Jim Shooter, a precocious kid from Pittsburgh who started writing comic book stories at thirteen and who then went on to have one of the most consequential careers in the history of mainstream comics as Marvel’s editor-in-chief, has died at the age of seventy-three.

Shooter was appointed to Marvel’s top editorial position in January, 1978, and during his controversial decade at Marvel’s helm (he was fired in April, 1987), he left an unmistakable imprint on the company and on the comic book industry as a whole.

Most comics historians and many of the artists and writers who worked under him agree that Shooter made many positive and badly needed changes early on (such as returning art to artists and giving artists and writers royalties in certain circumstances) but later became increasingly rigid and dictatorial, and people have already spent many years and will doubtless spend many more trying to reach a just assessment of the pros and cons of his tenure at Marvel. (You can find a detailed account of those years in Sean Howe’s excellent Marvel Comics: The Untold Story, though of course some people say the book is too hard on Shooter while others say that it isn’t hard enough.)

But Jim Shooter’s role in the history of Marvel Comics, while hugely important and interesting to argue about, isn’t what makes his career most significant to me. Yes, Secret Wars was a landmark series and is still pretty cool, even after all these years, but back in the day I was a DC guy, and deep in my heart I still am, so it’s his work for that publisher that’s closest to my heart.

What did Shooter do at DC? He consummated and closed the Silver Age of Comics, that’s what, and that’s achievement enough for any man.

Now, if you ask a bunch of old comic book geezers when the Silver Age ended, you’ll get a dozen different answers, some more reasonable and widely-accepted than others.

Some people will tell you that the Silver Age ended when Snapper Carr betrayed the Justice League and left the team in Justice League of America #77, December 1969. (Nope. Too minor a character — you didn’t remember that Snapper Carr was ever in the Justice League, now did you? Oh… you don’t remember Snapper Carr at all? Well, that’s fair…)

There are partisans of Amazing Spider-Man # 121, June 1973, saying that the death of Gwen Stacey was the end. (Better — the death was indeed a seismic event — but the Silver Age was already over by then.)

Other folks assert that the massive reset concluded in Crisis on Infinite Earths #12, March 1986, coupled with the closing of the original Superman continuity in Alan Moore’s magnificent “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” in Superman #423 and Action # 583 (both September 1986) finally rang the curtain down on the Silver Age. (Again, no. Way too late this time.)

DC’s introduction of go-go checks on the covers of their books in March of 1966, the price increase from twelve to fifteen cents in June 1969, the panicky proliferation of new and usually short-lived titles by DC and Marvel that began in the spring of 1968 — they all have their advocates. (It’s funny that no one has advanced what seems to me a likelier tipping point than any of these, to wit: the Silver Age ended the instant you realized that you were giving more thought to your desperate schemes to strike up a conversation with the girl who sat in front of you in first period than you were to Brainiac’s nefarious plans for the bottle city of Kandor.)

Probably the most widely-accepted end point for the Silver Age is the colossal one-two punch of Fantastic Four # 102, September 1970 (Jack Kirby’s last regular-run issue of the “World’s Greatest Comic Magazine!”) and Superman # 229, August 1970 (the last issue of the “World’s Best-Selling Comic Magazine!” that was edited by Mort Weisinger, the architect of the greatest comic book mythology of them all).

That last Silver Age stopping-point is hard to disagree with, and I don’t intend to; as a spot to erect the memorial plaque, it’s probably the best one going. But our love for comics — especially the comics of our youth — is an intensely personal thing, which means that every fan who lived through the Silver Age has his or her own place to plant their feet and bow their heads… and remember.

For me, that place is Adventure Comics # 380, June 1969; I think it marks the beginning of the end of the Silver Age, with all of its optimism, exuberance, and logic-leaping silliness.

Adventure Comics # 380 was the last Legion of Superheroes story in Adventure (Supergirl took over the title in the next issue), bringing an end to an unbroken eighty-issue run that began in September 1962, and thirty-two out of the last thirty-five of those issues were  written by Jim Shooter (the other three issues were by E. Nelson Bridwell). Of all the myriad Silver Age characters and story lines, I loved the Legion most of all, and Shooter’s run featured some of the most dramatic and memorable stories in the long history of the group. (It didn’t hurt that the great Curt Swan did the art on over half of Shooter’s issues.)

It should be no surprise that he was such a good match for the Legion; they were the ultimate teen team-up group, and Shooter’s first Legion story was published when he was just fourteen, and he hadn’t yet turned eighteen when Adventure # 380 appeared. (The writer he took over from, that master of early space opera, Edmond Hamilton, was pushing sixty when he wrote his first LSH story.)

Shooter started his Legion run in high gear; in his very first story, he introduces four new Legionnaires, one of whom turns out to be a traitor (Nemesis Kid) while another (Ferro Lad) lives for only seven issues before heroically giving his life to save the galaxy from the seemingly-invincible Sun Eater in one of the most eventful stories ever. (The outright killing of characters — good or bad — was a very rare occurrence in 1967, and it’s hard for contemporary comic fans to grasp how truly shocking Ferro Lad’s death was to the story’s original readers.)

