Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Another Shooter rumor

It's the lead item in "Lying in the Gutters" this week...

Yeah, so what happened with that Jim-Shooter-off-Legion thing? Industry gossip has the move down to the "Legion Of Three Worlds" series that trampled on what Shooter saw as his plans for his series. And, so, vamoose.

Some observations:

1. When Shooter came on, he had to have known about the future plans for the Legion, including the L3W story. If not, Someone in DC editorial royally screwed up.

2. Don't people typically have a contract for these things?

Thing is, this sounds perfectly plausible. But you guys out there reading this keep up more with the message boards and stuff - has there been any "industry gossip" about this, or is it a self-sustaining story wherein Rich writes a note, fans talk about it on the message boards, and then Rich follows up saying that people are talking about it on the message boards so it must be true.

I've got RSS feeds and Google searches that regularly alert me to Legion-related news items and I've gotten nothing except items that ultimately point back to Rich's notes as the original source.

Am I missing something? Is there really a story here or is someone making a not-necessarily-logical "Shooter missed a convention, therefore he's leaving the book" connection?

8 comments:

Patrick C said...

I've really been enjoying the Shooter run, so I tried to do some research when he announced it last week, but I haven't been able to find anything saying he's off other than Rich's column. It's weird.

Michael K. Willis said...

Rich says that Shooter is leaving because Legion of Three Worlds scuttles his own plans. Even if that's so I would hope that if anybody would be able to understand the vagaries of editorial fiat (and be able to roll with the punches when changes are dictated from above) it would be Jim Shooter, the man who ordered the first of Jean Grey's many deaths :-)

snell said...

Not to be snotty, but Rich's column doesn't have the world's greatest batting average when it comes to rumors turning out to be true...

Michael said...

Snell - I agree. It's been over a week since the first item came out and I haven't seen any "industry gossip" other than fans like us discussing whether it's true or not, and whether we like it or not.

I have seen no credible evidence one way or the other. I've got a couple of feelers out but no response yet.

J.D. Long said...

I have a confession to make.

I'm one of Rich Johnston's "sources." If you've ever read an "LITG" story in the last five years about the Dallas Comicon, I was one of those sources. In fact, two years running, I was his ONLY source. Rich reprinted what I worte with very minimal editing and posted it. He even posted one whopper I fed him one time just to see if it would get in -- which it did.

This has to be one of those "Agenda" (Red Light) stories; very likely planted by somebody who deosn't like Shooter. And, frankly, those people . . . are Legion. (Heh.)

~~JD~~

Anonymous said...

I suspect a ruse on DC's part. Some of us flipped when L3W was anounced, based on the assumption that DC was going to do a hat trick, have Superman-Prime kill off most of the characters, and have the remaining Legionnaires merged into a single team.

I think this is the plan we are supposed to assume led to Shooter's departure, i.e. he was fine picking up Waid's team, but did not want to get saddled with writing an amalgamated team from three continuities.

I wonder if Shooter will end up being off the Legion only because one by product of L3W will be to put him on a revived Adventure Comics, picking up "his" Legion from where he left them in the early S/LSH era?

Well, okay, maybe it's not so much theory as wishful thinking.

collectededitions said...

I've been watching the DC soliciations, curious to see if the Shooter-Legion will cross over with Legion of Three Worlds, or otherwise how they'll end the current Legion series (one gets the feeling Legion will be rebooted with another issue one).

I have to say, I was taken aback by the solicitation of the hardcover collection of the first of Shooter's new Legion stories. I'd heard, in contrast to Patric C, that they weren't that good (anyone?) and that made me likely to wait for the paperback, especially given that the Waid-Legion so far has been in paperback. That's just how it struck me.

Anonymous said...

I think Shooter's stories are *very* good and I'm happy to see that they are being collected (I'm surprised that they are being collected in hardcover (is that what was said?) as I don't think that Waid's run was collected in hard cover... just in soft cover).

I'm very pleased with what Shooter has done so far. He's taken the team from right where Waid left it, but he's added more character moments, while still telling his own story. I've been rereading each issue a couple of times after buying it and I haven't done that in years and years.
There are little nits to pick, but overall, I like what he's doing and hope that he is sticking around for the long haul.

Murray