First, let me say that I like Rog and probably owe my job at Marvel Comics to a recommendation from him. We've had a long and pleasurable working relationship for almost a decade, him as my editor and later me as his. He was always dependable, enthusiastic, and meticulous, and for my money, one of the best wordsmiths in the business today. So then, what happened?
Sometime mid-April, I had Roger fly to New York for a conference to map out the next year's AVENGERS story line and coorindate them with our two component books CAPTAIN AMERICA and THOR. In an afternoon long session attended by the various concerned writers and editors (two of whom are both writers and editors but not of the same title), we worked out what I thought to be an interesting, innovative direction. It seemed like all participants agreed. However, when Roger got back home and began to work out the specific details to the scenario, he reported that he couldn't come up with any way to make the scenario work without doing injustice to some of the characters involved. The bottom line was that he didn't want to proceed with the story line we all discussed.
I was not interested in doing any injustices to any characters either, but I also believed that the story line could be done without hurting any characters. I was also not interested in forcing a writer to write something he didn't want to. So, despite our five years' plus of amicable working relations, we had developed what seemed to be irreconcilable differences. Something had to give. I informed Roger that I wanted to proceed with the agreed-upon story line and thus, I would hire another writer who could get behind the scenario enough to do it justice.
So that's that the straight poop. I hope to work with Rog again on a regular basis in the future (I have managed to get him to write some SOLO AVENGERS stories), but right now I imagine that we're both a bit gun-shy. (I know what it feels like to leave a series not fully of one's volition-- it happened to me twice.) Anyway, I'd like to thank Roger for five years of good hard avenging, and give him a chance to say good-bye.
--Mark Gruenwald