In later issues, Shooter introduces new villains with reckless abandon (Dr. Regulus, Universo, the Fatal Five, Mordru), the Legion expels Superboy and Supergirl (temporarily, of course), reluctantly teams with the Fatal Five in order to save Earth, is outlawed by the government (decades before Marvel’s Civil War) with some members consigned to breaking rocks in a prison camp while others go underground, and in one story the group splits along gender lines (“The Mutiny of the Super-Heroines!”)

Shooter’s Legion stories are unfailingly colorful, dramatic, and fast-moving, and are perfectly pitched to appeal to a young audience yearning for independence and anxious about fitting in with their peers.

These stories are full of betrayals and budding romances (Supergirl and Brainiac-5 are often seen smooching behind the clubhouse), in-groups and out-groups, and status anxiety and fear of being misunderstood or treated unfairly by adults in authority. There’s even a story where a young man suffers the ultimate case of conflicting emotions when he saves the Legion from the clutches of a supervillain, who turns out to be… his father! (You remember what it was like to hesitate inviting friends over after school, for fear that Universo would be sitting in the den, drinking a Colt 45 and watching TV in his underwear…)

In reading through my stack of Adventures over the past several days (I have all but a handful of the Shooter era issues), I was struck by what I think any reader would be struck by — their freshness, their flair, their inventiveness, and, it must be said, their immaturity. But all comics of sixty years ago were immature; unlike the current product, they were manifestly written for children, children who in many ways were, for better and for worse, a good deal less mature than children are these days. (One big difference is that most kids now don’t read comic books at all). Certainly no one today would have the Legion meet in a goofy-looking upside-down rocket ship clubhouse (labeled “Super-Hero Clubhouse” — for the benefit of the postman and the meter-reader, I guess.)

That immaturity (or innocence, if you will) is a part of the charm of old comic books, as it is a part of the charm of childhood itself, but by the late Silver Age, the frost was on the pumpkin, and in many of the comics of the late sixties you can sense an awareness on the part of the creators that the end of childhood was at hand. It was time for comics to grow up, and the Bronze Age, with its increased seriousness and sophistication and social engagement (still comic book seriousness and sophistication and engagement, of course) was right around the corner. Even the Legion of Superheroes couldn’t stay young and carefree forever. As Ferro Lad could have told them, even heroes have to face death, and there’s no getting away from the fact that nothing lasts forever.

There was probably no one better suited to close the door on the Legion’s Silver Age than Jim shooter, who began writing their stories when he wasn’t much more than a child himself and wrote his last Legion story standing on the threshold of what would be a busy and eventful adulthood filled with responsibility and conflict, praise and blame.

The loss of Jim Shooter hits especially hard; because he started so young, he outlived almost all of his Silver Age compatriots. Lee and Kirby, Broome and Infantino, Fox and Anderson, Ditko and Romita are all gone; now only a bare handful are left, and the kind of work they produced is a thing of the past, not only because those men have passed away, but because the world that produced them and that their work reflected has vanished, never to return.

No one today could write the kind of Legion stories that Jim Shooter wrote in Adventure # 346 to 380. They can never be written again except as pastiche or parody, and once you are aware enough to practice those arch, self-referential modes, you know that you’re not a kid anymore, all of which is to say that there’s no returning to childhood once you leave it.

What you can do is remember, making allowances for the quirks and shortcomings that unavoidably come with immaturity, and a few days ago I unbagged my copies of Adventure # 352 and 353, “To Save a Galaxy!” and “The Doomed Legionnaire!”, Shooter’s epic two-part story in which Ferro Lad dies destroying the seemingly unstoppable Sun Eater.

Those two issues were probably my most-read and re-read comic books when I was a kid, and reading them again for the first time in a couple of decades was a pleasant (and somewhat melancholy) experience. Of course, I noticed the scientific absurdities and lapses in logic and gaping plot holes that appeared throughout the tale and that I zipped right over when I first read these comics, but I also remembered why I thought the story was so dramatic, and why it excited and, yes, moved me all those years ago.

Though the story would likely provoke justifiable eye-rolls from today’s more sophisticated brand of readers, the pleasure I got from reading it — then and now — is nothing to be ashamed of. A good storyteller’s energy and verve can overcome a lot of obstacles, and Jim Shooter (even at fifteen years old!) was, first and foremost, a damn good storyteller.

But beyond even that, because of his amazingly early start, as Jim Shooter wrote his tales of the Legion and as his readers read them, they were doing nothing less than growing up together. By telling his stories of friendships tested and strengthened, of challenges faced and conquered, he did more than just entertain his young readers — he helped them through many a difficult real-life passage and now, for one last time, I salute him for that, across a chasm too wide for even a Silver Age comic book writer to leap over.

For all the fun and excitement, and for the helping hand, too, thank you, Jim. And… be sure and save a seat in the clubhouse for me.

---

Thomas Parker is a native Southern Californian and a lifelong science fiction, fantasy, and mystery fan. When not corrupting the next generation as a fourth grade teacher, he collects Roger Corman movies, Silver Age comic books, Ace doubles, and despairing looks from his wife. His last article for us was Third Time’s the Charm: Avram Davidson’s The Enemy of My Enemy