed, too.
Yeah, I'm with JA Morris on this one - when Byrne left the X-men that was the beginning of the end of my interest in that book for me. Heck, Claremont's writing seemed to suffer in the wake of Byrne's departure as well, taking on a melancholy tone that made reading this series almost a depressing chore.
- Mike 'smiley face emoticon' from Trinidad & Tobago.
Like Doug, I'm such a completist that I'd keep with a title even if I was disappointed by the departure of a creative team, but Byrne leaving the X-Men and Perez leaving the Teen Titans would rank up there for my biggest disappointments.
Also, to Doug's question, I didn't really start collecting comics until about 1976 or 77, so I came along to late to be able to answer that question.
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