Anyone want to speculate how many times a character in a Byrne comic has gone “NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO …etc.” ? Alpha Flight had that every other issue.
Hi Cliffy,
I agree that if the goal is to assess an individual as a whole, their personality must be weighed as well as their accomplishments. But I disagree that it is pointless to discuss one without the other.
When I went to Talisen, the majesty of the place wasn’t diminished because I know that Frank Lloyd Wright was a dick. I don’t think about Woody Allen’s skeevy relationship Soon -Yi when I’m watching “Annie Hall.” When I am rocking out to some Sheryl Crow, I don’t think about how my friend Jackie thought she was calculated and pretentious when she interviewed her. And though I understand Sir Isaac Newton was disliked by those who knew him, it doesn’t change the fact that he made some revelatory contributions to science.
When I read the OP, I hear someone wanting to discuss the man’s artistic contributions — not his character. Let’s respect that.
Look, it’s easy to take cheap shots. It’s funny to take cheap shots. Hell, it’s damned inspiring to take cheap shots, especially if they’re deserved and you and other posters are trying to top each other thinking up funny zingers. I enjoy a good internet messageboard pile-on much as the next guy. Trouble is, when it comes to Byrne I’ve heard it all before, on this board and others, and on many, many different variations thereof, that’s not really what I wanted to do today.
Prompting my mood was an offhand comment in another thread – I think it was this week’s Comic Book Discussion – about how retconning Hippolyta as the Wonder Woman who fought alongside the JSA during WWII was a good idea – and people forget, that was Byrne’s idea. Not that I liked a hell of a lot about his execution of Wonder Woman when he wrote/drew the title, but I did like that idea a lot.
Thinking the matter over, Cliffy, I’m forced to admit there are a lot of individual ideas of Byrne’s I’ve liked. Thought it might make an interesting reading: a vitriol-free Byrne discussion. Since I didn’t see anybody else volunteering to do it, I thought I’d give it a shot. What the hey.
Now if you’re dead set on derailing the stated purpose of this thread, and others decide to join in, well – I can only steer the conversation so much in the direction I’d personally like it to go. My purpose isn’t to get you say only nice things about Byrne – I wouldn’t dream of asking you to do something you don’t feel is warranted – but I was trying to get us talking more about his good works, what good ideas he has contributed to Marvel and DC and his independent projects, what lasting contributions have surived and not been retconned, etc. When I need shit stirred I promise to give you a holler, tho.
Meanwhile, let’s try holding off on the Byrne insults at least until the second page, if we make it that far.
Lou. Please. Nobody pwneds me, maaa-aaa-aan.
Bryan Ekers. Or how many times Bryne has done another homage to the Fantastic Four #1 cover?
Hey you! Thanks, man. See, that’s all I’m asking. Just sheathe the pigstickers for one thread.
I will note that I was a bit pleased that several Byrne created characters Magpie, Silver Banshee, Bloodsport,etc. were featured in the recent Batman/Detective Comics and Superman/Action Comics 1 Year Later storylines, even if they did kill off a few.
Sorry, Askia - re-assessing him, he’s a jerk and a hack who occasionally still has a good idea. Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I think the thread title mismatches your intent. “What precious few things might we remember fondly of John Byrne?” might work better. 
Sigh. Et tu, CandidGamera?
By the way… a stopped analog clock is right a minimum of 4 times a day, CG. Think about it. 
Continuing with my stated objective with a rather grim and irreproachable singlemindedness that could be considered praiseworthy if it weren’t so flagrantly futile…
Another thing I like about Byrne was his willingess to play in DCU’s sandbox, even if his ideas weren’t always embraced, post revamp and post his departure. The reimaginings were mostly fine, but their execution was a bit clumsy. When Byrne wrote the unofficial 12-part "World of…“maxi-series” detailing Superman’s three great influences… Krypton, Smallville and Metropolis… basically good ideas that I wish had been explored better. The best of the three is Byrne’s World of Krypton story, which relates the beginnings of the Eugenic Clone Wars that led Krypton on its sterile xenophobic downward spiral – preceding Lucas own Clone Wars by many years.
There were a lot of fun things about his run… I especially enjoyed the Time Trapper Storyline, where Superman and uh, four fantastic analogues from the 30th century Legion of Superheroes discover the Pocket Universe where he grew up as the crimefighter Superboy.
