Happy Independence Day, everyone. Today marks 249 years of not giving a flying flip at a rolling doughnut what the British royal family thinks.
It is going to be a busy three-day weekend, but I did want to quickly note the death of Michael Madsen. NYT (archived).
Kenneth Colley. Other credits include “EastEnders”, “The Bill”, and “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” (credited as “Jesus”).
Jim Shooter was the “Adult in the Room” at Marvel Comics in the 1970’s. Previous editorial control was shambolic and deadlines were regularly missed. Jim brought adult responsibilities back into form, and the creatives hated him for it.
He could be an asshole, but on the whole his judgement was solid. One of the big things he did was to change the ending of the Dark Phoenix saga by demanding that Chris Claremont and John Byrne change the original ending by killing Jean Gray/Phoenix. His thinking was that Phoenix had killed billions of intelligent beings on another planet by making their sun go nova, and that act of genocide was unforgivable and she must pay the ultimate price.
The New Universe, wasn’t the big deal he hoped it would be… and soon afterwards he was fired from Marvel.
A controversial character, but in hindsight, he did save Marvel Comics.