Shooter's Ladder - Mobile Edition

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Shooter's Ladder
By Philip Schweier
July 2, 2025 - 13:36

Legion of Super-Heroes #3 was the first comic book I ever bought off the rack. I became an instant fan of comics in general and the Legion in particular. A team of super-powered teens in the future? More, please.

At the age of 9, the art of a comic book is what caught my attention the most. Distinctive artists such as Jim Aparo, Neal Adams or Carmine Infantino stood out to me. Writing seldom did, but I did notice when Shooter took over with Superboy/Legion of Super-Heroes #209.

Mike Grell was the artist on the title at the time, having worked with writer Cary Bates for several issues. “Jim Shooter could very easily give you three or four typewritten pages to illustrate one comic page. Sometimes they couldn't tell you anything that would help you to illustrate the scene, who was standing next to whom, that sort of thing,” Grell said in an interview for BACK ISSUE magazine. “He (Shooter) took it for granted everyone had this understanding of what would be in the shot.”

Despite such hurdles, Grell and Shooter's relationship warmed up, encountering one another often on the convention circuit.

Later, I learned Shooter began writing comics at the age of 14. Legend has it he submitted scripts and layouts to DC editor Mort Weisinger without revealing his age, until Weisinger needed him in New York for a meeting. Shooter told him, “Hang on, let me ask my mom.” Or so the legend goes.

Obviously, I read more DC titles than Marvel, so I was unaware of the revolving door in the editor-in-chief office at the House of Ideas in the mid-1970s. Stan Lee was the man in charge, that’s all I knew – until suddenly Jim Shooter was promoted to the position in 1978. Coincidentally, it occurred just as I began paying closer attention to Marvel’s adventure titles such as Conan the Barbarian and Tarzan. Not exactly the properties Marvel is known for, I grant you, but it exposed me to all the house ads for other books right as my tastes were beginning to mature.

Hitting my teen years, I wanted more grown-up material, and it always puzzled me when murderous psychopaths were imprisoned rather than executed. Within the Marvel Universe, I was told this was an editorial edict from Shooter: “Super-heroes don’t kill.” Not even Wolverine. His victims came back as cyborgs or clones.

Shooter remained Marvel’s EiC for eight years, bringing to heel some of the challenging aspects of comic publishing – adhering to deadlines, out-of-control prima donnas, adapting to new print technologies and marketing strategies, and developing fresh talent while adding to the compensation of established contributors.

Nevertheless, his tenure ruffled some feathers. When his New Universe needed a city to destroy, rumor has it Shooter’s home town of Pittsburgh was chosen as a way of saying, “…and the horse you rode in on.”

Whatever his administrative short-comings may have been, I didn’t work for him, so I don’t much care. I’m an end-user of his product – comics in general and the Legion in particular. I had the privilege of meeting Shooter a few years ago at a local convention, where he signed my Legion Companion.

Yesterday, after learning of Jim Shooter’s passing, I curled up with several old issues of Adventure Comics, when he and artist Curt Swan were in rare form. A particular stand-out was the story in which Superman travels through time to meet the adult Legion. It reminded me of both younger days and the evolution of adulthood, and made me long for the opportunity to revisit days gone by.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to put on some Beach Boys and pretend it’s the summer of ’73.