The Youngblood thread made me remember that no discussion about Defiant Comics is complete without the endless, stupid, unbelievable rumors that plagued the company while it published. Here are just a few:
Interesting thread.
General Rumors that Shooter had to Deal with in his Editorals:
That he was leaving to go to Image (see the Youngblood thread).
Anybody that believed this just wasn't payng attention. Of course you realize that rumors like this start off as a question. Somebody with no depth of knowledge (a nice way of saying stupid) said "Hey, does that mean Jim is leaving Defiant?" Someone else overhears portions of the sentence and the next thing you know a false rumor is circulating. If this was really a serious plan, it would have been a great marketing twist. It didn't have to be good, all it had to do was be BETTER than any of the Youngblood issues that had been released up until that time. Jim Shooter's name would have given the project clout and a swarm of shallow image fans would have drifted in as new customers on top of that.
I don't blame Rob for hyping the project with an ad. Both companies needed the buzz at that time. I wasn't excited as a DEFIANT comics reader, but I was excited as a DEFIANT comics supporter. I knew it would bring in fresh new readers, that had never seen a well written story.
That he was leaving to go to Continuity (because Continuity had finally solicited some Armor issues he wrote for them awhile back)
Hmmm?!! They solicted Megalith stories written by Shooter at that time, but you say he wrote Armor. Hmmm! I sometimes wonder how much influence Jim Shooter had on Continuity back then. I believe he worked for them in 1987. Armor#3 came out in February 1987, #4 came out in July 1998. My friend and I agree that Armor #4 (Vol. 1) was probably the best comic they ever released. All I remember is that Armor was training on another planet and I remember thinking "wow" after I read it. I can't remember any other details. In the back of my mind I wonder HOW Shooter could have worked there AND NOT
INFLUENCED the plotting or story direction. There are some great secret sect story elements from the Megalith series that looked like they were reworked and starting to show up in Eternal Warrior and especially Archer & Armstrong #3. This same theme fueled the Fatale series at Broadway. Did Jim originate these ideas? Were they fleshed out at Continuity and then reworked for both VALIANT and later Broadway? Hmmm?!
That Liefield was joining Defiant (Youngblood thread again).
Yeah right! This reminds me of when I was younger and I worked in a grocery store. Someone told the non-foods guy that it was part of his job to shake up all the bottles of salad dressing because--according to him-- customer would not buy salad dressing if it separated.
I can't imagine Liefeld lasting at DEFIANT even one day.
That Defiant had stopped publishing or was about to.
I believed they were heading that direction and I believe the path had begun just before the rumors started. A VERY large number of fans werre pissed off about the 1st edition card binders being rationed. I ordered 12 and got maybe two. A lot of people who just wanted one were not able to get it at all and settled for the (already deemed inferior and undesireable) second printing. There was just too much pressure on the company to put out the best comics ever written. Jim Shooter stories grow and evolve. The people flocking to buy Defiant expected each comic to feature the equivalent quality to a year's worth of Valiant. The fans had a short attention span. They were burned by the 1st edition binders... and they just weren't willing to wait for the payload of the story. All indications were that the payload would be Schism. I don't consider this to be a rumor so much as I consider it to be an accurate attempt at speculation. Of course some prophecies are self-fulfilling. In that sense, it was a false rumor at the time it started.
You may recall that early rumors on the usenet regarding Acclaim's Unity 2K series ended up being true. It was reported that Acclaim was shutting down the publishng BEFORE U2K #3 came out. James Perham strongly denied that fact yet he should have known if it was true or not. Was he blindly optimistic or a liar? It's very possible that the dominoes were already stacked to fall without his knowledge. The same may be true for Defiant.
It's already established that the people managing a company have an obligation to support the decisions made by that company. Whether the rumor was true or not about them shutting down, the dying sales were detrimental to the company and it hindered their ability to meet financial obligations. I would expect Jim Shooter to say what he said in his "we aren't shutting down" editorial whether he had hints of demise or not. These rumors were theoretically traced back to sources with The River Group. I feel that this is just another case of accurate speculation becoming called "a rumor".
With that in mind.....I've been saying to close friends that Cross Gen wouldn't last from day one. I didn't have to see a million dollars worth of debt on paper to know that. I didn't start a widespread rumor, but I was right. I also remember seeing 6 copies of Magnus #12 for $3 a piece. I told the store manager they were going to be worth a lot of money. He mocked me and told me that I should buy them if they were going to be worth a lot. Because he said that... I did buy them. If he had not mocked me I would have left them for others to buy. When I traded them all at $90 a piece in credit for silver age comics, I never once considered my $500+ gain to be a rumor. That's just my perspective. Everyone will look at it from a different angle and see a different picture.
Rumors Spread by My Local Comic Shop Owner (Who Hated Shooter):
Strangely, the only person I knew that disliked Shooter back then rambled on about the 9 panel layout grid. I thought the guy was crazy, but the topic has resurfaced from several other people since I've created my site.
That Ed Palgardy left Defiant because it was a sinking ship (he really got a better job offer from TeknoComics).
I wondered, but there is no telling whether any other negative rumors sat in the back of his thoughts. My guess now is that he left for a combination of reasons... 1) money, 2) get out of the city (wasn't Teckno located in Florida?), and 3) I got the impression that he would have preferred working on non-superhero stories.
That Alan Wiess traced his pencils from other artists' existing works (a big no-no in the comic artist community).
Alan's style is quite distinct. I don't know why anyone would say he traced. I remembered his work from the Avengers issues he did... I think it was issue 216 or around there. If anyone had ever accused him of tracing in front of me, I'd have told them I hope he does a lot more of whatever he's doing whether he traced or not.
That Janet Jackson colored children's books before Shooter hired her (leaving out the fact that she was Art Director of Advertising at Marvel!).
I would have said "really?" and I would have forgotten the information was given to me.
That the artwork in the books was bad (but he did say the same thing about Valiant's books up until Acclaim took over).
People did say that. People complained about Valiant's art. I heard it many times. I probably just mocked them. Bottle fed hobbyist buying the hype of the week rarely earn my respect. I used to sit around the comic book store and draw stick figure versions of all the superheroes. All the female image characters were drawn the same. A stick with two circles for breasts and lots of hair.
Yeah... we KNOW why Image art is so good.... sheeesh.
That the company was going down, a rumor which started on the second or third month of publishing.
...
Again... the binders. It doesn't matter how many things you ever do right in your life, people will ALWAYS remember your last mistake.
I don't know of any other company at the time that had these sort of rumors spread about them. I know Shooter was hated in the industry, but this stuff was absurd. I didn't believe any of it and niether did my best friend who collected a lot of Shooter's stuff, but I can't vouch for the rest of the comic readers out there. The rumors certainly didn't help Defiant any.
No, they didn't help, but the expectations were already too high.
Defiant1
