DBWI: No "Big Bang" at Marvel Comics

Here's a big one: the controversial "Big Bang" that Jim Shooter brought to early 1980s Marvel! An escalating number of superheroes replaced by death or retirement with all new, fit-for-the-eighties equivalents and new costumes all round, the first mega-revamp since Julius Schwartz in the late 50s. All of it leading up to Secret War, the story that did in half the old guard - some already retired but Mattel had toys to flog - including the infamous death of Steve Rogers. And all of it leading a bunch of creators like John Byrne and Doug Moench to depart in a fiery fury.

33 years on: good idea, bad idea? What would have happened if Jim Shooter had given up on his plan? Would First Comics still rise up to make US comics a "Big Three" without some of Marvel's team moving there?

(OOC: The "Big Bang" was a term Doug Moench gave to Jim Shooter's alleged plan to kill off multiple Marvel characters and replace them with new people in the same uniform. Mass denials when Moench told the comic press... and then a bunch of heroes got (temp) replacements, revamps etc anyway, later on when everyone had forgotten! See here for Moench's take and Fred Hembeck's )
 
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