I can think of few creators who openly revisited and reimagined Kirby’s Fourth World concepts with such narrative enthusiasm, particularly at a time when most creators weren’t doing much with them. But during his tenure at DC, he established quite a few tenets: Darkseid was built up to be a bigger threat, Apokolips itself was given more detailed topography, the New Gods concept was explicitly tied in to the genesis of DCU’s Greek Gods. Outside comics, Byrne shrewdly advanced the theory that the movie He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was an homage to Kirby’s Fourth World.
One other sadly ignored concept, one that I thought was a very good idea, was that the Metal Men weren’t composed of the actual metals they represent, but a Will Magus invented polymer that mimmicked the properties of those metals via the robots’ programmed responsometers. This was so resoundly ignored that if I didn’t have the Action Comic Metal Men team up issue where it happened I might be tempted to believe it never happened.
The Metal Men were goofily inconsistent, I agree. Despite liberally sprinkling Metallurgy 101 factoids into most of their early stories, they’d still screw up basic physics, like Will Magnus heroically carrying an injured Tina (aka Platinum) in his arms. Yeah, that may look like the standard hero-carries-the-injured-babe, but if the writer’d kept flipping through his high-school textbook, he’d see that platinum is at least 20 times denser than water, making Tina (assuming a human woman of her height and proportions would weigh ~120 lbs) weigh well over a ton.
Also, Iron was the team’s tough guy, but judging from the relative density of the other metals, he was the lightest or second lightest member. And it kinda bugged me that Tin was the physical weakling, with a characterization not based on the properties of tin, but the familiar tin-can, tin-foil application of tin. Tin is remarkable because it’s so strong that even mashed to a millimeter thickness, it’ll hold its shape. That isn’t true of the others (well, except iron, I guess).
Anyway, it kinda bugged me that while the stories were written in a way that suggested somebody trying to sneak a bit of actual education into the kiddies’ funnybooks, they got a lot wrong, too.
If I recall correctly, Mac’s former boss used a mind-control device to influence Diamond Lil, Wild Child, and Smart Alec to join him. Roger Bochs and Madison Jeffries were suspicious from the get-go and never got exposed.
I seem to recall that being a Mantlo-written retcon, although it’s been years since I read the stories, so maybe I’m wrong.
Anyway, I think I’ve said my peace, but in parting I’ll just mention that I object to the characterization of my posts so far as cheap shots. I don’t think they’re cheap shots; I think, as I believe I’ve made clear, that they’re crucial to any kind of understanding of John Byrne, whether commercial, artistic, or what-have-you. If I’m Byrne bashing, then Askia is equally guilty of blowing sunshine. But I don’t think either of us are doing anything of the kind.
Also, when CandidGamera and I agree on anything in a comics thread, it’s got to be true.
–Cliffy
Byrne sucks.
Maybe I’m in the minority, but I read the comics. And only the comics. I loved Byrne’s work in the 1980’s, some of my favorite comic book memories. But I never read the trade journals and as this was pre-internet I had no clue what Byrne was like as a dinner companion, and frankly, I don’t care. What he is like in his personal life has not, to my knowledge, effected his stories and art.
I don’t get it, he did some great work, maybe he shot his bolt, maybe he “lost it” maybe he got bored of the same ol’ same ol’ and decided to try a new direction. But to say “he sucks” is like judging Jack Kirby’s entire body of work on “The Dingbats of Danger Street”.
I’ll point out that: Alpha Flight (1983-1985; co-creator) Avengers and Avengers West Coast (1989-1999) Captain America (1979-1980, penciller) Fantastic Four (1979-1986) Uncanny X-Men (1977-1981, 1991-1992, only as writer in the second stint) and Action Comics (1987-1988 as writer and artist; 2005 as artist)
are some of the best comic books produced in our lifetimes.
I cribbed the list from Wikipedia
Not if the hands are properly differentiated. 
Mr. Byrne gave me She-Hulk, and I thank him for it. He also ruined the Doom Patrol so soundly that it took a Superboy Continuity punch to fix. His vices of the last fifteen years far outweigh his virtues. He was a good writer. Now he’s not.
