Alternate History: What if Jim Shooter successfully bought Marvel in 1988?

[Frostbite883]

Good "What if".

[Thor-Ul]

Jim Shooter could write a book about how could had been if he would had bought Marvel. Something like what Bob Rozakis did with "The Secret History of AA Comics".

[SpideyGood]

There really wasn't any gay characters in the 90's either. So i dont see how that Jim Shooters fault. And when i read a comic. I really don't care what gender that character wants to screw. Just tell good stories. God dammit.

[DavidRA]

Hear hear.

[Nomads1]

I remember the story of Valiant Comics -- it was formed by Jim Shooter when he failed to acquire Marvel in 1988, having had the second bid and losing out to Ron Perelman. As we all know, Perelman nearly led Marvel to their demise, using his authority to maximize profit in the short-term, and leading to the comics crash.

So what if Jim Shooter successfully purchased Marvel back then, thus making him the lead of Marvel?

Shooter is known as a controversial figure. He led Marvel to a golden age of creative storytelling and maturity that hasn't been matched, yet he also clashed with the staff as he became controlling and micro-managed them to get things done on time, working on a professional level they hadn't known before. Though many of the Marvel staff now do have kind things to say about him, it's also in the form of a mixed bag (essentially "he was a great leader, but one hard to deal with").

I do wonder what would happen if Shooter once again became the ultimate authority in Marvel. He was fired from his position in 1987, whereas being put back on top the next year definitely would've changed things. Maybe Marvel would've done better in the '90s, maybe the conflicts would've overlapped with each other so much that Marvel would implode on itself. Who knows, really.

This could've had long term ramifications. Such as if bankruptcy was avoided, then they never would've had to sell the movie rights to stay afloat. Likewise, if they were doing just fine financially, would they still have gotten bought by Disney? I'm starting to think a lot of butterfly effects are in play here.

On another hand, this would mean no Valiant Comics, which would kind of suck...

What do you think?

One thing that comes to mind is that, perhaps, we would have been intoduced to talent we, maybe, never got to meet. Shooter gave breaks to sme of the industry's greatest. He seemed to have a good nose for talent. Who knows? Maybe we'd never have had Image. Maybe they (some of them, at least) wouldn't have had their big breaks at Marvel. Maybe others would. maybe they wouldn't be unhappy at Marvel. Quite a lot of probabilities. A HUGE domino effect. A paralel Earth worthy one.

Peace

[Hypestyle]

who knows, maybe Milestone would have found its entryway through Marvel, instead of DC... and hopefully had some cool crossovers.

[Dreaded Porcupine]

There really wasn't any gay characters in the 90's either. So i dont see how that Jim Shooters fault. And when i read a comic. I really don't care what gender that character wants to screw. Just tell good stories. God dammit.

Northstar was gay in the 80’s. It was subtly implied but you knew he was.