Jim Shooter

Jim Shooter was born on September 27, 1951, in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Less than 15 years later, he was a comics professional. Less than 15 years after that, he was the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics. Shooter's legacy may look very different to different comics fans, but nobody has ever had a career in comics that looked like his.

Doctor Doom first appeared in Fantastic Four #5 by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Joe Sinnott and Stan Goldberg, published on April 10 1961. One of the most iconic villains in comic book history, Victor Von Doom has always remained steadfast in his goals: Take over the world for its own benefit, and kill Reed Richards along the way, if there's time.

Superhero comics had crossed over many times before 1984, with various crises on various earths and plenty of Marvel characters invading other characters' titles, but the comic that set the template for the event series as we know it today is undoubtedly Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, the first issue of which was released on this week in 1984 (cover dated May). The brainchild of Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, the series spanned 12 issues and threw nearly every Marvel Comics character into the mix. It even started the trend of more than one artist taking on penciling duties, as Mike Zeck and Bob Layton traded off every few issues.

Ever since I wrote that Ask Chris a few weeks back about how I'd rebuild the Legion of Super-Heoroes, I've been seized with the desire to go back and re-read some of the classic Legion stories from the Silver Age, but when I sat down to do just that, I was really surprised. Not because the stories are weird, mind you -- I knew they were pretty bonkers from the first time I read them, and they certainly haven't gotten any less weird since -- but because they threw the light on one of the most grievous oversights of my writing career. See, as happy as I was with the lineup I came up with for that column, I left out the character who is unquestionably the most powerful member, the actual, official "King of the Legion." I speak, of course, of Bouncing Boy.

This week on War Rocket Ajax, we welcome Sean Howe to the show to talk about his amazing history of the people and the company behind some of our favorite characters, Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. It's a great book, and in our discussion, Sean talks about defending Stan Lee, the conversations he had with various creators, and his brief correspondence with Steve Ditko (pictured above) -- and yo

My favorite thing about the new Avengers movie is how well it took the separate stories and elements of movies like Captain America, Thor and Iron Man and blended them into one big story. It worked so well that I almost wished they would've been able to just go ahead and bring in every Marvel Movie, if only for a few minutes...

Goodness: Comics Express, a free 24-page comic to be distributed to kids and teens affected by the Joplin, Mo. tornado disaster that features talent from across the industry needs a little help reaching its fundraising goal. You can donate to the project at its IndieGoGo page...

TV: Fans will have to wait until at least 2013 to find out for sure, but HBO's plans for adapting Neil Gaiman's American Gods sound pretty legit -- like a $3-4 million budget per episode under Tom Hanks, legit. Sci-Fi: Not every spinoff is sound, but there's at least 10 Star Trek shows that might have been awesome...

After the news last week that Dark Horse had laid off seven employees -- and the subsequent criticism by a former employee about several significant comics projects and delays in releasing rolling out their digital comics program -- Dark Horse's founder and president Mike Richardson spoke with ComicsAlliance about his perspective on the layoffs and the digital strategy, and his vision for the comp

If you're a disgruntled creator, the internet in 2010 has several outlets for you to vent your displeasure. Facebook has a personal and private feel, despite being open to several hundred thousand of your closest friends. That illusion of privacy makes it easy to say things you would normally keep to yourself, or only mention in private company, to everyone in the entire world...