Again, the idea of rebooting the Doom Patrol was not in and of itself a bad one. The Doom Patrol was an excellent property that never recovered from mature title weirdness of Grant Morrison’s run, and EVERY permutation launched from that point on crashed and burned. But, frankly, a reboot by John Byrne at the helm was bound to be met with fan hostility and, marketed as ineptly as DCU did, it was bound to fail. “Together again for the first time!” was entirely too aggressive. Retconning Beast Boy out of the group’s past makes continuity sense but was otherwise a mistake. Ignoring these slips in deftness in the reboot, the actual storylines and artwork were a marked improvement of the typical complaints about Byrne’s later works and if you can TRY to enjoy his new character creations, not too bad.
Frankly, his 18-issue Doom Patrol run might as well be considered a precursor to DC’s current independent continuity “All-Star” line that Frank Miller is currently train-wrecking with Batman & Robin and that Grant Morrison is riffing gloriously with his 70s-era homage to Superman stories. I mean Lex is an evil scientist again, Steve Lombard is back, Superman and pre-Crisis power levels, Superman has robots again, Ma and Pa Kent are apparently dead – I don’t hear fans foaming at the mouth about that.
http://www.artofjohnbyrne.com/cgi-bin/thumbs.pl?CAT=ygg
I have to admit that the idea for “You Go, Ghoul” or “Dead Sexy” is amusing – though it doesn’t read all that well. I would probably look for it for a few issues anyway.
I disagree. The Doom Patrol did not need a reboot. The previous incarnation of the title was a solid one, as was the Morrison era. This is only hearsay, but I’d heard that the previous Doom Patrol was only cancelled to make way for Byrne’s drek. He and Claremont were allowed to rob the JLA title of the little momentum it had left by shoehorning in the new Doom Patrol story. Removing Beast Boy from the group does not make continuity sense, unless we’re arguing in Bizarro world.
See, I had heard the opposite.
That Byrne was willing to make his DP work in continuity, but DC forced him to do a full reboot, saying that the continuity was too confusing. Of course, DC later said that they always planned to undo the Byrne DP, the whole thing was part of the Infinite Crisis. I don’t buy that for a second.
There was a website that dealt in detail with Byrne’s more dubious preoccupations. The two which stick out in my head for sheer distaste are:
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in the She-Hulk graphic novel, having She-Hulk chained, suspended in the air, stripped naked and videotaped in the SHIELD helicarrier. She-Hulk finds a rogue SHIELD officer watching the tape. The officer shoots her to no avail, and is rendered unconscious, but the gunfire shreds her shirt and reveals her nipples:
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unbelievably, in Action Comics of all places, the mind-controlled Big Barda in a porn movie made by a villain, whispering (from memory) “Please don’t make me do it again” (Superman was also mentally compelled to participate a little later in a tryst with Big Barda- by the end of the tale the two agree to forget it ever happened!).
Funny then that it has been collected as a trade paperback, but Byrne’s version has not.
ONLY the original teams in the Archive Editions and maybe 2/3rds of Morrison’s run have been collected in trades. Nothing by writers Rachel Pollack, John Arcudi or John Byrne. By “never recovered” I meant to say Morrison’s brand of weirdness was never successfully replicated and the rotating creative teams and lack of trades proves it.
Sorry, I misunderstood. Fair enough.
Here’s the problem I have with much of Byrne’s stuff.
Based on the books he wrorked on after his FF and Supermen runs, it seems to me like Byrne
A) Doesn’t play well with others* and
B) Refuses to allow characters to grow or change past what they were when he was 15 years old.
Cases in point:
West Coast Avengers: Did his best to return the characters to their 1972, pre-Englehart status quo**: undid the Scarlet Witch/Vision thing, removed the kids, got rid of of the “The Vision is made from the Human Torch” thing, etc. Kurt Busiek had to spend an entire 10 issue mini-series (AVENGERS FOREVER) cleaning up the mess Byrne had left.
Demon (IIRC, in Wonder Woman): Rather than simply dealing with the fact that Etrigan had been “A Rhyming Demon” since 1984 (Byrne could easily have had Etrigan demoted or promoted, or “Just got bored with rhyming–what are they gonna do? Send me to hell?”) he created a convoluted thing where the rhyming was part of some spell by Morgain Le Faye–which is fine, but what about all those OTHER rhyming demons?
Spider-Man: He and Howard Mackie did their damnest to return Spidey back to 1972: Aunt May came back from the dead (in one of the stupidest storylines ever–“Oh no. That was just an actress who was killed”), Norman Osborne came back from the dead, MJ’s baby was kidnapped and possibly murdered and MJ left Peter who lost his apartment, went back to college and moved in with Aunt May. :rolleyes:
Wonder Woman: He retconned Hippolyta into WWII without ever explaining what it did to Diana’s origin which couldn’t have happened as Perez wrote it if there were a WWII Wonder Woman. After all, there’d been a Wonder Woman in WWII when Byrne was 15.
He also seems to be of the “Illusion of change” mentality that Peter David wrote about. And there seems to be a 50/50 split on creators about that (although it looks like the balance is changing in favor of real change, not the illusion of change") so that’s not inherently a bad thing, but it’s not something I enjoy.
The thing is, some writers can wallow in continuity and create magnficent stories tying forgotten and disparate bits together. Steve Englehart was the undisputed god of this in the ‘70s–he’s the reason we have the Manhunter/Guardian connection, he’s the one who tied the Blue Area on the moon into the Kree/Skrull war, the one who said that the Beyonder was a failed Cosmic Cube, etc. And he can tell a rockin’ good story when he does it. Kurt Busiek, Alan Moore and (to a lesser degree) Mark Waid also can wallow in continuity and…heal stuff. Make new, exciting connections.
Byrne can’t. That’s not his strength. EVERY! SINGLE! TIME! Byrne digs back into continuity to try to “fix” something, he breaks it worse and does it in a way that’s not only damaging to continuity but seems dismissive to the previous creators.***
The power of his Fantastic Fours was NOT his digging into the continuity of the FF–and his “Back to Basics Byrne” label was NOT from his exhaustive knowledge into the minutae of the FF’s backstory, it was his understaning what made the characters tick. His Mrs Fantastic is still the best version of the character ever (one interesting note: if you reread the series, watch Sue’s hair. She gets it cut, and over the course of about 12-18 issues it grows out, she cuts it again and it grows out again. I have no idea why that was so neat, but it was). He put in some fun touches like having whatshername–Frankie Raye’s roommate with the frizzy hair–in an Elfquest play. He clearly had a blast.
Ditto with his Supermen. I didn’t like much of what he did: I hated his obnoxious Clark Kent, hated his “Luthor as Kingpin-on-Slimfast” (took Grant Morrison, 15 years later, to make Luthor back into an interesting character, IMO), didn’t like his ditching Superboy…BUT: his job was to start from a clean slate and he clearly had a vision that influences the book to this day.
IMO, though, it made him sloppy. The “fun” of getting to reboot a character made him unwilling to look forward on a character, instead he gets lost in endless attempts to “fix” non-broken characters. Does anyone really think that the Demon was “broken” by Alan Moore, or that J.M. Demathis’s and Stan Lee’s magnificent “Aunt May dies” issue really “broke” Spider-Man?
Which is why to me, Byrne’s Superman is such a mixed bag-he did both He looked forward with the character–he created about a half-dozen real villians for Superman–and the success of a creator on a book can in large part be measured by how many lasting new bad-guys they bring to the table, introduced a bunch of good solid supporting characters, reimagined some older ones BUT he also was allowed to mess up the history of the character and (IMO) many of Byrne’s choices were questionable.
When Byrne forgets about his mental image of himself as Mister Fixit and just tells a story, he can be a ton of fun–his She Hulks, his Next Men, his Fantastic Fours, that World’s Finest Elseworlds series he did? All great stuff. It’s when Byrne decides to “fix” other people’s “mistakes” that his stuff turns into (IMO) crap.
Fenris
*I’m not talking in anything beyond a storyline/shared universe sense here.
**For all his talk about “back to basics” his emotionless Vision was a completely new character, since the Vision’s first appearance had him crying.
***Before we get into a “CONTINUITY SUXXXX!”/“NO, CONTINUITY RULEZZZ!” debate, let’s be clear about what I’m saying here: if Byrne wanted to tell a story about Wonder Woman in World War Two and if he’d just tell it, no big deal. Most “pro-continuity” types would just say “Elseworlds” and no biggie and the “anti-continuity” types wouldn’t care. BUt that’s not what he does: he spends pages trying to wedge his story into continuity where it doesn’t fit and only damages things. If you’re going to play in the shared-universe sandbox, you have to at least try not to kick over the other people’s sand-castles.